Semana Santa Begins!

And so does la ruta grande!

Fuengirola
Merida
Caceres
Trujillo
Avila
Segovia
Alcala de Henares
Cordoba
Marmolejo
Fuengirola

:) Be on the lookout for photos and a new post very soon!

Spain and English Language Learning

An interesting article written by Raphael Minder found in the NYTimes (published March 29, 2011). The article references the program I am a part of.

You can find it here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/world/europe/30iht-spain30.html?_r=2

In Troubled Spain, Boom Times for Foreign Languages

MADRID — Facing high unemployment at home, more Spaniards are seeking work abroad. But they are confronting a significant hurdle: their poor foreign-language skills, in particular a lack of English.

With a 20 percent unemployment rate, twice the European average, labor mobility has become a burning issue in Spain, prompting some business leaders to call for an overhaul of the Spanish education system that would make better language training a priority.

Emilio Cuatrecasas, chairman of Cuatrecasas, one of the biggest Spanish law firms, said recently that “Spain has to take seriously the need to reform its education, particularly in terms of teaching English.”

There are early suggestions that the next generation will have sufficient communications skills to work outside Spain: More children are now being taught by English speakers as part of their regular class work. At the same time, more adults are playing catch-up, notably trying learn German to respond to employment offers in Germany, which has the largest economy in Europe.

One place where educational changes are under way is Madrid. A program run by the regional government has made about a third of primary state schools bilingual. The government expects to raise that proportion to half by 2015.

On a recent morning at the Rosa Luxemburgo school in the district of Moncloa-Aravaca, 10-year-olds were studying the human body in English, learning terms like “salivary glands” and “esophagus.” One of them, Macarena Ferrán, said that she also got to practice English regularly while vacationing abroad, last summer in the Netherlands. As to her long-term ambition, “I would like to live in New York because it looks like a very interesting city,” she said in almost flawless English.

For the current generation of Spanish job-seekers, however, working in New York might be more of a distant dream. While there are no reliable comparative statistics, language-school owners like Richard Vaughan even argue that “the level of English is lower than 15 years ago,” reflecting a general decline in education standards in Spain.

Mr. Vaughan, a Texan who moved to Spain in the 1970s, now runs Vaughan Systems, the largest English language teaching company in Spain. He estimated that “fewer than 5 percent of the students graduating from schools of engineering, law or business possess a working knowledge of English.”

Spanish politicians are also among the worst in western Europe in terms of English skills. Neither the head of the Socialist government, Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, nor the leader of the main opposition Popular party, Mariano Rajoy, speaks English.

Madrid’s bilingual program, however, is giving the region’s politicians something to gloat about.

“This is a major step,” said Lucía Figar, who oversees the regional government’s education policy. “Until very recently, getting to a decent level of English was simply impossible for any child whose parents didn’t have the money to send their child abroad or to a private school.”

The bilingual schools rely largely on Spanish teachers who get a monthly bonus of €180, about $255, for making the language switch. The schools also have recruited assistants who are native English speakers — often Americans on an extended university break or sent to Spain through an education scholarship like the Fulbright program.

Between 30 percent and 50 percent of the class work is in English, including the science that was being taught last week at the Rosa Luxemburgo school.

In another classroom, Felipe Alejandro Luna Merlo, an 8-year-old whose parents emigrated from Bolivia, was finding it more difficult to assimilate human anatomy in English, and struggling to understand general questions about his upbringing. Still, he sounded eager to progress, saying that he was also teaching his father, a waiter, how to say “the numbers and the colors” in English because “I really want him to learn like me.”

One of the teachers, Fernando Azpeitia, had spent three years in Chicago at a transitional school teaching Latino children. He welcomed the enthusiasm among his Madrid pupils. “The big advantage here is that parents have chosen to have their children learn English,” he said, “while in Chicago it was kind of compulsory.”

Whether the children always get to hear the Queen’s English is debatable, however, and even Ms. Figar acknowledges that some teachers could improve their own English. Still, she said, more than 90 percent of the children have so far completed their bilingual primary school program by passing English language tests set by Cambridge University.

“These tests are the best way to measure our success, rather than discussing whether some teachers have good grammar but poor pronunciation,” she said.

Indeed, pronunciation is rarely a Spanish strong suit. Last month, during the televised ceremony for the Goyas, Spanish cinema’s version of the Oscars, participants insisted that one nominated movie, “Buried,” should be called “Bar-y-ed.”

