Too funny not to share:

While perusing the New Yorker website, I came across one of my favorite parts of the magazine "Shouts and Murmurs": the humor selection. This one was just too funny, especially since in my time online, I've gotten more than a few responses saying the recipient didn't have enough time to read and/or respond and would get back to me at a later date. I wonder why? I don't have a tendency toward long, rambling emails! ;)

In any case, be thankful that I save most of my rambling for this blog and thus am not clogging your inbox!

Enjoy: Email Auto Response

Untimely trick-or-treaters

I'm currently hiding out in my piso. It's Friday before Halloween...and Spanish children don't seem to understand that trick-or-treating is something that happens exclusively on the 31st of October! Perhaps I shouldn't be too hard on them. If I had candy, I would open the door; since I am treatless, however, I've turned off the lights, drawn the curtains and am not answering the door. I think my house is a target since I am American, after all. But being American, I am also a little picky about the way our holidays are usurped and celebrated.

First off, trick-or-treating here is really lame. Nobody buys candy for trick-or-treaters, namely because it's not a Spanish holiday! So kids left with whatever can be dug up in the kitchen: a packet of sunflower seeds, potato chips, if you're lucky some old toffees or menthol lozenges. Not appealing. And finally, if you want to celebrate Halloween, do it on Halloween, for crying out loud!

What happens is the city organizes a Halloween party on the Friday closest to Halloween. The kids all dress up and that's when they attempt trick-or-treating--after all, it looks fun in the movies! I can understand that, but trick-or-treating on October 29, just doesn't sit right with me. In the case of Halloween, I might be a little too demanding. I've much bigger bone to pick with Santa Claus and Christmas.

Spaniards complain to no end about their native Reyes (the three Wise Men) being squelched by "Coca Cola's" Santa Claus. First of all, Santa Claus was NOT invented by Coca Cola...the modern popular image was part of an add campaign, but the Santa Claus tradition goes back to St. Nickolaus, and don't try to tell me otherwise! Santa Claus is not, as many people here are happy to believe, the menacing image of atheist capitalism killing off the religious roots of the Christmas season. I'm not religious, and I'm happy that Santa really doesn't have visible religious roots in a modern American Christmas; but that said, I can't stand to listen to outright lies about my country's traditions.

So Spaniards don't like Santa. The church even gives mass against him (whatever!). Nonetheless, there is the enticing convenience of our American celebration. Spanish kids traditionally get their gifts on the 6th of January, Epiphany, when the Wise Men gave their gifts to the baby Jesus. The school holiday for Spanish kids ends on the 7th. The problem with the Spanish tradition is that kids don't have any time to play with their new toys before school starts! So many parents opt to go along with Santa Claus simply because it gives their kids nearly two weeks to play (and or break) their new toys before they have to go back to school.

That, to me, is blasphemy!

Ode to Beatrix Potter

I've just watched the biographical film of Beatrix Potter starring Renee Zellweger: "Miss Potter." Lovely. For those of you who don't know, or don't remember, Beatrix Potter is the mother of Peter Rabbit and a whole host of other wonderful characters; some of my favorites are Mrs. Tiggy Winkle and Jemima Puddle Duck. I stumbled upon this film on Spanish television this weekend, but decided it wasn't one to be watched dubbed so I downloaded it and have therefore fully appreciated it in the original. :)

Beatrix Potter was a childhood favorite of mine. It might be more appropriate to say "childhood obsession." These were some of the first books I read on my own--and I fell completely in love. I read each story over and over again. I distinctly recall recommending one of the books (The Tailor of Gloucester, perhaps?) to a classmate in first grade after a trip to the library. It was the first time I began to serial read an author's books. Every trip to the library, I'd go straight to the P's and check out the next in line. My grandma gave me a mini collection of the Beatrix Potter books for my birthday one year. I think it was my favorite gift.

Reading is an intimate act. The author invites you to share his or her vision of a story--fiction or non-ficition, biography or history--and by accepting that invitation you become, in a way, a confidant, an accomplice. A relationship is formed. Following a specific author's work deepens that relationship so that reading becomes like meeting an old friend: there's comfort in the syntax, sentence structure, descriptions.

After spending so much time with an author's work, however, one inevitably begins to wonder what he or she must really be like. When we love a certain book, we want to love the author, too. It's easy to fantasize, to make an author into what we think they should be; but some times the biographical details are disappointing. Suddenly we discover our favorite writer was an adulterer or a Nazi sympathizer, or a generally disagreeable person. Regardless of whether or not it's fair to judge literature based on our opinions of an author's personal life, we do. And as faithful readers we feel betrayed or tricked for having liked and trusted someone "like that."

