Too Little Time
I feel like I am always running these days, but those of you who really know me, know that generally, when I am really satisfied, that is the way my life is going.
The TEFL course that I am taking is 2/3 over and it just gets more and more intense. It is nice to be learning and see improvement in my teaching. All the students are like one big happy family now. We are all usually at school for 12+ hours a day, stressing out together, fighting over the computers and trying to figure out the photocopier. It is fun to watch everyone grow as a teacher, and each major project we finish and turn in calls for a beer (although I often bail out on the offer in order to sleep and try to get a workout in the next morning).
Speaking of working out, I have decided to take the apprenticeship with Firefly Dance Co. in NYC starting in January. That puts a slight shift on everything around here. First of all, I want to not only stay in shape, but get into better shape so when I start training many hours a day, I won´t end up hating it or worse, injured. Also, the knowledge that I am only here for another 2 months and not some indefinite length of time changes the way I see everything. I need to decide if I want to stay in Barcelona after the course ends in 10 days or if I should move elsewhere. I have made some friends here, but no one I´m really attached to. I have a couple people I´ve made plans to do an english/spanish conversation practice exchange with, and I don´t really want to leave that, but I could find that again fairly easily, I think, cuz there are tons of people here that study english and want native speakers to practice with.
Housing here is expensive and there aren´t really jobs for Americans like there are for EU folks, and even those are hard to come by because there is so much competition. If I can´t find work and I am just going to study spanish, paying city prices is kind of ridiculous, but moving again is a pain and staying in a hotel while i get myself situated again is also a cost i have to take into account.
It´s all so tricky, and my plan to stay for 3 months now seems silly because this extra 7 weeks after the course is a long time but not really long enough to get a job and support myself.
If anyone has advice or info or encouraging words, feel free to email me or put comments on my blog page.
As far as interesting things, I went to the First Annual Barcelona Contact Improvisation Festival last weekend and it was nice. I met some great people and apparently there is a pretty happening CI scene in Barcelona. (For those of you unfamiliar, contact improv is a dance/movement form that can´t be explained and has to be experienced). It took place in this beautiful place just outside of the city, and we could look out the window, through the beautiful mountains at Barcelona and see the Meditteranean beyond, glowing at sunset. It was beautiful. The people that lived in this place didn´t own it, but were just "squatting" (staying there illegally) and were almost totally self-sustaining, growing their own food and creating space for community activities. About 25 people lived there and it was amazing. Quite a nice old, 3-story building that i think used to be part of an old hospital or something. It was a memorable experience, although there were moments when I felt really out-of-place. I think that is normal with all new people, new customs and languages.
I´m starting to be really convinced about this whole global warming thing. I´ve been reading some articles and it has been raining here like never before, flooding in some places and after the latest "natural" disasters in the states and other places...we are really messing up this planet. There was just an article today in The Guardian about Antartica and the temperature change down there, and how if every year the ice melts a little, it warms the whole planet up and causes a chain reaction because we need the ice to reflect the sun, or it´ll just keep getting hotter, and melt more ice and have less ice to reflect the sun....and you can see where that is leading. We´re in deep shit, I think.
So the moral of the story is, make the most of today, and don´t take your friends for granted. I think those are the lessons I´m learning.
I think that is all for now. It seems I am usually tired and running and every phone card I buy to call you guys back home has a problem. If you want my cell number, email me and i´ll send it to you. I´ll be back in the states for xmas and then I move to NY dec. 30, 2005. Crazy.
Much love,
Louise
The TEFL course that I am taking is 2/3 over and it just gets more and more intense. It is nice to be learning and see improvement in my teaching. All the students are like one big happy family now. We are all usually at school for 12+ hours a day, stressing out together, fighting over the computers and trying to figure out the photocopier. It is fun to watch everyone grow as a teacher, and each major project we finish and turn in calls for a beer (although I often bail out on the offer in order to sleep and try to get a workout in the next morning).
Speaking of working out, I have decided to take the apprenticeship with Firefly Dance Co. in NYC starting in January. That puts a slight shift on everything around here. First of all, I want to not only stay in shape, but get into better shape so when I start training many hours a day, I won´t end up hating it or worse, injured. Also, the knowledge that I am only here for another 2 months and not some indefinite length of time changes the way I see everything. I need to decide if I want to stay in Barcelona after the course ends in 10 days or if I should move elsewhere. I have made some friends here, but no one I´m really attached to. I have a couple people I´ve made plans to do an english/spanish conversation practice exchange with, and I don´t really want to leave that, but I could find that again fairly easily, I think, cuz there are tons of people here that study english and want native speakers to practice with.
Housing here is expensive and there aren´t really jobs for Americans like there are for EU folks, and even those are hard to come by because there is so much competition. If I can´t find work and I am just going to study spanish, paying city prices is kind of ridiculous, but moving again is a pain and staying in a hotel while i get myself situated again is also a cost i have to take into account.
It´s all so tricky, and my plan to stay for 3 months now seems silly because this extra 7 weeks after the course is a long time but not really long enough to get a job and support myself.
If anyone has advice or info or encouraging words, feel free to email me or put comments on my blog page.
As far as interesting things, I went to the First Annual Barcelona Contact Improvisation Festival last weekend and it was nice. I met some great people and apparently there is a pretty happening CI scene in Barcelona. (For those of you unfamiliar, contact improv is a dance/movement form that can´t be explained and has to be experienced). It took place in this beautiful place just outside of the city, and we could look out the window, through the beautiful mountains at Barcelona and see the Meditteranean beyond, glowing at sunset. It was beautiful. The people that lived in this place didn´t own it, but were just "squatting" (staying there illegally) and were almost totally self-sustaining, growing their own food and creating space for community activities. About 25 people lived there and it was amazing. Quite a nice old, 3-story building that i think used to be part of an old hospital or something. It was a memorable experience, although there were moments when I felt really out-of-place. I think that is normal with all new people, new customs and languages.
I´m starting to be really convinced about this whole global warming thing. I´ve been reading some articles and it has been raining here like never before, flooding in some places and after the latest "natural" disasters in the states and other places...we are really messing up this planet. There was just an article today in The Guardian about Antartica and the temperature change down there, and how if every year the ice melts a little, it warms the whole planet up and causes a chain reaction because we need the ice to reflect the sun, or it´ll just keep getting hotter, and melt more ice and have less ice to reflect the sun....and you can see where that is leading. We´re in deep shit, I think.
So the moral of the story is, make the most of today, and don´t take your friends for granted. I think those are the lessons I´m learning.
I think that is all for now. It seems I am usually tired and running and every phone card I buy to call you guys back home has a problem. If you want my cell number, email me and i´ll send it to you. I´ll be back in the states for xmas and then I move to NY dec. 30, 2005. Crazy.
Much love,
Louise
posted by Louise Lovelle @ 10:20 AM
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