Confessions of A Working Girl

 I’ll get to why I’m overwhelmed later, but for the moment, let me tell about Salamanca.

So, when we got to Salamanca, all of us (everyone in my group) was a little nervous. Strangely, I wasn’t really, but I did worry about how well I’d be able to communicate. When we got off the bus, our host families were waiting. My host family consisted of two people: Matilda and her husband.  Although it sounds like Matilda’s mother also stays here during November and December. But I’ve mentioned this? And about my roommate Penny–she’s from California.

Anyway, first few days were a little nerve-wracking since I wasn’t quite sure yet on the way to the building where I have my classes. Apparently, the University of Salamanca is split into more than three different buildings, and the one that my classes are in is the Cursos Internacional building. I’ll have to remember to take a picture at some point…

I have five classes, three of which are in spanish. The ones in spanish are Grammar (somehow I tested advanced, despite not finishing half the test), Spanish Literature, and Spanish for Business. Out of those three, my favorite so far is the literature course. It’s interesting, hearing about the writers, plus, eventually, I think we’ll actually be reading a book or two. That’s the class, that, on one of the first days, the teacher mentioned Truman Capote–as a writer. I think I vaugly knew that he was a writer, but usually I think of him as an actor, since Murder By Death is one of my favorite movies. So I immediatly said “I thought he was an actor.” The teacher was like “I don’t think so.” But I insisted. “He is!” After class, I showed the teacher that on IMDB it said that Truman Capote had been in 4 or 5 films. A few days ago, the teacher told the class “Remember when I was talking about Truman Capote, and Wen said he was an actor and I said no he wasn’t and she said yes he was? It turns out that he was in 4 or 5 movies.” This was all in spanish, of course, but I thought it was kinda neat that the teacher also researched it or whatever and then told the class.

The two classes I have in English are International Marketing and European Union. Both are very interesting, but I like international marketing better.

One of the things that ISA sponsored was an ‘intercambios’ where you could meet  people from here that wanted to practice their english. It ends up being that we talk in a mixture of both. I went, but couldn’t stand it for much longer than an hour and a half, since we were in a bar that had a lot of smokers.  Anyway, one of the people I met there just called me and wanted to meet again so that I could explain something to her…I had brought my kindle since that’s the only dictionary that I have, and, if I understood her right, she said that she bought one as well.

Anyway, and onto why I got overwhelmed:

Today, there were four extra people for lunch. Matilda’s son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren. It was noisy! Almost immediately, I was overwhelmed, since I didn’t understand much of the conversation. I caught words here and there, but I couldn’t even get the gist of most of the conversation. But, I was thinking, perhaps that’s a good thing. If I were to sit at more lunches like that, I think I would learn faster, if only so that I don’t feel like such an idiot not understanding most of what I hear.

1 Comment » Ana:

November 13th, 2010 @ 7:49 am Estoy segura de que si pasas mas tiempo con la familia que solo habla espanol, vas a comprender mas muy pronto.

 http://wenc.5ru.com/2010/10/01/pictures/

The pictures won't copy/paste

So today we visited el escorial. It’s a place where monks lived, or something, and was a summer home to some king. But what was reallly awesome was their library! I wish we had been able to spend more time there. They had thousands of books, and they were really old. Most of them were hand written. The oldest book they had in the library was 1500 years old!!!! It was awesome!!!!! All of the books had gold dust on the edge of the pages, and all of the books were turned ’round so that they didn’t get moldy or something and so that the moths wouldn’t eat them. There were some nice paintings on the ceiling of the room as well, but I didn’t really look. Apparently, in order to take a book out of that library, you had to have express permission from the monks (fransiscan monks, I think) or you would be excommunicated. I should have asked what they do to you if you hadn’t been communicated in the first place. Then what would they do? Oh, and there was a round thingy in the library that Ptolemy or someone thought up. It was supposed to tell the planets relations to earth. Although one kid in my group thought of a good question…if, at that time, they thought the world was flat, why was the model round?

After we left the library, we went to the part of the monestary that had been the king’s chambers when he lived there. Apparently he died of gout right in one of the beds that we saw. And, this king was only as tall as Napoleon, and it was easy to tell since the doorways were all pretty low.

When we left the king’s rooms, we went down a whole bunch of stairs. People in front of us kept saying “SHHH!” We found out why when we got there. It was a tomb. A tomb for all the kings (and queens, but only if they were the mother of a king). There were…31 tombs there, I think. Plus three empty ones…for the current king’s grandmother, and parents. Those three, we were told, were in the rotting room. The rotting room is where they would put the deceased monarch for 20 or 25 years, until there was nothing left but ash. Then they would put that ash into a box, and a box into the tomb. By the way, to get to the tomb, we had to walk past the wooden doors that led to the rotting room where the bodies were. That was a creepy thought.