At age six, Beatrix Potter was the first author I ever longed to meet. I can say now, after watching this film, I'm not the least bit disappointed for having loved and trusted her during my childhood years. I'm happy I had the opportunity to let my imagination run wild with the endearing creations of such a strong woman.

p.s. I recommend both the books and the movie to anyone interested.

...The General Yucks

Funny, I feel like this title has so many possibilities, but unfortunately I've simply got a case of the "general yucks." That's a term coined by my best friend's brother (if I'm not mistaken) when he was a kid to describe the achy, crappy feeling you get when a cold's coming on. I'm hoping that I'm not headed toward the season's first cold, but I certainly am achy and feeling bad.

Aside from not being thrilled about the prospect of incubating viruses, tonight I was going to go on a full-moon hike that we've been trying to coordinate for many moons now (well, at least several)! We were supposed to meet at seven...and most likely between one thing and another and stopping to eat a picnic dinner on the way, I wouldn't be home before eleven or maybe midnight. I'm usually the kind of person who would go anyway and not let my aches and pains get in the way of a chance to get outside, but I think in this case that wouldn't be very smart. If I go out, I'll probably give this thing a chance to really take hold whereas if I stay home, I might be able to ward it off with sleep and warm orange juice with honey (Spanish home remedy). I think episodes of the West Wing watched from a comfy couch are anti-viral, too. ;)

Oh and just to rub it in my face, a woman who played sax in the band with me invited me to go hiking with her and some other people tomorrow in a nearby town! I can't go for reasons other than the stupid cold...but still, I'm bummed that all of this had to be the same weekend. She's assured me that next time they plan a hike she'll call; and my friend says that next month with the full moon they'll plan another hike, too... even if we have to wear our winter jackets.

...So here I sit at the table with the heater on beneath (that's right, we've pulled out the table covers and dragged the heater out of storage), sipping hot O.J. and hating this virus's impeccable timing!

Milking Olives

Two weeks ago, the "verdeo" has officially begun. The verdeo is the harvest of green olives (hence the name...verde is green). Green olives are unripe, but are the ones used for table olives; they're the ones we usually eat. Once the olives are black (and ripe), they're used for oil only. Black olives, like the once on your pizza, are actually green ones that are chemically treated to change color. They aren't ripe olives. ...just a bit of trivia for you.

So as I was saying, about two weeks ago the official green olive campaign began. Kind of like berry picking on Sauvie's Island in Portland, around here people head to the fields to pick olives for their own consumption. They're called "split olives" (aceitunas partidas). The preparation conists of cutting a slit in them, or sometimes smashing them, then storing them in salt water with thyme, garlic and pepper. I think you have to change the water every few days to leech out the bitterness of the olives. After about two weeks, you've got home-made table olives that are better than anything you can find in the supermarket.

This afternoon we headed out to the fields to pick some olives ourselves. Usually people just head to the nearest tree and take a bucket although technically this is stealing and you can get in trouble...even if they aren't many olives. Don't worry, we aren't thieves. We called our brother-in-law who has olive trees and headed out to his place to pick.

If you remember, black olives are cake to pick--they fall right of the tree; but green ones are another story. I guess you can use the shaking machines for them too, but it's harder on the tree--since the olives aren't ripe you have to shake longer and harder for them to fall. In many places harvesters don't use the machines because they can hurt the tree with such extensive shaking. In those cases they "milk" the olive tree. That's the verb they use in Spanish to describe the way you have to handle the branches and carefully gather the olives that grow in bunches kind of like grapes: like milking a cow. In our case, picking for ourselves (one bucket and a bag) we weren't about to be using any fancy equipment; so this afternoon was my first experience "milking" olives.

In a few weeks I'll publish the pictures of our delicious "split olives" that Angelines's mom is going to prepare for us. :)

GASLAND

Here me out on this one.

A few months ago, I heard an interview on "Fresh Air" (NPR program) with Josh Fox about his newly released film documentary, "GASLAND." It caught my attention, not only for the subject matter, methods by which natural gas is obtained, but because the interviewee talked about the fact that in the beginning, he really had no intention of creating a documentary; he was simply investigating a little to be able to make an educated decision before signing his land over to natural gas drilling. What he found is hair raising.

Through legal loopholes, the natural gas companies are not subject to regulation under either the Clean Water Act or the Clean Air Act; yet thousands of Americans across the nation where natural gas drilling is occurring are experiencing very serious health and safety hazards. This isn't just the environment we're talking about. This isn't just a "tree-hugger's" concern. This is about people not being able to use their well water for showers, laundry or much less to drink. This is about known carcinogens being shot into the earth and leaking into the water supply.

So now that I can download movies, I downloaded this one. Please watch it. As with any media you've got to be aware of slanting, but you can see in the film, the natural gas companies wouldn't talk. The EPA wouldn't talk. The people interviewed were desperate for someone to talk to.

