new word of great importance

Sartenazo.

It's a blow from a frying pan.

in praise of breakfast sausage

This has been the week of Lang-8. Lang-8 (which I've mentioned before, but bear with me) is a language-learning site, as well as sort of a social networking site. . . and, once you've decided to sit down and do it, madly addictive. I would say that it's inherently more awkward than Facebook, just because criticism and cultural collision are sort of an integral part of how it's set up.

batteries

are "pilas." not batterias.

in related news, dear convenience store worker, please don't make me feel stupid when there are approximately five other convenience stores within similar distance.

I smell like cigarette smoke

and. . . I still think my Spanish is improving.

ugh yeah

I just barely managed to get my photos up on facebook, so I don't know when the next blog entry is coming.

However, weird comment: I have started (well, actually this happened a while ago) to say "grathias" instead of "gracias" when I go to the grocery store/sandwich shop-bakery place. My accent is still kind of untenable, but I try to hide it here and there.

(In case you didn't get that: In basically all the Spain-Spanish that I've heard, the "s"-ish sounds -- made by s, c, and z -- all sound like "th." Unlike what I was told in high school Spanish, it's not a thing they do in Barcelona, because they speak Catalan in Barcelona. Barcelona is just one word that you can hear it in. And "d" sounds like "th" -- entrada is "entratha.")

I still can't make the real "j" sound, which is like the "ch" sound in German, generating somewhere in the back of the throat, or roll an r convincingly.

sometimes it just works

The neuter gender in Spanish, from About.com. After three.5 years of high school Spanish and a semester of college Spanish, I had *never* seen this in a textbook, but I have read it/heard it multiple times.

Yay for learning!

random notes

One: Realized something terrible today, i.e. that for some portions of Madrid's male population mullets are acceptable. NOT OKAY. I even saw one mullet that was shaved all around and then had lots of little skinny dreadlocks in the back. GROSS.

Two: Purchased bus tickets to Granada and back for the weekend of August 14-15. They were 30 euros (as compared to 37 euros online.) WHOOOO.

Three: For another personal treat, I bought myself an ice tray.

Four: I now have a tumblr, contemplating chicken. Taking a cue from a fellow design student/friend, I plan to use it to make note of images I find interesting/inspiring.

Five: One of my fellow Fenbeings, who happens to be Puerto Rican, commented once, "I don't know why they teach coche and carro as words for car in American Spanish classes. No one says coche! Maybe they say it in Spain." YES THEY DO. I HEARD THEM.

organizing my desktop/brain for some serious sketching

One lesson I forgot from yesterday: Do not believe you will be able to fry onions and a breaded fish fillet in the same pan and have both be tasty. It's awkward; the onions end up burnt and the fish fillet ends up soggy.

Went to a meeting thing for the organization which is funding my internship in Madrid, PromoMadrid. The meeting was entirely in Spanish; I would say I understood about half of it, and could have understood more had people spoken a bit more slowly. We were supposed to talk about our opinions and experiences in the PromoMadrid program. Most people said they were happy to work with MIT (please, shiny diploma, please help me convince people that I am good to work with) and that three months maybe wasn't long enough. (Hear, hear!)

lessons of the last two days

1. Older is not (always) better.

The 1954 version of Sabrina with Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart is charming, but the 1995 version (with Harrison Ford) is overall funnier, more touching, and has more sympathetic characters, in my humble opinion. Everyone is less disagreeable overall, there is stuff shot on-site in Paris, etc. (Watched this last night.)


2. It pays to keep wandering in slightly different directions.

During lunch today I stumbled upon the Temple de Debod, a portion of an Egyptian temple that was donated to Spain in the 60s after they helped (provided monetary support?) save some temples from the Aswan dam project. Tomorrow maybe I shall have time to actually go in the little museum, and take pictures. It's very pretty how they have it set up on the edge of the park.


3. Things that are familiar with a slight twist can make you laugh.

Today while standing in line in the grocery store I happened to note some little Disney board books in the display next to the checkout, La Dama y el Vagabundo and La Sirenita among them. Both of those made me chuckle; my mind shortcuts to "the Dame and the Vagabond" even though I know they mean "the Lady and the Tramp."


4. Don't make your (my) list too long, or you (I) will just ignore most of it and fall asleep.

I accomplished #2 on my list: Buy toilet paper.


5. Caramel flavor is not always good.

I bought some pudding cups labeled "flan," which is vanilla pudding with caramel sauce in the bottom. I took one to lunch today. It was gross, for reasons I can't fully articulate. Perhaps the flavoring was fake? Perhaps the lukewarm-ness turned me off? I don't know. Luckily I spent less than a euro on the pudding cups.


6. Corn flakes are always good.


7. People are not necessarily waiting to test you on your language skills.

We had a 20 minute coffee break at the end of work today. I actually held on to the conversation for 10 minutes or so before it got too fast and I got too lost. No one seemed to object. I also said a few simple things in Spanish, which is a start at the very least.

Well it is late and I must be up early. Good night.

now that my supply of underwear has been secured

i.e. I did laundry (successfully!) for the first time in the tiny washing machine in the kitchen. After examining the settings, I used "cashmere," because it had the lowest temperature and lowest spin rate. I need to buy some clothespins, though. . . I have the drying rack in my room, but I suspect them would dry more quickly on the line outside my window. (This actually happened last Thursday, but whatever.)

