Uh?

This has been a really uneventful week and the only item of note was this:

I was walking down the street with Astin on the way to play frisbee. We walk past this guy who fakes like he's going to hit me in the face with his folder. I felt the wind whoosh past me. I was completely dumbfounded and had no idea how to react. Who does that? Finally, it occurred to me that it might be Graham, so I turned around to double check, but no. The guy was still walking up the hill but looking back over his shoulder to see my reaction. I think what he thought was one part total surprise and one part disgust. Weirdest thing.

Thee creeminal…needed thee noodells?

This week was a reaaaaally light week because a bunch of my students went on vacation or cancelled classes for various reasons. It was pretty odd.

The title comes from my 11-year-old student. We were practicing the past tense, so I designed a CSI situation where he had to figure out what happened and then give a report. He loved it. Halting English is actually perfect for detective games, I discovered, because it gives the speaker the air of a self-important detective who thinks each of his words. are. deathly. important. Anyway, the crime involved some lady stealing all the noodles from a restaurant. As you know, noodle is one of the funniest words in the English language, so with his Spanish accent and me making the storyline ridiculous, well, we were both laughing pretty hard.

The weekend was a decently social-y weekend, and I enjoyed myself a lot. Thursday, I went with Astin to her language exchange (half the time in Spanish and half in English) and we had good times. The girl, Irene, taught us some new words, of which my favorite is perroflauta. Perro is the word for dog and flauta for flute, so it’s the new word to talk about the hippie-type people who always go around with their dogs and flutes/recorders.

On Friday I went out with a few friends to TGIFriday’s. (Anne I know you wet your pants a little bit just then.) It wasn’t too shabby and I got to meet some new people. Afterward to Boñar for a cheap dinner and then on to another place to relax and talk. I learned that my apartment is actually pretty close to a lot of things I usually take the metro to. Hmph.

On Saturday, I got up early and made pancakes-to-go for a road trip to Cuenca. Cristina invited me on their shindig, and it was the first time I’ve been in a car in a while. It was good times. We had some classic old-school jams going on (what is a road trip without Sir Mixalot?). And we stopped at Ciudad Encantada first. C.E. is this place with all these weird rock formations made from different types of erosion. Pretty cool. It was the bomb to be up in the mountains with trees and blue sky, etc. Plus, one of the girls is from Oregon, has Chacos, and works at a summer camp. That is what I call, “Instant BFF Potion #6”. Okay, maybe not BFF, but we had fun.  We had some lunch in Cuenca and then went to see the Casas Colgadas “Hanging Houses.” They’re houses built into a cliff. So you walk out onto a bridge and you can see these houses kind of hanging over the edge of a cliff. I think one of them has a restaurant and a museum. We debated on going to Chinchón on the way back, but decided to head straight for Madrid. It was dark by that time, and I believe it’s the first time I’ve seen the stars in about 5 months. Weird.

All in all, it was a good week/weekend. Even if thee creeminal needed thee noodells.

Hmph.

Some interesting events have happened this week. Basically I was absentminded during the entirety.

Event 1: I have a long bus ride from one of my students house back into the city. So I was writing a letter with my cell phone on my lap for time observance. I got off at my stop and started walking toward my apartment. At this point, I realize I no longer have my cell phone. Items of note--1) Cell phones all work with pre-paid minutes here. Mine still had about 50 euro on it...aka free minutes for whoever finds it. 2) It's my connection with my "office" for new employment 3) It's my connection with my students when one of us wants to cancel classes. 4) It's my connection to friends, family, social life, and my roommate if I lock myself out. That being said, I frantically began searching all my bags and finding nothing but expletives. I have no idea what to do at this point and no way to call anyone. I accosted some poor woman at the bus stop and made her advise me. I eventually developed a plan to get on every bus (going the opposite way) and ask the driver if they had found a phone. Okay, so basically I am the luckiest duck in the whole pond and by some stroke of magic, the first bus I got on had my cell phone!!! So, whoever you are out there, thank you for your honesty. Basically it was the luckiest thing ever. Maybe not ever, but it was really lucky. I think driver enjoyed my explosion of gratitude.

