General Life Update or Why I Stopped Writing this Blog and Wrote a Dissertation Instead!

So, we meet again.  Long time since I've written here...and I sort of left in the middle of things.  If I get some time I will finish the series on being an au-pair as it was a wonderful experience and I want to re-visit it and remember.

Day to day life plods on the same.  A lot of studying and essay writing was undertaken, and my dissertation was handed in in December after a lot of hard work!

Finally, it was done!  

However, time is most definitely of the essence.  I have just finished my last ever semester as an undergraduate at the University of Glasgow.  Five exams, starting at the end of April and lasting until the 17th May, a Grad Ball (which took up a bit of time as I was helping to organize it) on the 26th May and then *dun dun dun* Graduation on 26th June!
 

Then I say goodbye to it all...very strange feeling as I know I want to travel, I don't want to settle down and start a career without properly thinking about it and 'tengo muchas ganas' about seeing the world, but...and here's the rub...I don't want to disappear and lose my life again.        

Since returning home at the end of my year abroad, I have found new friends and rekindled old friendships which were affected by my previous journey.  I know how hard it is to keep in contact with people when you don't see them regularly due to being across the sea, and how easy it is to just move on.  The thing is I don't want to take the easy option.  I want and need these people in my life, not as part of the background but as friends whom I see and talk to regularly.

My last ever music club concert with the GUBB - I'm 2nd (or 4th) smallest

Hispanic Panic! with some of my best friends who all happen to be students of Spanish!

Selfie time!  

On the other hand, I know that my future, at least in the short-term cannot be here.  I have already applied to go back to Spain as a language assistant, hoping and wishing that I get placed in Barcelona in order to improve my catalan alongside my castilian.  I feel more at ease using Spanish as my everyday tongue and part of my resolutions for this year was that my 'Spanish persona' - a more confident, fiery and extroverted form of my personality - could translate over into my Scottish self.  I'm still very much an introvert (although technically I fall on the scale as an introverted ambivert) and find social situations daunting, the ball of anxiety knotting in my stomach, but I can see the difference, and others have commented on it, since coming home.

Another pic of the Big Band!  Look at Team Trumpet in the back!  

 

I think this has gotten a bit rambly...so perhaps it is time to wrap it up.  The future is a very big, scary, daunting place which I'm heading to on a daily basis.  Change is inevitable as I attempt to figure out the next step.  The next trip I take is actually going to be closer to home as I'm off to Leeds on Saturday to meet my imaginary friends for the first time and then I'm still trying to plan a jaunt to see my sister who is on ERASMUS in Maastricht, Netherlands.  Summer is rapidly approaching and my vague plans are to go to France for 6 weeks whilst studying a language course in order to have the requisite time to apply for teacher training.  And then, well, hopefully it'll be on yet another plane destined for my adopted homeland - *fingers crossed* for somewhere in Catalonia!  Preferably near a Ryanair airport so people can come visit!        


       

Year Abroad: Highlights of the Week 7th – 13th April

Saturday 7^th April – I played a concert with the band, but it was a tad unusual.  It was at a Bullfight.  A once in a lifetime experience that I’m glad I had the opportunity to do, but I don’t think I’ll be viewing another bullfight any time soon. 

Sunday 8^th April – Another amazing opportunity thanks to the band.  I was playing in two full-blown processions on Easter Sunday.  First time I have marched and played at the same time.   

Monday 9^th April – Went to Ubeda with my mum to show her the other town.  Walked around in the nice sunshine and then went to a café for a nice roll.   In the evening we went out with Jenna.  It was so funny when my mum didn’t really know how to introduce herself.  She started off with “hi I’m Mary Ann’s mum” then after a pause “you can call me Ann”.

Tuesday 10^th April – My mum came down to the school with me and sat in the staff room whilst I did my classes.  During the interval when we went to eat breakfast she got churros and I re-tried them.  I am still not a churro fan but *meh* they are all right.  She was obsessed with finding out why the different cofradias have different sized pointy hats.  We still haven’t gotten an answer.

Wednesday 11^th April – Mother’s last day.  I went to work and then met my mum during the break.  It was freeeeeeezing cold.  We bought some of the statuettes of the Cofridias, one as a present to my sister and the other for my mum’s school.  We went out for dinner in the evening and then chilled out and sorted stuff for my mum’s travel home.

Thursday 12^th April – Mum left.  Emotional.  Slept for a lot of the day.

Friday 13^th April -

Year Abroad: I don't want to go home, but maybe I sort-of do

I have gotten to that point of the year abroad that everyone tells you will come, but at the beginning you don’t believe.  I really don’t want to leave…

I have a bubble.  My little, year abroad experience, bubble.  Sure, I have problems here, things are not always easy, but through those gruelling experiences, the bitchy people, the homesickness etc. comes a closeness to people who you’d never have met without being here.  I have made such wonderful friends from all over the world, and I don’t want to stop seeing them.  Of course I have my own friends back home, whom I love to pieces, but they can’t understand fully just how hard and intense this year is, whereas the people I know here appreciate exactly what is going on.   

