Blaaaaah- a cranky entry. Beware.

I realize I haven't written in a while- it's just that nothing really big has honestly happened...

I have actually been sick for the past week, so I have not really been going out or doing any work ect. It was nothing too bad, just a stomach ache and a fever of a hundred or so. But it meant all I have wanted to do recently is curl up on my bed in the fetal position and either fall asleep or watch the entire first season of Boston Legal. I ended up doing both, in addition to getting caught up on Private Practice, Bones, Pushing Daisies and Heroes. Hah. This is probably the laziest week I've had in my entire life.

But I'm better now, so yay. Although it was all sort of to the detriment of my roomate, who is now sick as well. Sorry Zoe! Since before this week of being sick I had been ahead in homework, I'm about where everybody else is. Which means now I have 2 compositions due this week, a bunch of homework, and a big annoying history midterm. I'm not trying to complain, as I am fully aware that if I were at Case this week, I would probably be tearing my hair out. It's not the amount of work, it's the kind of work.

The thing is, it's not real work. Spanish and Catalan are language classes, and there's nothing much you can do with those, except exercises and compositions and things like that, so I don't mind. But my history class is different. I know a lot of people hate history and how it doesn't pertain to real life, and other people then go on rants about history repeating itself and being always relevant and all of that. Well that doesn't really concern me. The thing that I love about history is the specifics, the monarchs and the public icons, plays of power and obscure social undercurrents, years, dates, names and faces.

So far in my history class, it has been none of that. It has been fluff. And so it follows, the essay I have to write will be fluff. It hasn't been written yet, and I have no intention of writing a fluffy essay, but the prompt itself is fluff. Bad news. The class has been a lot about trying to break down stereotypes about the middle ages- how from the western point of view, the middle ages were backward, a sinkhole of science, tolerance and scholarly thinking. Well any self-respecting college student (or self-respecting anything, in my opinion, except maybe those beneath the age of 13) should know that you can't form any opinion about anything without considering the whole thing- whether it be the whole thing in terms of geography, age group, nationality, whatever.

I'd sort of expect people to know that already. If not, ok, introduce the idea, and get on with the rest of the class, instead of making that idea the class. Augh! Anyways, the essay is pretty much to choose a topic, and argue how it breaks stereotypes of the Western idea of the Middle Ages. Also challenge ideas of periodization of history into discrete sections. Sounds easy right? That's because it is. It is too easy. It asks us to prove exactly what has been drilled into our heads for half the semester (and what should have only been used as an introduction to the content instead of the actual content of the class). I've been trying all day to write it, and I just can't bring myself to do it.

I just want a challenge here. I want someone to make me think, to let me argue and discuss and turn what the professor is saying on his head. Or I could just sit and listen, and implode. It'll be an interesting year. I'm going to try to talk to the director about letting me do an independent study or something next semester. The thing is that the universities here have some really interesting sounding classes, but we're not allowed to take them since we're with foreign programs. All their study abroad students take classes with each other and are not allowed to take any of the real classes. I only have one class at the university, and it drives me crazy because the professor assumes we're all idiots and dumbs everything down, speaking extremely slow. Urg. At least I'll have an internship at a hospital or a lab next semester, so hopefully that will be interesting.

Around the beginning of November I start figuring out what classes to take, and I also need to decide if I'm going to live here next semester or not. I'll have first pick of all of their apartments, if I decide to move. Which I might. I've got some time still to figure it out, but right now I'm leaning toward moving. Realistically, the spanish kids are never going to be my friends. They are nice , and sometimes invite us out, but they have their own friend groups and their own drama to tend to. Also, they don't speak Spanish.

Well they do, but not really. It's sort of hard to understand. They can speak Spanish, but the important language here is Catalan. Catalan is the language that they speak to their parents and grandparents in. On the bus, it's the language that you address someone in, and the language of any sort of government form you have to fill out. Catalan is the official language of the elementary schools, of high school and colleges. You speak to your friends in Catalan, and if your friends don't speak Catalan, well it puts them in a separate category. You're still friends, but it's different. Because when you think, you think in Catalan, and you can't tell your friends exactly what you're thinking- you have to translate it into another language, one that you're not entirely comfortable with.

Don't take this at 100%, since this is what my impression has been, talking with students and strangers, living here for just a month. The students on my floor have been really nice in trying to speak Spanish around us, but they've said that it feels weird for them to be talking to their friends and each other in Spanish. Also a lot of strangers I talked to have mentioned how annoying it is when people come to Catalunya not even trying to learn any Catalan- they almost view you the way people at home view people who move to the country without learning english. Not with as much disdain, but it's there.