Later in the week I was writing the same letter to the same person when I arrived home without my mittens. I knew I had had them when I switched trains two stations away so I went back. I spotted one on the platform...alone. Looking dusty and lonely. I asked the two men who were staring at the mitten if they had seen the other one. I am quite sure I spoke in clear Spanish and that these men were "special." Our conversation went something like this, "Excuse me, have you seen the other mitten?" "Yes, there is a mitten." "Uh huh. Yeah, I found the one over there [I wave it at this point] but have you seen the other?" "Yeah there's a mitten." After some more similiarly-effective conversation, I gave up and started to walk back when I spotted it. In the tracks. As a lightning flash of understanding hit the two men, they both exclaimed, "The mitten is there!" Then they advised me to talk to the help booth which was possibly the wisest thing they said all night. The man in the booth rolled his eyes and said yes when I asked if it would be very bothersome to get it. But the man outside the booth, micah, quickly grabbed some pinching stick and strode toward the platform. I pointed out the mitten and he made an attempt to grab it. He was about 2 feet short. I knew that with some more effort, the mitten was attainable, but Micah didn't seem very interested in that. So I asked if I could try. Keep in mind that this is a business-class day, so I have on nice shoes, pants, coat, scarf, hair, the works. This was no problem for me. I plop down on the cement and swing my legs over the edge to get closer to the mitten. Heck, I would have gotten down on my belly--those were good mittens! This was horrifying to Micah who made clucking noises at me and refused to give me the stick and instead got down on his hands and knees to get my mitten. He was successful and I thanked him profusely. We went on our merry ways and as I sat down next to a girl on a bench to wait for the train I almost turned to her and said, "I'm ridiculous."

A day in the life of yellow

Not too much to say this week. It was a pretty regular week...no new students and nothing particularly outrageous. The weekend was quiet and Astin recently fixed the DVD drive on her computer so we have been renting movies from the library and enjoying movies. We haven't done that in, oh, since we left, basically. Here are some highlights from the week:

I learned, via an article I used with some students, the following:
-The head of leading vacuum company in the 50's predicted that we would see nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners within 10 years.
-The postmaster general, also during the 50's, said, "We stand on the threshold of rocket mail."
-There were other predictions, including one by Bill Gates predicting that no personal computer would ever need more than 640 kb of memory (what is the average iPod capacity these days?. However, my students and I found the above to be the most ridiculous.

My 6 year old girl produced the other story of the week. We start every class with flashcards. I hold up three fingers or for fingers or whatever and she has to say the word that many times. She has decided to manually check off each time by smushing the finger down as she says it. After several words and several smushings, she suddenly leans and tells me, in Spanish, "I threw up three times." I knew the word for Spanish, but I just wasn't catching it. But finally I understood and wiped the horrified expression off my face. I kind of leaned away and asked her if she felt better now. She nodded and we continued learning exciting words like "strong" and "weak". Suddenly she leaned in and said, confidentially, "I threw up yellow." "You threw up yellow?!" "Yellow." To switch from the disgusted look on my face, I added (in Spanish), "I'm sorry, sweetheart." Apparently this show of affection overflowed her little 6-year-old heart and she flung herself on me and said, "THank you!!!" Oh kids. They're kind of the bomb.

Even if they throw up yellow.

January in Retrospect

So I've decided that January has been a pretty good month. It came in with a bang and left on a high note. Of course you have already read about New Year's and whatnot. Another highlight was Tope's b-day/going away party with homemade crepes. I got some new students who are not water parties*. Here are some recent highlights:

Astin turned 24 on the 26th, a Monday. We spent the whole weekend enjoyable. We played all kinds of games my mom sent on Friday. On Saturday we cooked a huge dinner and I made a secret chocolate cheesecake. On Sunday we went to the first movie we had seen in over a month. It was the first movie we'd seen in a theatre in over three months. Wild, I know. We saw "My Name is Harvey Milk." I think in the States it's just called "Milk." It's definitely thought-provoking and I really liked it.