I wrote this a few months ago, and since then my mind has changed a little.  Now, whilst I'm going to miss (almost) everything here, and whilst I'm lucky to not be homesick, I am not desperate to stay.   I am ready to go home when the time comes in just under two months, because even if I was here everyone that I know would be leaving.

Some of my friends from here are staying on in Spain, and hopefully this means that a few American voices will be coming to Glenboig.  But I have to move on, graduate and then if I want I can do something like this again in the future.  Especially that I now know that I can do it.

The rest of my time will fly in, and as long as I make the most of it then I will be happy to leave.  And I know that the memories I have made will last forever.  

Year abroad: Highlights of the week 10th - 16th March

Saturday 10^th – Went to La Puerta de Segura for Matt’s birthday.  Presented him with a can of Irn-Bru, and explained what was meant by a fizzy drink/ginger.  Later on we went to a nearby town where there was supposed to be a good discoteca, epic fail.  We ended up paying for a taxi back and then sitting in a pub watching basketball and eating pipas.

La Puerta de Segura

The boys decided to go exploring...

We were so glad to be going down this hill instead of up

The police station.  

Sunday 11^th – Still in La Puerta.  La Puerta is a tiny wee town with around 2500 people living there.  It is literally one street.  We went to a café near Matt’s school for breakfast, then for a walk above the town.  The town is really pretty. 

Monday 12^th – Had a long lie.  Sunbathed a little.  Weather is now really lovely and warm (for me…).  Made fajitas.

Tuesday 13^th – School was good.  Classes seemed to enjoy the activities – crosswords, fill in the blanks etc. that I’d made.   

Got positive feedback from one of the teachers whom I work with saying how the kids all really liked me and that I was doing a good job.

Band like usual.  Found out that we had a concert on the Saturday to warm up for Semana Santa.  I’d only seen two or three of the pieces ONE time before.  Got Martin to photocopy them for me so that I could practice before the concert.  They were all processional marches.

Wednesday 14^th – Got some positive feedback about how I was doing in the art classes.    

Thursday  15^th – We did a class about homosexuality and famous lgb people in general.  Had to resist the urge to sing and dance along to the Beatles (Across the Universe uses I Wanna Hold Your Hand to show a lesbian teenager) and Queen (FREDDIE).  One of the more conservative boys was very shocked when he realised that the girl was singing to another girl and not to the quarterbacks. 

Got a text around 5 from Leah saying that she was out tapasing with some tecahers and people from Ubeda and would I like to join her since there was a man who had lived in Scotland for over thirty years.  Off I went and spent a few hours talking with a Spanish man who has a broader accent than me.  We talked about everything from The Big Yin to how he has met Sean Connery three times.  He works as a tour guide based in Edinburgh during the summer and works in Ubeda the rest of the year .

Tapas as always in Pedritos. 

Friday  16^th – Emotional times in the staff room.  More positive feedback.  I still don’t want to leave!  Just make the next few months a bit longer please, although I know they will fly in…L

Me and Geni...

 

Tapas with some of the teachers/my friends…Reyes, Geni, Paco, Gonzalo, Mercedes and Jenna.  We tried the tapas especial of El Trillo.  It was foie gras, some weird apple, potato and meat thing and coleslaw…a bit weird.  After this we went to a coffee shop and they drank coffee and we all ate some cake. 

Rehearsal in the teatro.  Nearly two hours without a break.  These pieces are big blowers and I was already so exhausted.  Was sort-of fun in a masochistic way, especially when Martin lost his temper at the trombones and we had to keep playing the same passage over and over.  

Then I met up with some friends in Torreon.  Had a drink there and then went to La Pena.  Poor Gonzalo got stuck with some guy who wouldn’t stop talking – habló por los codos.

So all in all another good week.  Roll on many more.

Days until I finish at Santisima - 76

Year Abroad: Burns, Booze and Birthdays

             I'm going back through my old posts and trying to complete my chronological year.  This stuff tends to be something I wrote about a specific day and then had too much other stuff to get done so they fell to the sidelines.  Also I feel like I may have published this before (please tell me if I have).

              January 25^th, Burns night, a day to celebrate the poet and all this Scottish.  Except I was in Spain, a long way away from the nearest Scot (I think).  There are some here in Jaen I just haven’t met them.  Instead of grey skies and rain, there was sunshine and heat.  The Sunday beforehand had been 23 degrees…in January!  Now that was a day when I loved Spain, give me sun and I’m a happy bunny.  But anyways, what I’m trying to say is that Burns night, one of my favourite celebrations at home, was just another day here, and an uneventful day at that.               

            On the Thursday we all went out for our normal tapas night and this was the first time I’d seen Jenna since she’d gotten engaged.  It had also recently been here birthday.  We got talking about the “gathering” and she volunteered her flat as it is much bigger than mine, and she said that she’d do some cooking as well.  I volunteered to get the birthday cake and some crisps and it was bring your own booze, so now we had a plan.  And we were all set to have a pretty unconventional Burns night…

            Friday night was a time to meet two new friends.  Candice from New Zealand, although her family recently moved to Adelaide…so when I finally go visit my Aussie family, I can visit her as well, she lives with Mat in La Puerta, and Todd from Washington State, who had actually just met every person in the room that day.  He is in a tiny tiny town called Siles.  If Baeza is Coatbridge, the Siles is Annithill (this only works for people who know the area where I’m from) – Siles is in the middle of nowhere and doesn’t have that many people living there, it’s just cruel to put someone out there so isolated.  Mat and Candice are the closest assistants and they are 20 km away.  Once again I count my blessings for being put in Baeza.

