A slideshow sendoff from my 6th-grade class

This was put together by my 6th-grade class. It's the kind of thing I would've done if I wasn't lazy.

How Do You Say Road Trip in Spanish? (....Spring Break! Whoo!)

On Tuesday, Ian and I sat down to discuss our plans for Semana Santa (Holy Week, leading up to Easter). We have a week off - my second paid vacation, after Christmas! - and had been kicking various ideas around. Our earlier plan to visit Scotland fell apart because of cost and because we wanted to spend at least part of Semana Santa in Spain to see the processionals.

In case you didn't know, people dress up in KKK-looking outfits and parade around carrying life-sized dolls representing Jesus and the various saints.

(Photo of Semana Santa in Zaragoza by "Willtron," via Wikimedia Creative Commons)

In sitting down to plan, I came to the sudden realization that our time off starts Friday. So yeah, we were a little bit late in getting to this, and plane tickets outside of Spain were basically off-limits. I'd thought of going south, to Cadiz, Tarifa, and maybe Gibraltar, with a day trip to Morocco. But Ian pointed out that we could do something like that on one of our 4-day weekends pretty easily. So we shelved it until later April (after our next paycheck).

"Let's have coffee in Huesca," I suggested, half-serious.

In George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, "coffee in Huesca" is something of a grim joke among disillusioned Republican/Loyalist soldiers. Orwell, as a volunteer for a Communist regiment fighting Franco's fascists, took part in the siege of the town in 1937. The commanders tried to prop up the morale of their badly armed and ill-trained troops by promising them, "Tomorrow we'll have coffee in Huesca." The siege lasted rather more than a day, and the promise seemed more absurd as weeks passed and casualties mounted. The town remained in fascist hands, and Orwell was shot through the neck during the offensive. Returning to Britain, he wrote of a desire to fulfill that promise, even if only symbolically. "If I ever go back to Spain I shall make a point of having a cup of coffee in Huesca." He never made it back.

Ian, who had also read the book on this trip, agreed, which I wasn't really expecting. And so the trip planning was underway. Ian was keen on Galicia, so we added Santiago de Compostela (the endpoint of the famed Pilgrimage of St. James). Barcelona is the furthest north we could get by plane, and near enough to Huesca, so we threw that in there. Since we were going west across the northern coast, we added San Sebastian and Pamplona - no running of the bulls, though, that's not until summer. And, just for the hell of it, I suggested Andorra.

Now, I don't know much about Andorra except that it's really small. But check out their tourism site: the first image that appear in the top banner is a woman posing against a snowing mountain with shopping bags and...wolves! Freakin' wolves! (I couldn't figure out how to extract the picture and post it here, but the link should do.) As far as I can tell, the whole country is based on ski lodges and duty-free shops, but hey, a hilariously small country to add to the places I've been.

Some Andorra facts: Population 74,000. Area: 181 sq. miles. According to nationmaster.com (I never heard of it either), tourism is 80% of its GDP.

So anyway, we rented a car, bought plane tickets to Barcelona and train tickets from Santiago to Madrid. We leave tomorrow, an hour and a half after leaving work.

After this week, I'm ready for a vacation. I can't complain too much, given that I work about 15 hours a week. But we're rehearsing English-language theater (did I mention that I wrote 5 plays?), and it's getting dispiriting hearing the lack of progress. The kids can't seem to understand that you need to pronounce the entire word, not just the first syllable. They do it in Spanish, but that's no excuse. They're especially wild, with the onset of warm weather, and we're down two teachers - Steven is recovering from his injury and Juan Bosco's wife just had twins. Plus, I made one of my favorite kids cry.

Ismael, who is a special-needs third-grader, speaks comically slowly but is really sweet when he's able to focus on something. He also gets really nervous, so when I asked him to get up on stage with the rest of the kids to practice the play, he burst out into tears. Sheesh.