Ms. Figar also described as “absurd” the criticism directed last year at a €1.8 million Madrid advertising campaign to promote bilingual education. English purists said the slogan for the campaign — “Yes, we want!” — amounted to a grammatical error because a direct object should have followed the verb. “This was only about powerful advertising,” Ms. Figar said. When Apple promotes its consumer electronics, she added, “nobody questions whether their slogan should be ‘Think positive’ or ‘Think positively.”’

In collaboration with the Spanish Education Ministry, the British Council, Britain’s cultural agency, also runs a bilingual project in more than 200 schools, alongside similar initiatives in Italy and Portugal. Raising English standards in Spain “isn’t an overnight happening,” said Teresa Reilly, a British Council official. Still, compared with Portugal and Italy, “Spain is considerably ahead in the introduction and development of solid subject-based teaching in English in the primary and secondary sectors,” she said.

The economic crisis is also forcing more adult Spaniards to return to the classroom — and not just to learn English. Applications to learn German this spring semester have risen 15 percent from a year ago, according to the Madrid office of the Goethe-Institut, which promotes German culture abroad. That follows a recent recruitment initiative by the German government to add about 500,000 engineers from other countries to keep its economy growing.

Meanwhile, Miguel Flor de Lima, who teaches the Portuguese language in Madrid, said that a growing number of multinational corporations were cutting back marketing and other activities in Spain and Portugal, two of the most crippled economies in Europe.

“The crisis means that more companies are treating Spain and Portugal as a single Iberian market and then asking their people to adjust to that,” he said. “And that leaves employees with no other option than trying to master both languages.”

Tell Me What Your Future Holds...

I realize it has been weeks since I last left you with an update on life here in Spain. I had an almost complete post read to be published, but decided to sit on it and wait. It began a little something like this....

Last year at Mount Holyoke, my whole plan of getting my teacher's licensure, went haywire. Being too late to start applying to graduate schools, I accepted the new proposed plan of teaching in Spain. I wasn't very excited about it at all; that had never been something I had wanted to do. But I listened to the advice of my professor and did it. After all, I would at least have a plan for the next year, and a job, something many of my friends are still searching for. At first I was unsure about being placed in Fuengirola. I arrived and slowly began to get accustomed to my new home. While I was physically here, my mind was elsewhere the first few weeks. I was planning for my future, spending hours in front of my computer screen while writing personal statements, writing samples, and filling out applications to graduate school. It was the second half of my plan for this year. Teach in Spain, apply to grad school. And while I am totally a planner, I began to start to feel as if I wasn't really living in the moment. Somewhere within the first six weeks of being here I realized this, and with it, that maybe teaching in Spain isn't supposed to be a one year gig for me. Maybe it's something I would enjoy for two years.

So as I said, I applied to graduate school, finishing my applications in December while at home. Recently I just heard from two schools and was accepted at both. The program at the University of Georgia is a Master's which would take two years. The program at UC Berkeley is a PhD and would take six years.

So here is my dilemma: once I begin graduate school (especially a PhD program), there is no real going back. There's no stopping midway through a degree because life gets in the way. There's no picking up and moving to Spain to really LIVE my life instead of just planning it. My mind is flooded with questions: What about happiness? What is it anyway? Is it waking up smiling, knowing that you're going to be challenged in all sorts of ways, and that you'll be alive at the end of the day? Is it being surrounded by people who make you feel good? It is immersing yourself in something new and allowing that to become part of yourself? It is feeling that you have found your center? While I'm not sure that's what happiness is, that's how I feel every moment. For the first time in a long time I feel truly good, like I am LIVING my life. And now here is my next question: Why should we ever chose to leave a situation we are extremely happy in? Why should we ever give up an opportunity to continue? My entire life has been about making good decisions that make me a better person, that enrich my life in all sorts of ways. It's been about find new things to add to my personal growth. And for once I am not blindly taking the advice of my superiors and truly asking myself, if I am not doing any harm to myself by being here, why should I move forward? Why should I leave? I don't feel as if I am ready to leave, and I know that if I am in the US next year, I am going to be constantly asking myself why I missed out on such a fantastic opportunity.

Much has changed since I started to write that post. In reading through the department websites, I realized it would not be possible to defer for a year. And after hours upon hours and hundreds of dollars spent throughout the application process, I was not about the repeat it. In the end, I was accepted at all five universities, and thus began my decision process.