This weekend I went to Segovia with a bunch of people from work and we had a blast. It was supposedly a "sledding trip." However, the people we went with were, for the most part, pansies. Yep. Apparently since there was some wind and about 6 flakes of snow per minute, it was too extreme to sled. People from states with mountains were all confused by this. So we went on a hike instead. It was gorgeous! It was so nice to be in the mountains, with trees, enough snow to cover the ground, and clean air. We laughed and threw snow balls (incidentally also some small children who threw ice balls). Then we got on the bus and headed 30 minutes in the wrong direction. After the driver turned around we headed down to Segovia to see the aqueduct and have some lunch. Suckling pig was the house specialty but I went for the beef. We went to the castle in Segovia after. It had a rad view. We spent the bus ride home laughing and sleeping. All in all, it was a great way to end the month.

*This is a correction of a previous essay. I thought it was water park, but was actually water party.

The Middle-Aged, The Elderly, and Their Cell Phones

In order to make up for missing a week, I am posting two blogs this time. As noted in the title, the subject of this blog is, “The Middle Aged, The Elderly, and Their Cell Phones.” My current research consists of information obtained firsthand from crowded metros, buses, public areas, and my mother. We now move to the scene of an observation.

Behold! The middle-aged woman gazes out the window of a full public transportation bus. She seems to be engrossed in observing the passing of various buildings. Suddenly, a deafening noise blasts throughout the entire bus, shattering windows and resetting pacemakers. All the passengers look around in horror, trying to discern the source of this awful racket. Eventually, they realize that this sonic boom is proceeding from the oversized handbag of the middle-aged woman, who, unobserving, continues to stare out the window. The passengers take turns covertly glaring at her. After about 18-20 minutes of this, when complete hearing loss is becoming a realistic possibility, the middle-aged woman begins to have…thoughts…awarenesses one might say. They begin to dawn visibly upon her face and she becomes confused. Perhaps she is thinking, “I have a ringing sensation in my ears and I feel rather dizzy. Maybe some sort of noise is happening around me.” Being sensible, however, she brushes this off as an unrealistic option, but the nagging thought persists. As if lightning has struck through the roof of the bus, directly into her head, the woman has two rapid and consecutive thoughts—“What if that noise is a cell phone?” and “My word! I have a cell phone—what if it’s mine?!” For the middle-aged woman, these thoughts often prompt a course of action. She becomes flustered and begins fishing around in her purse, which, unfortunately, is the size of the island of Aruba.

In many cases, she triumphantly reaches the desired object and holds it at arms length. Soon we observe confusion settling over the countenance of the middle-aged woman. “I’m not sure what to do next,” she thinks. There is some kind of international secret code running across the screen of her mobile phone and she unsure how to decipher such complex symbols. [It should be noted that, at this point, most of the other passengers are quite sure of how to decipher the code and are annoyed that she can’t find the “Silence ringer” button.] The middle-aged woman does not worry about such frivolous technological advances that will allow her to silence her cellphone and it’s overbearing rendition of “Ode to Joy.” She is solving a puzzle! Abruptly, a thought penetrates through the shroud of mystery, “Oh Mylanta! These are numbers! NUMBERS! And Good Lord! They seem to be familiar! But why is Susan Smith’s name written on this little screen?” When the middle-aged woman realizes that not only does she recognize the number on the screen, but that it actually belongs to Susan Smith, her oldest friend, the proceeding events happen in rapid succession. First, she locates the button to answer the call and presses it firmly. Then she happily engages in a call with Susan at a loud volume which is only slightly less annoying than the midi version of “Ode to Joy” her fellow passengers had previously been subjected to. Triumphant, the middle-age woman continues throughout her day until the next time she receives a call. Oh eternal mystery!

*Author’s note: the author would like to say that this academic writing represents the characteristics of several women she has observed. She would also like to tip her hat to the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of women who are older and equally, if not more, technologically savvy than herself.