But today, one of my other favorite kids, adorable Maria Carmen (again, a not-so-bright third-grader) made up for a particularly bratty performance by her class by, well, reaching out and taking my face in her hands as she said goodbye to me at the end of the school day. I was sitting in my chair, looking at my notebook, saying absent-minded goodbyes, and it took my off-guard. I think she just wanted to touch my still-awkward beard, but she grinned with impish eyes and crooked teeth, and melted my bad mood.

Anyhow, I'm bringing my laptop with me, and I'll try to update from the road occasionally. Until then, I gotta pack.

Andorra, bitches!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I honored St. Patrick's Day by drinking copious amounts of alcohol and playing Whisky in the Jar on guitar. Actually, that's how I spend most of my days (just kidding, Mom, if you read this! And actually, it was just two cans of Guinness.)

In school, it was a little strange because I was asked to explain St. Patrick's day in America and Ireland. So I retold the legends of expelling the snakes and equating the holy three-for-one sale with a shamrock. Which meant actually explaining the holy Trinity and acting out the scene a little, playing the Irish who said 'I don't get it', and the patient Saint picking up a shamrock to explain how three things can be separate but part of the same whole. It was like being a Sunday school teacher for a day. Some people laughed when I said 'Holy Ghost.' I thought that was a thing. Is it not a thing? (Also, the niños seemed more interested in asking me personal questions, several times asking me to spell my name, whether I had a girlfriend, how old she was, who left who, what my name is in Spanish, etc. It was like Day 1 all over again).

In other news, my American friend who was stabbed has recovered somewhat and is out of the hospital. Hurray!

This weekend we're planning a potluck. We'll, I'm planning it, and somewhat haphazardly. I hope it works out, with a good mix of food and Spaniards and Americans. I'm going to cook rabbit.

It's official! I'm going to go ahead and declare that I've achieved my monthsold dream of becoming a mediocre guitar player! Hopefully I'll rise to competence before leaving. I've learned 'Don't Think Twice, It's All Right' by Bob Dylan (of course, not up to speed, but with all the flourishes and fiddly bits intact), and in the process learned fingerpicking style. Next I'll work on Stairway to Heaven. I also found an Irish guitar music podcast which I may listen to semi-regularly.

Yesterday was quite warm. I put on shorts and sat out on our little balcony over the street reading about the Spanish Civil War. I had a pint of cold Guinness and a cheap hat to keep the sun out of my eyes. After about two hours, I was feeling sun-baked and went inside for a nap. A real siesta! Ian and Danial and I watched Alice in Wonderland later, and I'd lowered my expectations enough to be able to enjoy it. It was so-so, with good moments and bad, but I still disagree with the decision to make it into a fairly conventional good-vs-evil quest story (and combined with the Jabberwocky, no less!). The elements of madness and craziness in the story thus were reduced to quirks and window-dressing on a bland, but good-looking movie.

February is over

This week has been a downer because the other American teacher at my school was stabbed in Granda. It looks like a mugging attempt. He'll recover without permanent damage, but it's still upsetting. (Sorry, all, for starting off with crummy news. But it's the most important thing, and I don't want to bury the lede.) I visited him in the hospital Tuesday, and although he was able to joke about it, he was clearly in pain, and worn out.

The sick thing is, one of my first reactions - once I was certain he'd be okay - was jealousy. I mean, that would be an adventure to tell people about! But mostly, I feel like I should be helping somehow, but can't figure out what to do.

Otherwise, not much is new here under the Martos sun (what little I've seen of it with all the rain). Almost immediately after setting what seemed like an impossible goal of practing guitar for an hour a day, I upgraded to 1.5 hours, and I'm actually following through with it. I'm getting good! Recently I've been obsessed with Whiskey in the Jar, but I'm trying to adapt a hybrid of the many versions, something that I can sing with, even though I hate the sound of my own voice. I like singing, even if I stink.

Since coming here, I decided to shift my attitude toward producing more and worryingless about perfecting things (mostly in writing, but in music too). It worked for poems for a while, and it works for guitar, because I have fun with the process as much as with the end result, but so far, it hasn't translated into writing fiction, or blogging, or travel stories, or email.