• Boston University: Accepted. No financial aid. Out of the question.
• University of Georgia: Accepted. Teaching Assistantship, tuition waived.
• University of Oregon: Accepted. Teaching Assistantship, tuition waived.
• Boston College: Accepted. Teaching Assistantship, merit scholarship for full-tuition.
• UC Berkeley: Accepted. Teaching Assistantship, tuition waived.
  

While each of these schools have great programs, I decided it was really between UC Berkeley, a six-year PhD program, and Boston College, and two-year MA program. As exciting as it was to be accepted to Berkeley, the six-years were a little daunting. What if I don't like it? What about the state of the Californian economy? What happens if they pass the $500 million budget cuts to the UC system? What about academic resources? As I do not study contemporary literature, it makes more sense to be on the East Coast, with access to the libraries at Harvard, Yale, Brown, BU and the many other institutions in New England. (As you can see, I was starting to feel that BC would be the best bet.) Another factor about being at Berkeley was the proximity to home. While fantastic for millions of reasons, it is for exactly those reasons that made me think twice about being so close to home: six-years in a PhD program takes a lot of concentration. While at first thought the idea of living at home seemed fantastic, I began to think about it and imagine what it would be like. All I could picture was struggling to find a good balance between family and study. Perhaps this paints me as not-so-good of a person, but I believe the distance is necessary. I will be able to focus on my work while in Boston, and really enjoy my family when I come home. I won't feel as though I have to walk a fine line of balancing everything at the same time. The other wonderful thing about going to BC is that it is a two-year program, which will allow me to further assess my future once I am in the midst of my studies and not have to make a decision right now. While I am 90% positive I would like to enter academia, I have never been in a graduate school class. While a PhD is a more advanced degree, it is also prohibiting in terms of what jobs I would be able to take. Leaving with a MA in Spanish will permit me to enter a different field or different level of education, if need be. Lately I have been thinking about being a professor at a study abroad program here in Spain. It would have to be a smaller program, and I think I would like to work in a less popular city, as this would greatly affect the type of students I would be teaching.

En fin, come the beginning of September, I will be moving to Boston to start a Master's program in Hispanic Studies, under the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Boston College. It is also quite possible that I will live with my dear friend Zeinab, a fellow Mount Holyoke alumna from the class of 2010. We met during the summer of 2005 at a leadership conference and have been friends since. If all goes well, we will live together in the Brookline/Chestnut Hill area starting in September.

Getting back to my original post and upon much reflection, I have really learned something this year. I have learned to live in the moment in a way in which I never have before. I have taken every opportunity to travel around Spain, immerse myself in the rich history, culture and tradition. I have learned not to hold back, to actually live each day to its fullest potential and to rejoice in the small things. While many times I feel extremely sad when thinking I will not be back here next year, I have decided I am going to make the most of my time and ENJOY it.


Weekends since February: Trips we have taken, Plans we have made.

Feb 4-6: Marmolejo to visit Alicia's family AND learn how to make flamenquines, courtesy of Alicia's mom, Isabel.

Feb 11-13: La Mancha, specifically Almagro, Consuegra, Puerto Lapice, and Castillo de Calatrava. An absolutely amazing trip. Beautiful weather, towns filled with so much history. Windmills, Don Quijote's "castle", and the last surviving theater from the 17th century!

Feb 18-20: Ruky and Rachel came to visit. We went to Antequera.

Feb 25-Mar 6: Semana Blanca. My Aunt Lynne and cousins Andrew and Audrey came to visit. We went to Mijas, Malaga, Gibraltar, Ronda and Sevilla. We had SUCH a great week! From monkeys in Gibraltar to a night out in Sevilla to remember, it was definitely one of the best weeks I have ever had in Spain.

Mar 11-13: Fuengirola. Massive spring cleaning.

Mar 18-20: Jaen, Ubeda, Baeza

Mar 25-27: Fuengirola

Apr 1-3: Ruky visits. Granada

Apr 8-10: Toledo

Apr 15-19: (First half of Semana Santa) Merida, Caceres, Trujillo, Avila, Segovia, Alcala de Hernares

Apr 20-24: (Second half of Semana Santa) Cordoba, Marmolejo

Apr 29-May 1: Romeria de la Virgen de la Cabeza. SO excited!

May 6-8: Cordoba for la Cata and los Patios, two of Cordoba's famous happenings in May.

