El Palo Tour- My School

A couple notes: yes, we did go to English and no, no one was there. That kid Tony really did just start following us around because he was excited that we were speaking English. 

Also... I'm having Thanksgiving with my host family and some exchange student friends on Thursday, so pictures are to come. 

An Update in My Life

So, this is yet another video update, it gets a bit more personal than a travel blog should but just keep in mind that you don't have to watch this. Also I apologize for the turtleneck.

Solitude is Bliss

Thank you all very much for the birthday wishes/presents/cards/letters. I had an excellent time celebrating turning 17 here in Spain. I'm very happy right now, which is good. I'm also learning life lessons all over the place, which is also good.
I was Skyping my mom last night and, being the Journalism Mom (like a Dance Mom but not really at all) that she is, she asked me what kind of article I'd write about my experience here so far. I laughed at that for a bit, but then I thought about it seriously. What would I write about? I could definitely compose a solid list of complaints or gush for pages about everything I love, but that's not exactly something worth publishing. After a couple minutes I said that, if I had to be entirely honest, I'd write about what it's like to be alone.
I've felt alone at many points in my life at varying levels of intensity. There was the time I got lost in the woods in Canada, the first time I was left home alone by myself, when I went to Washington DC without my family, all the times I feel left out of a conversation, etc. But never have I ever been as alone as I am right now. It's not even a bad thing- I actually rather enjoy it. It's an educational thing, really, and it's teaching me to be comfortable with myself.
I have always been a pretty independent person, but I never really even knew what that meant before coming here. I have always (mostly) made my own decisions. But until Spain, I had always unknowingly been influenced by something or someone. I knew the social norms of where I lived, what my friends and family thought, what I was predicted or expected to do, how the people around me would react to different things. Here I have none of that knowledge. This may be inconvenient, being surrounded by completely foreign ideas and people all day long, when all I want to do is hug my little sister or have a nice peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but it can also be beneficial. In many ways, it has freed me. I am still held to a certain standard by my host family and by myself, but I am also largely allowed to do what I want and find out who I really am.
Being yourself is hard when people who you've known for years and years already have an idea of who they think you are. Being yourself is easy when you don't have the language skills, energy or memory capacity to pretend to be anyone else for longer than a minute or so. I can't remember the difference between "cuchara" and "cuchillo" (words I use rather frequently) so I definitely can't remember the difference between all the different ways I present myself when speaking to different people. I am forced to wear one face because not only am I too tired to keep track of a bunch of different identities, but I really only want to be one person; myself.
When I was younger someone told me that in elementary school you find your role as a family member, in middle school you find your role as a friend, and in high school you find your role as yourself. I think that was one of the main reasons I so frequently separated myself from everyone when I was still in Bend (that, and the fact that I don't tend to like most people, so if I've given you this link feel special cos it must mean I like you)- it's impossible to get to know yourself if you are constantly surrounded by people with their own opinions, way of speaking, life goals, etc. People don't realize how great of an influence the people you interact with have on you. Being alone is very important when you are trying to figure out who you are. Here in Spain, I spend a lot of time both physically and mentally alone. It takes me 45 minutes in the morning to take the bus to school and most of the time I don't see anyone I know on my commute, which means I get some good thinking time in. Also most of the time I get very frustrated not being able to understand anything that's going on when everyone's speaking in rapid Andalucian Spanish, so I remove my thoughts from the conversation and get some good thinking time in then, too. I've learned some  very important things about myself from all this thinking time. For instance, I may be regarded as intelligent by some but I am definitely not an academic; an important distinction, as choosing a college used to be based on academics for me but now I know I'd rather choose based on the experience it can give me.
Another way being alone has made me get to know myself is by seeing how I handle challenges and struggles. My whole life is a challenge right now- unless you have ever been in a scarily similar situation to mine, you cannot understand how difficult it is not understanding the language, social norms, grading system, anything about the place you are now LIVING in- and as a result much of what I do defines who I am. Dealing with a tough situation brings out who we really are, I've always thought, and the fact that I'm doing it all on my own has helped me realize a great deal of things about myself that I wouldn't have been able to learn had someone been helping me. For instance, when a friend of mine lost her wallet on a long-gone bus I learned that I'm actually an optimist when I immediately began listing off solutions and ways to fix this and how she could get her wallet back and who we could call, etc. That was huge for me, because my melancholiness has always tricked me into believing I'm a pessimist. In reality, I'm just a slightly sad optimist.
I've always enjoyed being alone, but here solitude is more than just bliss; it's an important way for me to learn who I am. I am becoming less and less defined by the people I surround myself with and the places I go and more and more defined by me.

Picture Update!

This is a picture of my dear friend Francesca and some juice. But this isn't just any juice- this is two liters of straight-up juice nectar for 85 cents at the Supersol down the street from our bus stop. Francesca and I recently started teaching an English class four days a week after school, and on the way home we always stop at the Supersol and get whatever juice is on sale and either crackers, fruit, or cookies. We have to eat lunch at school and we never seem to be full after (probably because our families eat at home and we just pack a sandwich for after school), so this is a good way to tide over our hunger until dinner at nine.

