I'm Back!!!

Hello World…(I say world because we now have international viewers) It feels like forever since I last posted. Of course, I have gotten myself into a million good and bad things since my last post in April. Nevertheless, I’m happy to check in with you and let you know that I am still alive LOL!!!

How Is Life?
So where did we leave off last time….Oh yea, I gave you a break down on why I had made the decision to stay in Spain when all I had was about 40 Euros and a bag full of hope! How has life been over the last 5 weeks?...Well, I’ll start at the beginning. I’ve been working 2 jobs. I teach English and work at a club in Madrid, Kapital. I am proud to say that today I am eating 3 meals a day and 100% healthy. I eat breakfast and dinner with my Spanish family, and the school I teach at provides my lunch. But hold on a second…Let’s back track to the beginning of April when things weren’t so peachy LOL. Here’s where you see the obstacles I had to overcome due to the decision I made to stay in Spain.

Problem 1, the first two weeks in April are a holiday. Therefore, there is no school, which means I have no lunch. Having little to no money, I decided (not like I had much of a choice at the time) to go without lunch everyday. I developed a strategy to cope with the hunger during those 2 weeks. I tried to wake up as late as possible in order to reduce the amount of time I had to wait until dinner. I’d try to eat breakfast around 2pm. Dinner is around 9pm. Spanish breakfasts are not as large as the portions in America. It’s usually just a croissant and coffee or something of the sort. It’s not the pancakes and sausage, bacon, eggs, omelets, french toast – …Okay I need to stop I’m getting hungry. Essentially, each day I was eating the equivalent of one snack and dinner! Trust me, the 50+ continuous days of ham sandwiches that I spoke about having in the previous months sounded like heaven at that point.

Problem 2, working two jobs had become very time consuming. During the day I’d teach kids and at night I’d be working at the club (Thursday through Saturday). It’s required that I be in the club until at least 4:30am. Unfortunately, the metro doesn’t open ‘til 6:00am, which means that I didn’t get home until 6:30am and sleep by 7am. That would leave me about 2 or 3 hours of sleep until I had to get up for work on Friday. Not only that, but trying to keep up with the “clubbing” lifestyle can be taxing on the body…drinks, dancing, staying up all night. Needless to say, all this madness lead to me catching the flu…and NO not Swine Flu LOL. One Friday, I woke up feeling great after a long night out. But throughout the day I started to develop pain in my neck and the worst headache I’d ever had in life. I toughed out the weekend working at the club, but by Monday I was completely dead. I found my self unable to move as I was glued to my bed for the next 4 days. One of the days I slept for 20 hours, and this is not an exaggeration. Because getting medicine here is the biggest pain, I had to kick my illness naturally. This all lead to Problem 3…Spanish.

Problem 3 - Between getting sick, teaching English, and working in Kapital, I hardly had time or the focus to do what I had stayed in Spain to do….Learn Spanish! Without having classes, I was forced to study on my own. This proved extremely difficult when battling exhaustion. I also didn’t do much practicing through conversation. Obviously, as an English teacher you have to speak English (this comment deserves an asterisk). Also, Kapital is a very popular place for international travelers, which means many of the people that come can speak English. What’s more is that when you’re laying in bed sick there isn’t very many opportunities to speak. Nor do you have the desire LOL. Now when you put all of this together, there is only one possible feeling that you can have….And That Is….Wanting to go HOME!!!

Problem 4….So here is what I was looking at. I was broke, hungry, sick, constantly working, and not learning anything. I can’t lie World, I was definitely regretting the decision to remain in Spain. My pride never let me beg to come home, but believe me when I say that it was on my mind 24/7…And even more so in the morning before I arrived at work only to deal with you know who LOL!

But hey that was then, and this is now. I had to make some major changes in order to make it through the last 5 or so weeks. What are they?... Well now that I have more money, I make sure that I have lunch EVERYDAY. I found out how to ride the night bus home so I could leave the club early and get more sleep. I have about 3 or 4 Spanish grammar books that I study as much as possible. I have come to accept that kids are kids and they are going to act crazy, especially when they can’t understand you. These small changes have made all the difference in the world. Now that I have survived through the worst of a tough situation, I look forward to great days during my travels. I have no doubt that the struggle that I went through over that period of time has helped me grow in many ways. By no means am I rich, but comparing how I felt be for to how I feel now is like rags to riches to me. What's even better is that the entire time I felt that I wasn't improving my Spanish, I actually was. By continuing to push forward through hard times, I was moving toward my goal without even realizing that my language ability was improving. To this day, I'm feeling great about my decision. Let's hope it stays that way LOL!

InternationalDarius vs. Students
When I said that these kids were a riot, I couldn’t have been more serious! Over the past 6 weeks I have learned that I need to be on my toes. They will not hesitate to pull the wool over your eyes if you’re not careful. Don’t believe me? Let’s have a look at the following battles LOL….