May 13-15: Algarve, Portugal. We scored the amazing deal: Two people, two nights, 5 Star Hotel, 66sq-km suite, Breakfast included. Value: 340 euro. We're paying 99. Yup, that's 25/person/night.

May 20-22: Fuengirola??? Sevilla?

May 27-29: Feria de Cordoba.

Eventually I am coming home... haha... Probably around June 13th or so. As you can see, we are definitely taking advantage of the time I am here. Once I get home, our travels will be on hold until July 12th when Alicia arrives in San Francisco. Then we will resume, this time in California! She is staying until August 24th. Beyond excited. :)

Jack Kerouac listed 30 "essentials" in his "Belief and Technique for Modern Prose". Number four reads:

4. Be in love with your life.

Why yes, sir, I am.

Mini-Trips, Here & There...

Two weeks ago was my roommate's birthday. I decided to get tickets to a concert of one of her current favorite groups, and in doing so, take the opportunity to go on a mini-trip for the weekend.

On Friday after Alicia finished school, we took off for Granada. We arrived at our fancy, shmancy hotel which had an exact replica copy of the Arab Baths of the Alhambra! We wandered around the center for a bit, visiting the Albayzin, the small streets that still embody their Moorish past. The barrio is filled with little shops and tea rooms. We stopped in one of them and drank Moroccan tea while listening to the beautiful sounds that make you feel all the more like you have stepped into medieval Al-Andalus. Later on we met up with my good friend Marta. In Granada when you order a drink, they give you a free tapa to go along with it. (Good idea? No. Excellent idea!!) Ali, Marta and I went "bar-hopping" (if you can call it that), eating different types of tapas. Quite yummy if I do say so myself! The next morning Ali and I hit the Arab Baths; we decided on the Arab Circuit which follows this order: temperate water, hot water, freezing cold water, the Turkish steam room, and finally a rubdown with ice. It was excellent so we decided to do the circuit again. After the second round we sat in a dark, candle-lit room and drank delicious tea. We had such a great time that we decided we should return in another two weeks.

We left Granada around 2pm and headed to Alicante. While on the way, we saw all sorts of weather, and terrain: from tall, green trees covered in snow to big, beautiful white clouds in the bright blue skies. We stopped for a coffee in an enchanting little pueblo called Velez-Rubio. We continued on and stopped in Murcia for a quick visit with one of Ali's friends. He took us into the center of Murcia to see the Cathedral which has a magnificent facade. As the story goes, Alfonso X El Sabio went to Murcia and fell in love with the city. He requested that upon his death, his heart be buried in the Cathedral of Murcia.

From Murcia we continued to Santa Pola, a town about 30 minutes from Alicante capital. We ate delicious paella in a very local restaurant and later went to the Supersubmarina concert. The concert was awesome, loads of fun, and Ali had a good time. Mission Accomplished. The next day we headed to Alicante. The weather could not have been better! The sky was blue and the clouds, a stunning white. The water in Alicante was much more blue than here in Fuengirola, making the city even more picture-perfect. We started by heading up to Castillo de Santa Barbara, which is one of the biggest medieval fortresses in Spain. It's in excellent condition and provides views of the entire city. After many photos we turned our attention to our stomachs. We found a great little restaurant and ate fresh fish and paella. Yum! After our meal we wandered the streets of the old quarter and eventually found Barrio Santa Cruz. Absolutely precious! It's set up into the hill so you have to climb up the stairs to arrive at the top - no cars, only pedestrians. The "streets" are lined with painted pots and the flowers contrast with the stark white of the houses. As you walk higher and higher, there are ceramic tiles with poetic odes to the climb, to the Virgin, to Semana Santa. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to bring the Virgin down the stairs for Semana Santa or any other occasion... It was truly one of the most breathtaking neighborhoods I have seen in Spain. If you ever get the chance to go, Alicante is definitely worth a visit.

Race in Spain

This past Saturday, we went to see Hairspray, a musical that has made its way from Broadway to the big screen and now to local stages around the world, including Fuengirola, Spain. Set in 1962 Baltimore, the play is about a teenage girl, Tracy, who dreams of dancing on the Corky Collins Show. She faces adversity from her peers because of her weight, and ends up in detention with many of the Black students of her school. It is there she learns new dance moves that get finally catch the attention of Corky Collins. When Tracy gets a chance to be on the show, she decides her dream shouldn't just stop with her. Tracy believes that both Blacks and Whites should be allowed to dance on the TV, and, after ending up in jail, achieves her goal and dances along with her Black friends on the show. Not extremely original, but it's a good story and has good musical numbers. Nothing too extreme... right?

