Teach Your Children

I like to think that life is full of experiences that, be they good or bad, have value we can take away from them. But there are some experiences so difficult, so stressful, or so overwhelming that I question whether I'm truly better off for having lived them. Knowing full well how melodramatic this sounds, teaching English to a class of six-year-olds was one of those experiences for me. It was only four-hours of work a day for four weeks, and it paid quite well, but there moments when I soberly considered walking away and never looking back - having to babysit twelve spoiled Catalan children will do that to you.



In fact, the job basically consumed my day-to-day life: I thought about the job whether I was there or not - not because I liked it, mind you, but because I was constantly thinking about how I would keep my students from destroying the classroom for another day. Because make no mistake: these kids may look cute in these pictures, but they were little devils whenever I had to get them to do something, (i.e. the only way I could get them to stand still in the picture above was to allow them to climb on top of the piano located in my classroom for God only knows why). You get my drift: this job was probably the more effective in postponing my eventual (?) parenthood than a thousand Planned Parenthood infomercials.



Marina (pictures above), for example: although probably my favorite of the little buggers, was an absolute terror in class: she would, at random, begin dancing in the middle of the room and even picked fights with the class bully, Soufian. Once she even told everyone that he had farted so that no one in the class would sit next to him - that was a lot of fun. I had to send her outside the room at least once every day, but I'll probably miss her the most.



Then there's this little punk, Marc, who always met me with the exact same greeting that he displays in the picture above: the good-old Fist Pound. He would try to act cool with me to seem like a badass to his peers, who he hit and kicked constantly. At the very least, though, I could always get him to stop whatever he was doing simply by offering him a Fist Pound.



Then there's these two lovely little shits: Aleix (the boy) and Sarah (the girl). Aleix fancied himself something of a class clown but I always played jokes on him in front of the class to beat him at his own game. As for Sarah, she once told me she was in love with me, which could go a long way towards explaining her borderline schizophrenic behavior in class. A massive control freak, she would begin every day by trying to help me keep the class neat and organized, but the very second that order broke down in the room she would immediately become part of the chaos, yelling at the other students and stealing crayons like some kind of infant John Dillinger.



Then there's Caesar, who I believe might be mentally retarded and who happened to attack me violently every single time we saw each other from the first time to the last. Can't say I'll be missing him very much. That said, Caesar was, like the rest of these children, a part of the experience.

Pictures of You

I never thought myself the type to look through old photographs, probably because I never thought of myself as very sentimental. Even the digital camera I brought with me seemed more for the benefit of my friends and family back home than for my own personal reminiscing. But goodbyes tend to change that, and when you've been through about six of them in the span of a month, it can be harder to fight off that urge to revel in nostalgia.

Writer's Block

As usual I have been doing too much living and not enough blogging (or is that the other way around?), so I thought I would share some pictures from a few places I've traveled to:

Andorra - this is a very small country near the French border of Barcelona that survives almost solely on tourism for its nice sky slopes. As in most countries that depend on tourism, Andorrans are really mean to tourists. Apparently its citizens don't pay taxes, and the national language is Catalan, two reasons for which Cristina would like to live there. Me, I'd rather just go there to sky every one in a while, but I have to admit it’s nice to not pay sales tax on anything. Cigarettes, especially, are really cheap.





Sitges - this is a small beach town south of Barcelona known primarily as a haven for bourgeois gay people. It's a really nice place to take a breather from the (relatively!) big city-ness of Barcelona, and I went there with some friends to do just that. Also, it is known for having a great Carnival celebration. What is Carnival, you ask? It's essentially Marti Gras for Catholics, and yet (another) excuse for everyone to get drunk and dress up in crazy costumes. It was fun, but Sitges is a bit too small to handle that type of craziness, and it filled up waayy too much with drunken idiots. Who would have known?







Valencia - Cristina's dad is technically from a village on the Valencian side of the Valencia/Catalunya border, but he apparently is ashamed of it and just says he's Catalan. Valencians and Catalans don't get along very well, partly because Valencians speak a dialect of Catalan that they *think* should be its own language. Language politics in Spain are kind of ridiculous sometimes, because "Valencian" is exactly the same fucking thing as Catalan. Anyway, what the Hell was I talking about? Oh yeah, so Valencia the city (not the region) isn't all that special, but they have an awesome festival every year called Las Fallas, in which they build giant statue-type things and then set them on fire. Not a bad idea, eh? The Fallas (as they’re called) are massive, sometimes as big as a six-story building.