The excess of free time, combined with lack of money, is weird. I have so much freedom in terms of time, but so little otherwise - I can't really travel, or buy books, for example. I can't go out in Jaen, the regular-sized city next door, on weekends because the buses stop running at 9 p.m. I definitely have made gains (guitar, poems), but I still feel sluggish, as though my emotional metabolism has slowed to match the pace of my isolation.

On the other hand, teaching is still fun, and I haven't ruled out trying to come back next year. I'd try for another place, somewhere a little less sleepy, but I'd lose the advantage of living with friends. Ideally, I'd have some side work to keep me busy and give me a little extra cash. Freelance writing perhaps, or freelance copy editing. Anybody got ideas?

One of my students wrote this answer on a quiz: "It's quarter past o'clock." That's kind of how I feel; stuck in time, but not entirely unenjoyably. Tomorrow I'm finally going to Ubeda and Baeza, two Renaissance towns nearby that are World Heritage Sites. It may take me a month, but eventually I'll let you know how it went.

Romantic Leads Who Are Also Psychopaths

The Onion's AV Club gives us the 24 least lovable characters in a romantic comedy.

Quick, can you guess which movie has a "premise is so odious that any other irritations the characters might have just become more moss picked up by a giant, rolling ball of shit."?

I love me a good takedown.

Bitter Kas

I've been looking for root beer for a while, hoping to make a root beer float. Dan & Poonam, remembering this, saw an unknown soda in the grocery store and decided to take a chance on a can, thinking it might be root beer, and if not, we could try something new.

Well, if you're ever in Spain, and curious about the soda called Bitter Kas, let me save you the trouble. This stuff is terrible.


"Based on how pretty it is, and red, I thought it would taste like strawberries," Poonam said. "It tasted like the aftertaste of cough syrup mixed with Windex."

"Bitter. Earthy. Definitely like biting into a gross root of something," was Dan's take. He later compared it to the taste of a new and green tree branch.

Ian said it was "kind of like mashed-up dandelions, but not as sweet as you'd expect it to be."

Before tossing it down the sink, I took another sip, just to make sure it was really that bad.
My reaction? Blech. Too gross for words.

2010 Goals

I was making a list of goals for 2010, and aside from the obvious ones that I make every year (procrastinate less, floss daily, get in a little better shape, write a page of fiction a day), I've got three new big ones. Four, I guess, if you count improving Spanish. But this year, I want to get better at guitar. "Good" may be out of reach, but perhaps "mediocre" or "decent" could be achieved. I've made a couple of stabs at it in the past, figuring it would be a somewhat natural step up from the bass, but never made it to the point where I'd acquired callouses that would allow me to practice regularly. I'd play a bunch, then my fingers would blister, and after the requisite couple of days off, I would forget about the guitar. This time, I've had two advantages - a quality roommate with a quality guitar (a tip of my cheapo hipster hat to Ian!) and loads of free time. Not much money, friends, or general entertainment options to distract me here! Once I got to the point where I could play regularly, I found that I rather enjoyed it. Make no mistake, I am still pretty bad, but improvement is coming slowly.

So my goals for 2010 include practicing an average of half an hour a day - 3.5 hours per week. Then I saw something online that reminded me of Malcolm Gladwell's rule of thumb for the amount of time needed to become an "expert" at something (from Outliers, I think. I haven't read it). At this rate, I'll only need 55 years to become a master (i.e., the Beatles at the start of their breakout period)! I've ramped up my goal to an hour a day, so that I can shred like a master at the tender young at of 52.

But hey, Christopher Lee is recording a "symphonic metal" concept album about the life of Charlemagne and he's 87.