We went up some stairs, then down some more…and into the place where the rest of the tombs were. All the other members of royalty that for whatever reason weren’t allowed into the first tomb. (e.g brothers, sisters, died young, etc) There were…four? five? rooms of tombs…and some of the tombs had 20 people each! There was even one tomb that was huge and fancy and looked, as the guide put it, like a birthday cake. In the ‘cake’ were all of the royal people that had died before their first communion. The ones the guide specifically pointed out were a three year old and a one year old. Before communion, the guide said, they were put into the ‘cake’. If they died after communion, they were given a tomb of their own.

In some ways, its a little sad that people’s deaths can be such a big attraction.

After visiting escorial, we had free time for lunch. Then, we were back on the bus for the two hour drive to Salamanca. We got to Salamanca about 5 in the afternoon, and the host families met us at the place where the bus stopped. We were given instructions to meet in the morning at 8:45, then we went home with our host families.

My host family is really nice. My only problem is that I don’t remember as much spanish as I thought I did. Luckily, my roommate Penny does, and she can help me when I’m not sure what a word is.

We’re taking a language proficiency test tomorrow…

I don’ remember where I left off,and don’t feel like looking it up,so I will start after we got to the hotel after the airport. I had a room on the sixth floor and was told that my roommate would arrive with the second group of people. There was only one bed. >.< Anyway,I could not figure out how to turn on the lights. No matter how many times I pressed the light switches, they would not go on.. So I read by the windiw for a little while,then sat down on the bed for “just a minute”. Next thing I knew, it was an hour and a quarter later, and the door was being opened by y my roommate for the hotels. She knew how to turn on the lights… apparently there was a little slot by the door in which you put the keycard,and that made it so that you could turn on the lights. By the time we had to go downstairs fo our first ISA meeting, I was wide awake again and feeling normal. Haha!! I beat jet lag or whatever really easily!! We had a panoramic tour of Madrid and then were given free time for dinner. For dinner we ate at mcdonalds (shocking, I know)which was just next door to the hotel.  Then was bed around ten thirty. Next morning up at eight. We met in the lobby at nine and went to tour the palacio real. It was awesome! It is one of the palaces beloonging to the royal family of Spain. They don’t live there but they occasionally use the palace for occasions an such. We only got to tour 22 of the2000 or so rooms. It was kinda funny…you cold still smell smoke in the smoking room! What I liked best came after the tour…we got to look at the armoury. ¡Que suerte! It so reminded me of the armor in the museaum at the beginning of bedknobs and bromstics. There were swords and armors and horse armors…there was even one samurai outfit that had been given as a gift to …uh… King Charles V or something like that. After that was free time for lunch. We met back at the hotel at three so that we could go tour the Prada museum. So many paintings! I ha only seen one of them before…or at least I only remembered having seen this one… a pink and red painting of child princess something-or-other…Isabel maybe. She had white blonde hair… anyway after the tour of the museo it was free time for dinner. zthhen this morning we had to meet in the lobby at nine with all of our stuff..the bus ride to Toledo took about an hour and a half or so. We got a panoramic tour of Toledo then right after,a walking tour. We went inside a church that was really old and had a lot of neat statues. Then we got to see a Jewish temple with a funny name and history. He name of the temple is The Synagogue of Saint Maria. Apparently Toledo used to be known as the city of three religions…christianity,Judiasm, and muslamic. Muslim people built the temple for the jews. Then in the indepenndance war (This keeps confusing me too, but no, not the American Independance war. The Spanish Independance war against Napoleon.) the christian peoples overran the temple and it was given the sai t maria name and then it was used for weapon storage or something.  Now it is just a national monument.   Then we saw a smaller church whose claim to fame is that they own a paintng by this supposadly famous artist el grecko. His real name is greek and hard to remember so the Italians gave him the nickname of el grecko.Anyway,after that tour we had free time for lunch. And a little bit of shopping. I found a cute pair of slip on shoes for only two euro. The green will clash nicely with my blue skirt. And I couldn’ help but walk into a sword shop…swords are one of the things that Toledo is known for! Shopkeepers here are really pushy…which I wouldn’t mind–I can stand up to them–but in an odd way that gives me an excuse to buy things I might not have otherwise. But sinceI realized that I will be extra careful. In any case while I spent a teeny bit more than I had planned all were gifts that I woukd have gotten by December anyway. And just so you know I am keeping careful track of everything that I spend… and that twenty someodd euro looks incredibly nad next to the four and five, six, and seven euro that I have been spending per meal. In  any case we went to the hotel after thaat.. same roommates as in madrid. So I am now sitting ere waiting for the six thirty ISA meeting.Oh and let me mention…both hotels that ISA pcked out look expensive. Tonight there are even two beds in the room and an actual shower curtain on the shower!

so…we arrive at the airport a little over two hours early and it was a good thing we did since the line for security was like a mile long…well..almost… anyway, once through security there were two hours to kill before the plane ride. Luckily I was able to meet up with Eve, a girl that I had emailed before who was going to be on the same flight as me. I was so glad to have someone to navigate the airport with once we got to Madrid! The actual plane ride wasn’ as bad as I had thought that it would be…although it did turn out that my seat was in the back of the plane not the front. I was surprised, but the airline actually served dinner (and breakfast)I was just glad that they didn’ serve fish!