The classroom that serves as our English teaching room. It's in the beauty school right below our high school (literally right below- we have to walk by it on our way to gym), and the students that we teach go to the beauty school, too. Francesca and I teach two classes two days a week, one Mondays and Wednesdays and the other Tuesdays and Thursdays. So far it has been a source of stress as the students are very unpredictable about when they show up- if they show up at all. Half the time I end up going home at 4 instead of 5 because no one showed up. But hopefully we'll get a steady flow of students in the next month and everything will be easy and all that jazz.

Though we're not even a month from Christmas, one of my favorite Navidad treats is called Mantecado (pronnounced "mahn-tay-cow") and we went into a small town about an hour and a half from Malaga to go to this special shop just to buy mantecado. That may sound a bit ridiculous, but these things are so good it was totally worth it. I don't even know how to explain what Mantecado is. It's not like anything I'd ever tasted before. It also comes in different flavors, though my favorite is chocolate with these little chocolate chips that are so good! It's kind of like a cookie but more crumbly and it has the consistency of brown sugar I guess. Maybe I'll bring some home.

After we bought mantecado we went with my host family and Isabel's mom and brother and their families to a restaurant with all these awesome old artifacts. I made Ana pose with several of them and each time she chose a seated apparition and pretended to be asleep. She cracks me up every day and is so much fun! I'm so glad I have a host sister, especially one as funny as Ana. 

Francesca and I were very sad on Halloween because we realized that there was no such thing as an American Halloween in Spain. So, we decided to create our own! We bought all the different American kinds of candy at the Supersol and dressed up as Americans (which pretty much just meant carrying around a small American flag and singing American songs). Our friends found it super entertaining and couldn't stop laughing the entire night.

The eve of Halloween- this was in the Centro at probably 11 or 12 at night. The girl on the left is Inma and the girl on the right is Patri. They're both friends from school and some of the sweetest people I have ever met. We stayed out til 2 that night, which was surprising considering it was a Monday night but we had both Monday and Tuesday off for a holiday. We like to joke that Monday was to get us prepped for partying and Tuesday was to let us recover from the partying. Either way we got a four day weekend just for Halloween. I'm not arguing with why we got it.

A little something I like to call "Language Cock Block"

So, apparently I'm not posting on Mondays or Thursdays. Or maybe I am and I just screwed this week up. Either way, I apologize for the lack of updates this week. I just know you all were sitting on the edge of your seats waiting to hear from me (that was sarcasm, by the way). I'd also like to warn you that though my mood and well-being has greatly improved since last week, I'm still a bit crabby. If you want a more detailed recollection of how I've gotten over my severe case of homesickness/bitterness, feel free to email me.
Also, I'd like to mention two very important events that are surrounding today- my One Month, which was on Tuesday, and my birthday, which is on Thursday. I will be 17 which is a big deal- it means I'm finally legal in the wizarding world! Yay, me. If you happen to have any presents or letters or cards ask my mother how to address them, as I haven't the foggiest how to do it. I know you need the address itself and then there's something to do with my host dad's name and I don't know what it is but my mom does so just ask her. Not that I expect presents or letters or cards. Honest, I don't. Though some birthday wishes would definitely be appreciated considering I'm alone in a foreign country.
Something that's been on my mind lately is how much of a language barrier there still is between me and everyone else in Spain. Before I came here I was sure I'd be able to understand everything everyone said. I was a pro at Spanish- never mind what everyone was telling me about the impossible Andalucian accent, I'd kick butt and wow all those Spaniards with my language skills.
Boy, was I wrong. Sure, my Spanish was more than adequate in the US, but in the big scheme of things I'd taken four years of language from non-native Spanish speakers in Oregon public schools and could barely pick out fragments of words in sentences spat at me my first week here. I adapted the bad habit of smiling and nodding, not knowing what I was agreeing to. It was embarrassing, to say the least. But it proved those theories stating that immersion in a Spanish speaking country was the best way to learn the language.
Now, a month later, I've drastically improved but I'm still not fluent by any means. My friends and host family still need to speak slowly and choose their words carefully in order for us to have a normal conversation. Even with that, being surrounded all day every day by people and books and signs and all that written or spoken in a completely different language is one of the most exhausting things ever. Sometimes it gets me down, and I feel like I try so hard all the time but with no success. Other times I look back on how much I've improved and I feel good about myself. It's a new feeling for sure. Language has never been a problem for me- I was always that annoying kid who looked forward to the spelling bee and corrected my teachers on their grammar. Here, my nine-year-old host sister is constantly providing me with the right word or verb conjugation or even phrase.
I've found ways to adapt to not being able to communicate, though. I am now probably the best charades player you will ever meet, and I will never again feel ridiculous about making insane gestures or word combinations in public. I've figured out that I can just get straight to the point to avoid making vague conversation (the hardest kind of conversation to make and, I've realized, the most pointless). I'm figuring out how to use my Spanish as well as I can and even communicate without words. Until I'm fluent, though, all I can really do is watch Phineas and Ferb in dubbed Spanish and write down awkward translations on top of all my tests.