             The Friday night was fun, wine and whiskey at Dave and Anna’s, then to La Pena for some impromptu flamenco – I think this was Candice’s first experience of live flamenco in Spain, and she loved it.  They even played a sort-of Blues guitar mixed with flamenco song at one point, that was my favourite.  I spent the night chatting with Candice about the TV programmes that the UK and New Zealand share.  She told me that Coronation Street or Corro is huge over there and that just about everybody watches it.  Then we went to 11 del 11 and danced for a bit, but everyone was exhausted so we went home relatively early.

            Then it was Saturday and time to organise the party.  I went and bought the cake and candles, then went down to Jenna’s to “decorate”…I put up my two Scotland flags.  Meanwhile she had prepared so much food.  And it was all brilliant.  I stood chatting to her in the kitchen whilst she prepared quesadillas, and almost everyone else was sat around her dining table cracking on with the wine and beer.  Jenna and I lamented about the state of Spanish cheese…it’s too mild…and she was glad to hear that we have good strong cheese in the UK. 

Jenna preparing some food.

The wine table

            A traditional part of a Burns night is the “toast to the lassies”…there was only one person who we needed to toast, and that was Jenna.  She had allowed us to use her flat, and had spent ages making food for us.  Thanks Jenna!  Shortly after this we did the birthday cake.  The cake was a sort-of ice cream cake but very chocolaty…when Leah was handing me a piece it fell, and surprising all apart from myself, I caught it before it hit the cream couch…I’m on a lucky streak of catching things just before disaster…a beer glass in Torreon, a box of vodka bottles in ASDA and now the chocolate cake. 

            Then it was time to try and attempt to teach them how to Ceilidh dance.  Of course I picked the easiest one “The Gay Gordons” because it is simply just walking with a few spins thrown in…it should be perfectly simple to learn, right?  Not so much.             

             

Year Abroad: The day in which Scotland lost to Spain...

   
     What could be worse than your national football team being beaten and knocked out of an international championship?  I'll tell you what.  Having the winners of the match be Spain, and having them win 3-1 while you are sitting at a bar with a ton of Spanish people who then take the mick out of you for the rest of the night.

     Yup, this is exactly what happened on Wednesday evening.  I mean deep down I knew it was going to be near on miraculous for Scotland to win against the world champions.  But as a Scot we hope against hope that we will overcome.  And we had beaten Spain not too long ago.  Granted that was in the much cooler climes at Hampden with a home crowd, and I for one know how tough it is to do anything in this freaking heat.  But when we got that one goal...

     At least we got one.  And there is always next time.  I'm just going to continue my mission to destabilise Spain from the inside.  I'm teaching the kids in my accent...they'll be Scottish by the time I'm done with them.  And then we'll see who wins.

 

Year Abroad: 5 - Update...One month to go

I now have less than a month before I embark on what I hope shall be the best year of my young life.
So status update:

I bought my flights a little while ago for the week before I start work to give me time to settle in and explore my new home.  As I type there has been ABSOLUTELY NO WORD from the Andalucian government about our induction training.  So it better be after I arrive, so that I have a clue about what I'm supposed to actually be doing.

I have almost sorted out a flat for myself.  I just have to send one more email saying "Si, senor.  I shall have this flat" but you know, all in Spanish.  Its a one bedroom flat which the previous assistant stayed in and recommended.  The landlord seems like such a lovely man and the rent is reasonable.  It is also right next to the supermarket, so no lugging bags miles around town....yay!
I'm so glad that I should have this sorted before I arrive so that on my first day I can just get into my home, have a shower and cry my eyes out.  Then I can go for a walk and start mi ano en el extranjero :)

We just celebrated my month-previous-to-my-actual-birthday birthday.  It was so nice of my mum to give in to my craziness, but hey.  We had a cake with a singing candle and everything.  To give me something to open on my birthday the parents got me this lovely bag to take with me.  They also got me the brand-spanking new laptop which I am currently using.  My sister got me the first two series of Horrible Histories on DVD so I shall be using them to teach my Spaniards all about the songs and how much I love it.  My saltire flag has also been ordered.  It will adorn my bedroom wall making sure everyone knows where I'm from.  Soy escocesa y me pone orgullosa.

I have also had the first proper night of hysterics where I just broke down and cried at my mum about how scared I am.  I think that has helped me a lot.  I am terrified, for no good reason other than the being a long way away from everyone I know.  But I am more excited than scared.  I can't wait to get going.  Sure it'll be hard the first wee while but soon I shall be too busy to care.  And thank goodness we live in this technological age of Skype.  My family and friends are but a mouse click away.

I think that is all for now.  

Adios for a little while.