Decide for yourself. But at the very least, the natural gas companies need to be held to the safety standards of any other polluting company.

Lazy Days

There's nothing like getting back to work to help you enjoy some nice, guilt-free, lazy days.

Today is a holiday: Columbus Day in the States and El dia de la Hispanidad here and in many Latin American countries as well (I think). Anyway, we got Monday off too, so this has been a four-day weekend for me. Have I "done" anything? No. :)

My dear friend and Ex Co-auxiliar from last year, Kristen, came down from Madrid, but was only able to stay through Sunday--poo! It was great to see her. As Angelines says, short, intense visits are better than long ones anyway. She's right (as usual). Kristen's visit was intense just because I felt there was so much to say--catch up on summer, talk about plans for the school year, life in general--and so little time. Of course, being in Madrid she isn't really that far away, but it's not the same as being able to meet up for coffee on a whim.

Other than Kristen's visit, I really haven't been doing anything. I've become addicted to downloading TV shows and movies on-line. I've decided that the best way for Angelines to learn English is hearing it in a "real" context. I mean, as much as speaking to her in English is a good idea, she's not going to take away conversational skills, or even very useful language by me asking her if she wants toast for breakfast, or to wash the dishes in English. When we go back to the States, she's not going to be able to say more than, "shut the door" or "Do you have the keys?" to my mom...not acceptable in my book.

In the past, she's been reluctant to watch movies in English because she doesn't understand them, and even if they're subtitled in Spanish, she's not a fan of reading the whole movie (plus she's kind of a slow reader). I can understand her position, but we can watch movies that are old favorites of hers, ones that she knows by heart already and that way she won't loose the plot of the story and still be getting lots of language input in context. I also think that she won't mind watching cartoons in Engish, so I've downloaded Pixar's "Up" and also "Toy Story 3". We'll see where this goes. My hope is that little by little English starts to sound like something more than garble to her and she'll pick up some language chunks as a base for more learning. "Classes" begin tomorrow. ;)

With all my downloading I've been doing a lot of vegging in front of my lap top. Still, I think that's less bad than vegging in front of the TV. At least I don't have to swallow double the amount of commercials to get through a TV show. I downloaded the first season of FlashForward--I really like that show--and finished it. I have also downloaded the seventh and final season of The West Wing. I got hooked on that show in Portland the year after I graduated and the seventh season came out my first year here in La Roda...since then, I've been wondering what happened to all my favorite fictional politicians. Time to find out.

Now that it's Tuesday and I'll be heading back to work tomorrow, I'm sitting down to do some planning, but as you can see, I've gotten distracted. C'est la vie. As soon as I post this I've got to look into downloading Seasame Street video podcasts. They're perfect for preschool and first grade...maybe even second because they're short and packed with good language chunks. They also tend to have a focus on healthy habits for bilingual science.

Besitos. Off to watch Seasame Street!

On my game

That is certainly how I feel at the moment--100% on my game. :)

It's amazing what getting back to work can do for a person after four months of "vacation." All the language assistants officially went to work last Friday. However, in typical Andalusian fashion, today was the orientation for those of us in the province of Sevilla. I don't know why they don't plan to give the orientation before you get thrown into the midst of a Spanish school, but...

The orientations I've been to in the past have been pretty uninteresting and not extremely helpful; however, I gave a presentation based on my years of experience in the program at today's orientation so I'm sure it was much more interesting than previous ones. ;) Jokes, aside, I am very pleased with how well it went. I modified the one I gave to teachers at the conference in September and...voila! Although, last night (talk about last min.!) I realized that I should give the talk in Spanish since there would be assistants for French, German and Italian there! So at about 10 pm I set about translating all of my slides...

Ignoring the last minute language changes, it was well prepared and all-in-all a success. The man from diputacion who originally agree to have me speak (I volunteered myself), came up to me afterwards saying, "That was beautiful, you had me wanting to sign up for the language assistant program!" Ha! Unfortunately, I was the last speaker of the day (best for last??) and I'm afraid most of my audience was famished by the time I started at 1:30-ish so I'm not sure how much they were able to ignore growling stomachs to focus on what I had to say.

I am also pleased because I made some good contacts--pure schmoozing--and who knows what it could lead to in terms of future employment. Even if I never get paid for doing this kind of thing though, it's really great to be a part of. Once again, I met teachers and people who care about their job and the program and are willing to work to improve it even if there's no monetary motivation for their efforts. Good people.

It was a great morning...the only downside being that I didn't get home until about 4:15 pm so I could have eaten an elephant when I finally sat down to eat. ;) Luckily a large helping of porra was ready waiting for me.