So no one's openly mean about it, but not knowing Catalan here is just as bad as not knowing Spanish is Madrid. One of the weirdest things that I miss is being able to overhear and understand people having casual conversations. People on the metro, at bars, and especially in the cafeteria. That's actually an especially poignant one, probably because that's the one that keeps me feeling like an outsider here. Mostly, the Americans all eat together because we go to meals earlier than everyone else. So in general, we don't sit with the Spanish kids since they're never there at the same time as we are.

But also, we can't understand a thing they are saying. If we sit with them, we force them to change languages just to accomodate us. It feels extremely rude to do, especially since the Japanese kids sit with us sometimes, and so I know the feeling of "Maaan, I just don't want to speak in Spanish right now. Fine..." Most of the time I just sit with the Americans, wondering what all of those students are talking about, and feeling like I did something wrong because the intelligible sounds of Catalan tend to blend and create a sort of enveloping white noise that emphasizes how really alone you are amid all of those people. Although I've got to say, as soon as someone switches to Spanish, even for just a second, I can pick it out from that fog of Catalan, and understand everything. The feeling of being able to lock onto just a phrase in Spanish amid all that Catalan as if it were English is refreshing. For a second, I actually feel like I live here. Of course, I can count the number of times this has happened on one hand.

So after all that, I haven't decided whether or not to move. But again, I'm leaning toward moving- because here I feel like I can only ever have superficial friendships with the Spanish students (and they are the whole reason I decided to live in a dorm...), plus the apartments have some nice amenities that I'm not going to complain about...

In other news, if anyone has actually made it down this far, Mary Beth from Case who is studying in Malaga, came up to visit last weekend, so we hung out and it was just sort of nice to feel like myself for a little bit. Also my salsa class started last week, which has been fun. It's taught it Catalan, which is not that hard to understand when it's enunciated, not spoken super fast, and free from slang. Also there are a lot of older women who are ridiculously good at salsa already, and it's funny to watch them try to teach Steve, who is taking the class with me, and one of 4 guys in a class of maybe 20.

The next entry for this will probably not be till the 1st or 2nd of november. I'm excited about the week we have off (That's right, I'm excited about something. This entry isn't all angry. Probably has something to do with the weather and it being straight rain for 3 days. SAD is not a fun thing guys.). We've got a week following midterms off to travel, so me and six buddies are going first to Zurich, then Lucerne, Florence and finally Rome. It will be the first time I am actually doing some travel here, so hopefully everything goes well.

Wish me luck writing that essay! Technically it's not due until after that break, but I just want to get it over with now. I should get on that now :/

End of La Merce, Visit to Tarragona, Novatos

The end of La Merce was pretty unspectacular, mostly because i had classes the whole time. There were a lot of concerts all over the city and at the end, on Wednesday was the Piromusical. The Piromusical is sort of like a fireworks show on steroids, set to music above Plaza Espanya. I wouldn't go again, because it´s hugely packed, and impossible to even see the fireworks. And also the music they set it all to was strange- the theme was television, so it was all themes to tv shows, like Teletubbies (why? i don't know).

In other news, the Spanish kids in our dorm just started to talk to us...yaaaay! They let us hang out with them last weekend. First, we went somewhere for dinner around 9:30 pm. After like 3 hours, since Spanish service is terrible and its normal to have 2-3 courses per meal, we left for some bar. We stayed at the bar until around 2:30, and then left for a discotec, Razzmatazz, which is this gigantic multistory and multibuilding dance club that's got like 5 or 6 different areas for dancing, all with different types of music playing. It was really fun there, but around 5ish I got tired, so me, Zoe and Lindsay left "early" with a few of the kids we came with, and got back to bed a little bit before 6. This is pretty typical for going out (according to Spaniards) here, but I would definitely not be able to do it this often.

I don't really think the students do it that often though, since the majority of them go home every weekend; most of them are either from Lleida or Girona, cities about an hour's train ride away. Most Spanish students go to college very close to home, and it's normal for them to live at home the whole time- so when students live in a dorm, they go home pretty much every chance they get. Unless they're from the Baleares (island system in the medit.) or Canarias (island system off of the African coast).