The second new(ish) goal this year is to get my motorcycle license. It's been on my list of Things to Do by the Time I'm 25 for a while, so it's date is coming due. The only other real holdover was Write A Book, which I did, sort of, this year when I finished a 70-page poetry collection for a submission to a competition for never-published Latino poets. You can read some excerpts in my poetry/fiction blog! (Also, big thanks to Dorcinda, for posting it for me). I've included the goal of buying a motorcycle, but given the fact that I'll like arrive back stateside with $500 and no job, that may not be realistic. But I've been researching motorcycles (and how to ride/maintain them) online, and I'm encouraged to find several well-reviewed brand-new models for under $5,000, and three around $3,000. Still, since my car went kaput while I was in Spain, I'll need some form of transportation.

The third new goal is also something of a budget problem, but I want to attend a fairly prestigious writing workshop with the goal of getting a good teacher recommendation. I'm on the fence about applying to grad school for an MFA in Fiction, but I'd like to have the option open. I know that, money-wise, it's not a good investment, but I feel stuck in my lack of career given the economic collapse in general and the newspaper crash in particular. My plan, if you can even call it that at this point, is to research the prestigious programs that are free or include tuition-canceling teaching positions and apply only to those. Of course, those are really hard to get into, and even with a good recommendation, I might strike out on all of them. And even if I get it, it probably won't magically get me a book deal, but it will open up doors for teaching, give me some contacts, and some new friends to make up for the steady stream of the ones who move away. Plus I'll be forced to write more regularly.

But who knows, maybe the NYPD thing will work out and I'll be patrolling the streets of New York in a year.

Happy New(ish) Year! And Ireland, part I

Much catching up to do.

Most fun I've had in 2010: learning the Misfits' One Last Caress on acoustic guitar, using full chords rather than power chords. Hilarity! It sounds so much brighter with full major chords, with is an even more fun contrast with the words (ex: "I raped your mother today, and it didn't matter much to me as long as she spread").

Least fun I've had in 2010: The rain and the cold, especially cold apartment and cold showers. And the constant fuse-blowing despite using very little electricity. Also, not having been paid since Dec. 2, and a bank account running on empty since getting to Ireland (many thanks to Becky, D & P, and mom for the help this past month!). Seriously, the cold is more of a presence than it ever was in New York, because even though it was colder, there was always a warm place to go back to. This apartment, with gas-heated water and puny spacer heaters that have recently been tripping fuses left and right, can be really uncomfortable.

In December, I visited Ireland for the first time, along with Becky, the other American teacher who lives in Martos (other, as in aside from my three roommates).
It had its ups and downs, (I missed my friends and family) but overall a blast.

First up was Belfast, were we took a black cab tour of the neighborhoods around the "Peace Wall" which was erected 40 years ago to separate the warring Catholic (and pro-Irish independence) and Protestant (and pro-British unity) factions. Lots of info and notes from there, but I'm not quite sure what to do with them, I think I may do more research on the Troubles before writing more. The people at our hostel were pretty cool, and we saw some good live Irish music at the pub recommended by the hostel manager.

(This mural, in the Protestant neighborhood of Shankill, had a neat visual trick, where the gunman seemed to be aiming for you wherever you walked).


From Belfast we took a bus tour to see a ruined castle and then the Giant's Causeway, one of the most famous places to visit in Ireland. The Causeway is a rocky beach formed by hexagonal stones and columns. There are supposedly 40,000 columns, formed ages ago when molten basalt cooled after coming into contact with the ocean.




It gets its name from a legend in which Irish giant Finn McCool built a bridge to Scotland in order to fight the Scottish giant Benandonner. Benandonner accepted McCool's challenge and began to walk across. But when Finn McCool saw how enormous his enemy was, he realized he couldn't beat him, and ran to his wife, Oonagh, for help. Oonagh disguised her husband as a baby and built a crib for him near the shore. When Benandonner reach the Irish shore, he asked Oonagh where he might find McCool. Oonagh told him that he was out hunting to get food for his wife and baby, but would return soon. Seeing the size of the infant, and fearing to face the father of such an enormous baby, Benandonner fled back to Scotland, tearing up the bridge behind him. All that remains are the parts on either end - a similar, though smaller rock formation occurs on the southwest Scottish coast. There are other variations of the story, but this one is simplest and has all the most commonly used elements.