Florence – Italy reminds me more of Mexico every time I go back. The really nice people are from the more dangerous areas in the south where the Mafia runs everything (just like the Narcos run every thing in the most open and friendly parts of Mexico) and the more safe parts of both countries are so touristic it’s almost embarrassing. Florence is probably a bit of both: the center has more Americans than Italians in it, and getting into the museums is almost impossible because you have to wait a minimum of three hours in the giant lines filled with student groups. Some of those students basically treat the entire thing like a vacation – for example, we met a bunch of Swiss German architecture students who were ridiculously drunk at a bar on our last night in Florence, and they were actually quite nice, but very, very drunk. I didn't manage to get any pictures of them. I did get quite a few nice scenery pictures, though, and a picture of the statue of David that I had to take very covertly because there are many undercover Picture Preventers in the museum that houses it. Here it is:

London's Burning/Appartment Story

OK, a little obvious on the titles, right? Hey, at least I didn't go with "London Calling" or "Our House." Anyway, as the title suggests, this is a dual themed post, partly about my new apartment ("piso" ie; "flat" in Spanish parlance) as well as the recent trip I took to London. However, I don't feel like writing very much, so it will be more of a photo essay. I know, very disappointing.



The new apartment is two bedrooms, each of them very spacious and with double beds. Andrea is a little miffed that the kitchen doesn't have an oven, and it will probably get hot in the summer since it's located in the interior. Otherwise, I can't really imagine how it could be any better. I get a balcony(!) connected to my room (the photo up top is my view of the street) which means I finally can wake up with a general sense of what time it is. This may not seem like much to those of you living in decent conditions, but keep in mind that I've previously lived in what was essentially a closet for seven months.





The location might be a slightly trickier issue. It's within walking distance of my university, but it's also smack dab in the middle of El Raval, whose legend as Barcelona's "slum neighborhood" has grown to mythical heights over the years in correlation with a huge influx of Pakistani immigrants who now dominate its local culture. Cristina is frightened of even venturing there in midday, but since she never goes there I think her attitude is more the result of all the horror stories she's heard than personal experience. To me, so far, all this talk about how dangerous it is amounts to little more than xenophobia and a little mystification for the tourists, but I guess I could get robbed tomorrow and have a different point of view. For now, I feel quite relaxed in my neighborhood, and if children and (pictured below) the elderly find it safe enough to stroll through during the day, then I think I can as well.



El Raval also features some of the city's coolest graffiti. Here you have a picture characterizing the Hindu God Ganesh wielding the twin weapons of Barcelona's counterculture: Marijuana and Che Guevara:



As for London, I had a really good time there, it's a beautiful city ect. all, but seriously, what the Hell is going on with the extreme sense of social control there? You're constantly being told to do something, whether it's "mind the gap" in the subway (a voice literally repeats this to you ten times whenever you enter or exit) or the constant display of security cameras everywhere. I don't know about the rest of the UK, but London is basically 1984 brought to life, especially because they're so obvious about telling you that you're being watched. Like in Michel Foucault's panopticon, the actual surveillance is secondary to the effect that surveillance causes.



This sign illustrates what I'm talking about rather poetically.



Some people may like this sense of security, I guess, but I find extremely uncomfortable. What's more, the English seem to be masters of a studied "fake nice" demeanor where they try to smile and be "friendly" while saying mean or unkind things to you instead of just telling it like it is like the Spanish do. Combined with the abysmal whether, I can't imagine ever living there, but it definitely was nice to see another culture, especially one that pretty much produced the one I come from (that's America, in case you're having trouble following me).



Plus, I got to see the legendary Rough Trade record shop. Rough Trade was the first truly independent record company to support punk and indy rock groups in the late seventies and early eighties, and the store itself is kind of a bohemian hangout with a cafe in the back. They sell all kinds of hard-to-find records and shirts, so it's like a little hidden oasis for someone like me.