Wrong. I should have known better before I went.

My excitement about seeing the musical went from 100 to 0 in about a second, as soon as I saw the black-faced Spaniards, dressed in clothes from America of the 1960's, come on to the stage. Blackface. It's something that one very, very rarely sees in the United States (and when such an incident occurs, it usually makes national news coverage, or at least there is conversation about it), but here in Spain there is an insensitivity to the issue. Their explanation is, "But that's what they look like," and it is very hard for them to understand our construction of race, the historical struggles that took place (and are taking place) in the United States and did not unfold in the same way in Spain. Saturday's production wasn't the first time I've seen blackface in Spain: I still remember being shocked beyond words when I saw a group of about twelve girls dressed as Mammies during Carnival two years ago, with their faces painted black, not brown, black. Last time I checked there weren't any people who existed on Earth whose skin was actually black... Another common time to see black-face is on the Epiphany with the Three Kings, or Reyes Magos, come. One of the three is black, and along with the one black-faced Spaniard comes his entourage or other black-faced Spaniards... Just thinking about it makes me feel extremely upset. What upset me so much about seeing the black-face this weekend in Hairspray was that the mother did not just have her face/body painted brown, but she wore bright red lipstick and blue eyeshadow. UGH!! REALLY?!?!?! I couldn't exactly leave the theater, so I closed my eyes, breathed slowly to stay calm, and tried to not focus too much on the characters who caused me so much internal friction. I made it to the end of the performance in one piece, consoled by the fact that I knew I was going to go home and blog about it.

There is currently a debate about this going on in the United States, about blackface and theater, and how to represent people of different races when they are portrayed by actors of a different race. While I understand how perhaps this could cause managers to become perplexed, it also angers me that another solution could not be found. I remember going to a production when I was about eleven years old which was set on a plantation during slavery. I still remember very clearly the way in which race was portrayed: each cast members, despite the color of their skin, wore a felt patch on their cheek to tell the audience what race the person they were portraying was. In fact, the slave owner was a Black boy who wore a peach-colored patch on his cheek. In other words, the director cast his actors according to their talent, not to their skin color. It made the production all the more beautiful, knowing that the Black boy could be cast as the protagonist and not just a slave based on the color of his skin.

For a little information about the historical significance of Blackface, click here.

De vuelta de nuevo

Hola once again from the sunny Costa del Sol!

Coming back to the warm weather makes it almost seem like Christmas break didn't even happen! But, indeed, it did happen. I spent all three weeks at home, mostly with my family and just a couple of friends. On Christmas Eve my Grannie got pneumonia, which really weakened her as she has liver cancer and tumors in her airway... :( But, my Grannie, being her strong, stubborn self, is starting to make a comeback, albeit with new modifications to the daily routine. I spent most of my time practicing my intrinsic nursing skills, which according to my Nonno, would have been a much better path for me. For now all we can do is pray, hope for the best, and be thankful for the many, many blessings we have received in life, as well as the time we have enjoyed together over the years.

Three Generations: Grannie, Mom & Me

I also finished my grad school applications while I was home, so that is great. Done! I am going to reapply to the program I am currently in, just in case I decide to defer on grad school/don't get in. Yikes, now that would be scary.

So here I am, back to my weekly routine of classes at school and private lessons/babysitting in the afternoon. No real changes as of yet (except that one of my vertebrae decided it wanted to pop out of my spine a bit -ouch). I'm looking forward to the next five months, and already starting to make plans, or at least deciding where I want to go before my time here is up. So far we've got Berlin, Morocco, Granada, Nerja, La Coruna (Galicia), Alicante, Valencia, Cordoba, Sevilla.... And maybe a trip to the UK, France and/or Italy. So many places to see! I want to try to see as much of Spain as is possible, and really see Andalucia in its entirety.

That's all for now. Stay well, stay happy, and keep smiling.

Home for the Holidays

I suppose I owe you all an update on the many things that have been going on since I last wrote. Time just slips away here, and once again I have found myself very behind in blog updates. I will just write about a few of the highlights so as not to overwhelm you with details of my life.