Round 1
The movie High School Musical is like the best source of entertainment ever created. Not one class goes by that I’m not asked to play a song from the movie. While the kids do not have a very high level of English yet, they have no problem naming each and every character and singing every song in the movie (in English). Furthermore, they are amazed that I’m not as knowledgeable about High School Musical as they are. After only two weeks their amazement combined with the thought that I didn’t know any Spanish, turned into an opportunity for trickery. One day, all of the students started asking me if they could see Gabriela Desnuda. (FYI Gabriela is Vanessa Hudgens, one of the main characters and desnuda means naked. Apparently, paparazzi got ahold of some revealing photos of the young actress). This was all happening while the kids were in one of those out-of-control moods, so I was quickly trying to find something to calm them down. Already on YouTube, I almost started typing it in… G-A-B-…. Just then it clicked as I thought aloud “Waaaaaiiiiiiiit-a-miiiiinnnnnuuute!!! Did these little comedians really just ask me if they could see “Gabriela naked” in class?” LOL…Never in my wildest dreams did I have the courage to make that sort of request when I was that age! But then again, I never thought I could try to trick my teachers by speaking another language…And kids do say the craziest things. Anyway, for that split second when I was about to start typing, I was thinking Gabriela Desnuda was a song or something….I know you didn’t think I would really show nudity to children did you?…. In the end the attempt at getting one over on me warranted a good laugh, but you know they had to be punished afterwards LOL. OK OK OK jokes on me!

Students – 1 InternationalDarius – 0

Round 2
This next story comes from a class that I was teaching for the older kids, 11-12 year olds. I was teaching the difference between the ‘ch’ sound in English and the ‘sh’ sound. In Spanish, there is no ‘sh’ sound. For example, when they are trying to say be quiet, they say ssssssssssssss as opposed to shhhhhhhhhhhhh! Anyway, after a few examples, I decided that I would try to get tricky and use an irregular word. I chose the word Chicago….So I spell the word on the board and I pronounced it for them. Then I had them repeat after me a few times. After about 2 or 3 times I started to here a giggles. In my mind everything seemed to be normal. I thought that they were laughing because it was a cool word and they were having problems pronouncing it. So what do I do? I start saying it more and more “Chicago, Chicago, Chicago”…Just then I began to think….The true meaning of Chicago (history lesson) is an Native Americna reference to the strong smell of onions…And there was no way in the world that they knew that. Then it dawned on me! I was hanging out with some friends when I had learned the verb ‘cagar’, literally meaning “To Shit.” (excuse my language) When you conjugate the verb in the first person you get ‘cago’ or “I Shit”. So when you split the word Chicago, you get Chi – Cago…So all they see is the professor standing in front of the class laughing and saying, “Chicago, Chicago, Chicago hahahaha. Repeat after me…Chicago” TRANSLATED ”I Shit, I Shit, I Shit hahaha. Repeat after me…I Shit”….OK OK OK world they got me again!

Students – 2 InternationalDarius – 0

Round 3 (still to come)
Hey … Round 3 is going to be different. I can’t let them keep beating up on me LOL!

*For the record, I just think these are funny stories. In all reality, we have a lot of fun while learning. Not all my kids are crazy…..Just some of them LOL.

NightLife
Pheeeeeeew!!!! It just never stops LOL. It seems like I’m out every single night these days. I remember saying how I’m going to limit all of the partying but it just seems impossible LOL. There is always something to celebrate. Heck, I’m still celebrating passing the CPA exam and that was in February! But I’ll tell you what, Spain has more holidays than any country I know. On top of the national holidays that are already long, each city also gets to choose 2 additional days for holidays. Personally, I’ve had over 16 days of vacation from teaching already. Let me just explain how last week was for me. On Tuesday, I met a friend to have some drinks. Wednesday I rested. Thursday was a huge party. Friday was a huge party. Saturday was a huge party. Sunday was a huge party. Monday I had a meeting with KPMG office in Madrid. Finally, on Tuesday I had to go to work….Then I went out with some friends hahaha. While this is a true story, the reality is I work in a club as I said. So I have to be at a party Thursday – Saturday. Normally, I would rest the other days but it was a friend’s last week in Madrid. But hey I don’t have to explain myself LOL. I’m just making up for spending every day of the last year in the library without a glimpse of fun. Plus, I’m on semi-vacation!

Coming Home!!!
What? What was that???.....Yes Yes I have finally decided to pack my bags and head home, June 5th. Actually, it wasn’t much of a decision being that I will be preparing for the Yale Pre-MBA Leadership program on June 14th. I’m excited about going out to New Haven for a new experience in leadership. After looking through the tentative agenda, it appears that we will have plenty of opportunities for developing valuable professional skills.

I hear that the final weeks go fast than all of the other weeks of your stay. This means I’m going to have to move fast to see some of the historical attractions that are here such as the Palacio Real and Thiessen (Picasso paintings). Lately, I haven’t done many touristy things because I’ve been so busy working. Also, I know I still owe you all a video of me speaking Spanish. Once I’m done being lazy I’ll put it up LOL.

Thanks for tuning in once again.

InternationalDarius
internationaldarius@yahoo.com