2 Comments » Dad:

September 23rd, 2010 @ 7:53 pm Was the seat at the front of the back section? I take it that Eve was booked on the same flight as you except through a different airline. I hope you are not too jet lagged. Call when you can…By the way, the internet is working again…but, you probably already guessed that, unless you are really jet lagged.

Dad:

September 23rd, 2010 @ 7:56 pm Never thought I’d say it, but I miss your texts…

I know I’m not alone in this…why does schooling have to be so freaking expensive? I know, I know…this is something that I should have realized long ago, especially with the fact that I will be a Junior in college this coming year… But it only just hit me.

I mean, what better way to make me realize just how much money this was when I heard my parents talking (technically, I think they were talking to me) about that if anything happened to me while I was abroad this coming year (e.g. death or… serious disability, I guess)  because of all my loans for school, and because most of those loans are under my parents names, they could potentially lose everything? That was a scary thought. I mean, I’ve known for years now that if we didn’t have the house, the income level that we have would make us homeless.

…maybe I’m not supposed to be telling people that. But it’s one of the things that is big on my mind, and I just need to…vent.

Anyway, this makes it so that my current obsession with scratch tickets is semi-ok since my ultimate goal is to win enough to help my parents pay off the mortgage for the house. That way they don’t have to worry about the bank taking it away…I think. Could the bank still take it away?

Plus, my parents need to keep the house so that I have somewhere to live after college while I pay back this enormous debt that the schooling results in. It’s a stupid, vicious cycle…you go to college and get into debt in order to get a degree which will enable you to get a well paying job which will enable you to make enough money both to live off of and to pay back that debt. Whereas if you don’t go to college and get into debt, you run the risk of making only barely enough money to live off of. Sheesh, we need to come up with a better system.

Despite my recent realization about all this debt, going to Japan has become as much of an obsession as…as…as James Dean! I really really really really want to go to Japan. I want this extended spring semester to work so badly that I’m almost starting to panic. And I hate that. The panic thing, that is. The biggest problem with the extended semester is getting the visa. They told me that to get the visa, I should be able to show that I have access to at least $15,000. And no, credit limits on credit cards don’t count. My question is: Where the hell does Japan think that an average person wishing to study abroad is going to get that money?????

All the bank accounts in my house combined would probably only barely hit 8 or 9 thousand. And I told the person in charge of the visa paperwork that I’d get all the paperwork to him by this week!!!!! Panic!!!!!!

…why doesn’t this blog have emoticons? Emoticons are fun! Like on msn messanger or aim…but msn has better emoticons. Much better ones. And they’re more fun too. But sadly, the emoticons won’t even copy + paste into the blog. T_T

Anyways, at least the Spain study abroad is all set. I just got the information on the people that I’m going to stay with. It sounds like it  will be with a nice older couple. I’ll get to meet them…I think the tentative schedule said that I would meet them four days after I arrive in Spain. I should touch up on my spanish…and learn/relearn how to say “Nice to meet you!” in spanish!

Oh, the other thing that I need to do for Spain is to find a gift for the host family. The letter from the study abroad program “suggested” that the gift be something smallish and useful. Mom suggested cranberry tea. Because of course, the gift should be something from the area I’m from–which is to say, Cape Cod. So, something cranberry…hmm…I didn’t want to get a book, since any book I got here would be in English, and besides, you can get books anywhere. Although by that token I guess you can pretty much get anything anywhere, I suppose…

I wonder…is there anything that is made/sold exclusively on Cape Cod and no where else in the world?  If anyone knows, please tell me!

…well…It’s 12:30 am, which could be part of the reason I’m close to panicking….I’m too tired to think straight! (Not that I ever think straight…usually I like to think in nice  qualihedron type shapes. And no, I don’t know how many sides that has…if it’s even a real word…)

2 Comments » Jerry:

August 18th, 2010 @ 5:56 pm You know…One way or another things always work out…Not always the way you had wished for, but sometimes for the better…or not…

Listen to “If that’s what it is” and don’t get nervous…what will happen, will happen…and therefore it is what’s meant to be….

Jerry:

August 18th, 2010 @ 6:02 pm P.S. Try www.cranberryharvest.com they sell cranberry jelly made with only Cape Cod cranberries

I’m sort of nervous a the moment…I have less than two weeks to get the last bit of paperwork in to the program…and it’s only like a month before I actually leave!!! Wow…

Today in the mail, I got the handbook for the study abroad in Spain! It was on a 2gb usb…the program even suggests that the usb can be used to store pictures from during the study abroad program.

Anyway, I got that, and I was looking at the calendar, and suddenly I was struck by nervousness. In just a little over a month and a half, I will be the furthest away from home that I’ve ever been for the longest amount of time. And there’s so much stuff that I need to do before then!

Stuff like finishing up my paperwork and acquiring a visa or two.  Well, I’m going to try my best! Especially now that I feel the deadline pressing in…