Last week they invited us to come and watch the novatos ("newbies" in Catalan.) In Spain the dorms are really big on hazing, so the first couple of weeks they take all of the new kids outside of the dorm and make them stand in lines and hold their hands up for like 3 hours, while they yell things at them in Catalan. I could understand maybe 50% of what was being said, since Catalan is like half Spanish, half French, so I caught some things about how Sant Jordi (the dorm) is a family, and how the new kids are not welcome and have to abide by dorm rules. I didn't catch most of the dorm rules, but I think they were just ridiculous things, since everyone was laughing during that time. Normally, they include every new kid in the dorm in this novato thing, even when they are third years and it's just their first time living in that particular dorm. But all the yelling was done in Catalan, so they just leave the American and Japanese kids out of it.

Apparently though, my dorm's not that bad- I know some people in other dorms where they will break into their rooms, rearrange their furniture, and then tie all of their clothes in a rope and throw them outside. At my dorm, they just sort of yell at the new kids, make a bunch of noise when they come into the dining hall, and do smaller, but still annoying pranks. The Spanish kids explained to us that the whole process helps the kids who have been there get to know the newer kids- it's really important to them that the people in the dorm all know each other and are friends. I suppose totally embarassing each other sort of breaks the ice a little easier... At one point they had all of the novato guys pull their pants down their ankles and hop around in their underwear. What is with european guys and their aversion to boxers?

But for the novatos they did other things that I can see how it helps to form a sort of dorm camaraderie. A couple of nights ago they went over to another dorm nearby (the closest dorm being a 15 minutes walk away) and started a waterballoon fight, yelling the dorm song and in general being annoying. Last night was the last night of the novatos, when they stop being "the black sheep of the dorm" and turn into real people. Of course, not before totally embarassing them again. Around 11, they had all of the novatos wear shower caps, clown noses, diapers outside their pants, and signs that said (Catalan versions of) "I'm a Sant Jordi goldigger/cradlerobber" or "I'm a Sant Jordi Don Juan," depending on gender.

They all gathered on Avinguda Diagonal, the biggest street near the dorm, and just sang and yelled and passed bottles of who-knows-what around for about 3 hours. I'm really surprised the cops didn't come, and that we didn't even get yelled at by anyone. Then we walked about 15 minutes down the street, and all went into a smaller discotec that some guys at the dorm had worked out a deal with previously. The entire place was filled with kids from the dorm, which was pretty cool. Being lame americans, me, Lindsay and Zoe came home early around 4ish, since Zoe had to get up around 7 to travel.

Last weekend I also went on a day trip with Zoe, Lindsay and Grant to Tarragona. Lindsay and I had to go for a history project, so we got up early on Sunday and took the train out. It's about a hour ride, and the city is small enough that you can walk everywhere. About 5 minutes away from the train station is a Roman Ampitheatre, that was built in the 3rd century AD, with the ruins of a church that was built later in the middle. I know it's really nerdy, but Caesar Augustus visited the city, and you know that he for sure went to the Ampitheatre, and just being able to stand there with all of that history surrounding you is amazing.

Nearby was the Roman Circus, which they used to store food items. The circus was also used by Napoleon's army when they camped in the area, and converted part of the circus to a prison. I mean, there was only one way to get in, so Napoleon had to have walked through the exact same tunnel that did, and probably Augustus. !!!!! Tarragona also has this huuuuge cathedral that's really pretty- it's got a lot of gothic architecture around the outside, including gothic style stone faces encircling the whole roof.

We wandered around some more and found the main plaza, where there were remains of the Roman Forum. It looked like everyone had cleared our their basements and were having a giant garage sale. Apparently the day we went was a festival for them, which was why all of the Roman landmarks were free to enter. We ate lunch outside, and walked around the neighborhood somemore, ending up at the old Roman wall that used to encircle the city. After that we just wandered back to the train station, which was on the coast, and sat on the beach for an hour while we waited for our train. We were home by dinner. It was probably one of the most perfect days I have had here.

This weekend a lot of IES students are traveling, since IES gave us a three day weekend, and it's also Octoberfest. Three guesses what country half the Americans on our floor are in. We might do a day trip on Sunday again out to the small mountains (actually, I doubt they qualify as mountains...) that border Barcelona. Hopefully, we can find somewhere to go hiking and kayaking. It's cooled down a lot here, so it's not disgustingly hot, but it sticks around 65-70 with lots of sun, so it's good walking-around weather. Other than that, I guess I should put up some pictures on Flickr and start working on that history project...