Last night I went on a small adventure to. . . ahem. . . McDonald's. I rationalized it to myself by saying that I was celebrating July 4 a few days late. I was distracted by a large grocery store next door to the golden arches -- Carrefour's. I think I am starting to map my neighborhood in supermarkets. This one had chicken (yay!) and tuna canned in water (yay!) but still no vanilla yogurt (boo!). (Caprabo's, the small grocery store closest to me, basically just stocks ten different kinds of ham and tuna canned in three kinds of oil -- olivia (olive), girasol (sunflower), and unspecified.) (Nowhere yet have I found vanilla yogurt. A multitude of fruit flavors, yes. Plantain flavor, yes. Coconut flavor, yes. Vanilla? No. I bought plain yogurt "con azucar" (with sugar). It is mediocre but filling.)

I purchased a hamburger Happy Meal with fries and a minisundae (? that's a new one. I don't think they include dessert in the U.S.) It came with two toys (intentional? maybe not.) The minisundae was okay, except for the MASHED BANANAS at the bottom. FOUL. I think the full-on joy of McDonald's I experienced last summer was seriously mitigated by the fact that I have been cooking food very similar to what I would eat in the U.S. for the last week. The main difference is a ready supply of mini-croissants at the grocery store. . . and the ham problem.

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Two things I have not really addressed yet in my blog are a) work and b) language issues.

-_-

Hopefully I will be able to post something interesting this weekend. Currently I am listening to some of Bach's cello suites. Usually I listen to them while working, but currently I am using them to drown out the sounds of sex from my new neighbors in the next room.

Le sigh.

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An awesome site, recommended to me a year ago, but that I have only taken up just now: Lang-8. It's sort of like Facebook but cooler. The idea is that you post journal entries about whatever in whichever language you are learning, and native speakers correct them for you. I have posted one entry in Spanish and one in Japanese and already gotten corrections for both, and I have corrected one entry (in English, of course). For whatever reason there seem to be a somewhat disproportionate number of Japanese speakers on the site, but theoretically there are like 30 or 40 languages represented. Cool stuff.

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The last three days of this week were. . . pretty awful. Words fail me. All I can say is that I look forward with grim expectancy to class evaluation time.

thoughts of the week

In all honesty, this week hasn't brought too many thoughts besides the following: "UNNNNNNNGGGGHGHH AARRRRRRGGGGHHHH PANIC" and "I'm tired. enh. Why am I so tired. . . ? The fact that I am tired worries me."

But. . .

But this weekend. . . yesterday and today I wore a skirt or shorts; it was 70 degrees Fahrenheit and pretty damn gorgeous. Life seems better, even though nothing has changed. (I also took an 8.8 mile walk yesterday, which was the turning point between "I feel miserable" to "gee, I feel pretty good.") I have already walked four or five miles today, and I am planning on going out again.

Now I smell like sweat. This should be horrible. I should be embarrassed. But I realized that I smell different in warm weather than in cold weather, and I have not smelled like warm-weather sweat for seven months. It is novel, in fact. [EDIT: I forgot this is what I smell like when I burn, even slightly. Ain't life bizarre?]

[Edit #2: Walked a total of 24 miles this weekend. Boo-yah me. The longest portion walked consecutively of that -- 9.3 miles -- is pictured above. . . man I love Boston.]

Thanks to my blog binge on swissmiss this weekend, I found a number of things to think about, which perhaps will follow in a different blog post.

But from the week, sort of:

I am really am doomed

This came out of my mouth today in Spanish:

"They're like giant weasels,"

when I actually meant, "They're like giant sea weasels."

This was unfortunately in English, and was quite as moronic as it sounds.

satisfying

I think it must be utterly unsatisfying to not be able to blame someone for natural phenomena that you do not appreciate or (at least profess to) understand.

Example. "God, I understand the initial source of cramping. But really? Is it really necessary to involve my lower back and digestive tract as well?" Then, crabbily, not directed at anyone in particular: God is clearly a man.

This is why I couldn't be an atheist.

---

I bought a book, because I have no self control.

Or rather, because when I walked by the poetry section I picked it up, because I had heard of the poet, and flipped to this page --

. . .
Still the atmosphere quivers
with the initial word
dressed up
in terror and sighing.
It emerged
from the darkness
and until now there is no thunder
that rumbles yet with all the iron
of that word,
the first
word uttered ---
perhaps it was only a ripple, a drop
and yet its great cataract falls and falls.
. . .

the same ---

. . .
Aún la atmósfera tiembla
con la primera palabra
elaborada
con pánico y gemido.
Salió
de las tinieblas
y hasta ahora no hay trueno
que truene aún con su ferretería
como aquella palabra,
la primera
palabra pronunciada:
tal vez sólo un susurro fue, una gota,
y cae y cae aún su catarata.
. . .

Pablo Neruda, "La Palabra"

I'm not sure how to keep my eyes from jumping to the English side of the page first.

In any case, I thought at the time it was brilliant, and whether it is or not, to understand a little bit of poetry would allay some quiet fears of mine. . .

no entiendo

In Spanish, there are words of death. They are "no entiendo" (I don't understand.)

I think I may be the worst Spanish student ever.

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There is a massive post coming tonight expounding on my feelings, Luke, and my thesis.

I find it amusing and saddening that I am motivated to blog more largely because I don't like what my Wordle picture says my blog (i.e. my life) is about: Things and Coworkers.

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It's a bunny! A pink bunny.