Thanksgiving:

In preparation for Thanksgiving, my co-worker Nandi and I decided to do a whole-school project. We made a tree and cut out leafs for every student from 2-6 grade. Each student received a leaf and on it wrote, "I am thankful for..." and something they are thankful for. We taped the leafs to our tree in the hallway for the whole school to see. The 3-5 year olds and first graders made turkey hands. It was a huge hit!

Nandi showing off her leafs.

Me with my tree

To celebrate Thanksgiving, I had not one, but two dinners! The first one was in Cordoba with a group of Mount Holyoke girls: my friend Tilly (who came to visit from Germany), Liz (who works in Cordoba), Carmen (we celebrated at her house), and Stephanie (who was studying abroad in Sevilla). I cooked a turkey and we had the whole Thanksgiving works! See below:

Thanksgiving Round 1: Cordoba

Then I celebrated Thanksgiving Round 2 in Fuengirola with Rachel, my roommate Alicia, and our friends Carlos and Xavi. Rachel and I cooked for hours to give them a taste of a real Thankgiving (turkey, cranberry sauce, grave, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, biscuits, pumpkin bread, apple pie...) and it turned out to be delicious!

Thanksgiving Round 2 in Fuengirola: Me and Rachel preparing dinner

Portugal

As soon as Thanksgiving had come and gone, it was time for a trip to Portugal! In Spain we have almost a whole week off for different holidays. Rachel and I decided to take advantage of the "puente" (literally bridge, meaning long weekend) and started to plan our adventure to the other Iberian country. Our group grew to three and then four. My friend Caitlin who lives in Sevilla and my Sevillana friend Silvia joined on, and we soon had a fantastic travel group! We rented a car and left Friday morning for Lagos, in the Algarve region in the south of Portugal. We traveled to Cabo de Sao Vicente at the very tip of the country, once thought to be the end of the world, for sunset - and boy, what a sunset! We spent the night in Lagos and then headed to Lisbon mid-morning on Saturday. Meanwhile, back in Spain there were huge strikes and many, many flights were canceled. My roommate had planned to fly to Galicia to visit her best friend, but since her flight was canceled, she changed her plans. She drove from Malaga to Lisbon and met her best friend, Ruky, there. The two additions to our trip made it even more fun, filled with even more laughs, and more memories. The six of us rocked Lisbon, despite the rain. We visited the old monastery in Belem, saw the views from Sao Jorge Castle and ate loads of Portuguese pastries. Yum! On Tuesday we went to Sintra for a few hours. Sintra is about 45 minutes away from Lisbon and is famous for its many castles. It was completely foggy (apparently the sun didn't like us too much) so we couldn't fully appreciate the supposedly magnificent colors of the buildings, but it made for a very fairy-tale like experience. I felt like I was walking through a book, or something that was a creation of the imagination. Quite magical indeed! Later that day we headed to Evora, a town situated more in the center of the country. Evora was named a World Heritage site by UNESCO, and it sure does deserve the title: it's a city surrounded by the original city walls, complete with an aqueduct, Roman theater, and a chapel made entirely of human bones. Definitely worth a visit. After our day in Evora, we headed back to Spain to end our trip. It was one of my favorite trips I have taken and I will be back for more sometime soon!

Caitlin, Silvia, Me and Rachel at Cabo de Sao Vicente during sunset

A taste of the magic of Sintra

Our whole group (starting with me, counter-clockwise): Me, Rachel, Ruky, Alicia, Silvia and Caitlin

Me with my roommate Alicia in Portugal

See more photos of my Portugal trip here: The Best Long Bridge Ever: Roadtrip to Portugal for December Puente 2010


Home

I arrived home on Sunday night, just in time for tortellini-making with Nonno and presepio building with my aunt and cousin, with my Grannie's supervision, of course. It's nice to be home, although I had quite a bout with jet-lag. Thankfully I am almost back to Pacific Coast time. Linguistically I am still adjusting; there are some things that just come to me easier in Spanish or sound better in Spanish. I can only imagine what coming home this summer is going to be like.

I am still in the midst of graduate school applications. I need to get them done this week though because they are due very soon. While it'll be a bit stressful the next few days, I am looking forward to having them all completed and submitted. Then the big wait comes, as well as the obligatory biannual life crisis, which will, of course, work itself out and everything will turn out just as amazingly as it always does in the end. Maybe Dr. Seuss said it better:

You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?

Yes! You will, indeed!

(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)