Aprovechar!

Hello! Hope everyone’s having a nice week. Just to taunt me it's been really sunny and beautiful and the next day rainy and freezing cold. Spring's coming! No wait... Spring's coming! Nooo..... Everyone keeps telling me it’s been an unusually horrible winter this year. Just for me! The last couple of weeks were both very nice and very eye opening.

Aprovechar is one of my favourite Spanish verbs (and one that is often used here). It means “to take advantage”. It is also used to mean bon appetite. It’s custom here that when anyone enters the dining room they say “que aproveche” (take advantage, used more or less to mean "enjoy your meal") to EVERYONE. And you respond, “gracias”. When you all start eating at different times this can get kind of tiring. It’s like a constant call and answer song during your lunch.

But beyond meal time, aprovechar makes its way into my life in many other ways. When I’ve talked to Spaniards about the places I’ve been and the many more I’d like to go they always respond, “Well yes of course. You have to aprovechar your time here in Europe.” When I tell them how I’d like to improve my Spanish more they respond in the same way. “Aprovecha!!!”

Last weekend it was sunny and dare I say it, borderline warm. My roommate, Liz, and I decided it was a must to aprovechar the good weather so we went for a walk and a Diet Coke in Retiro. I loooove Retiro. When I was really sick in November and didn’t leave my apartment for a week, I started to go a little crazy, and on the last day I said, I don’t care how sick I am. I’m going for a walk in Retiro. It was better than medicine. Anyhow, it was an absolutely beautiful day. There were lots of families having picnics in the grass, and students doing homework and couples having coffee dates. It made me pretty excited for Spring and Summer.

I recently passed the half way point in my time here in Spain. It was really shocking. The first few months went by soooo slowly. They were rough. But since Thanksgiving, I've enjoyed Madrid more and more and time has flown by. I have exactly four months left now. It’s weird to think about that.

I’ve decided that I really must make more effort to fully aprovechar my time here. I speak way too much English and I’m starting to get angry with myself. I live with two Americans so I speak English at home. My two closest friends here, Blair and Eimear, are American so I speak English with them. I teach English from morning to night. So to say the least it’s a little frustrating. It’s not like I never speak Spanish. I do a lot and I have definitely improved a huge amount. But I see lots of opportunities for me to aprovechar further. I’m reading the paper on the metro to work. I’m making an effort to speak Spanish at school with the teachers who don’t speak English. I’m speaking lots of Spanish with my volleyball team. I’m going to try to spend more time with the few Spanish friends I have here. And I’m going to get back in the habit of doing intercambios (that’s where you meet with a Spaniard for an hour or two and spend half the time speaking in Spanish and half the time in English). I improved so much in the first five months, so I can get even better in the last four!

Last Thursday we got terrible news that a fifth grader in our school died. It was a very tragic accident in which the cover of a soccer bench (like a dugout but above ground) collapsed on him. He was 9 years old. I teach fifth grade but not his class. Anyway, we got the news and then I immediately had class with my fifth graders. It was one of the more horrible hours of my life. There are 50 fifth graders in total and they’ve gone to school together since the age of 3. So needless to say they were all very close. By ten years old you understand these things, so to see them so upset obviously made me very upset.
In talking with other teachers about it, the universal response (other than being incredibly sad) was that life is short and we have to aprovechar. And I do agree.

The incident definitely made me re-evaluate my priorities, how I behave, how I treat myself and others. I realize how lucky I am to have this life of mine, so I don’t want to waste it. I’m trying to improve in a lot of areas.

Anyway, on Sunday, Atletico Madrid beat Barcelona in a shocking upset. Atletico was the club that our fifth grader played for (but in a younger age group obviously). So they had a minute of silence at the beginning of the game which was really nice. I read in the paper on Friday a quote from the captain of the team saying they were going to try to win for Diego (the boy). But from everything I had read and heard on TV, there was no chance Atleti would win. But they did :) The paper said it was a “milagro” (miracle).

After the game I went to church. It’s cuaresma (lent) which fits right in with the new self-improvement kick. I’ve gone to church pretty often here and let me tell you, there aren’t too many of us attendees. Spain is more or less a universally Catholic, and universally non-practicing country. An interesting combo. But this Sunday there was a much larger turnout. I’m guessing it’s a lent thing. The differences between Mass here and in the States are pretty striking. Obviously the language is different. But for one thing, mass here generally runs 30 minutes, maybe 40. They start right on time (the only thing to start on time here) and there’s no big entrance precession. The priest just walks up to the podium from the side of the church and gets the party started. Although mass starts on time, that doesn’t mean anyone gets there on time. A lot of people roll in around 15 minutes late. Mind you, that’s about half way through. They don’t quietly slip in the back though. They march all the way up to the front, high heels clicking and all. There are no songs, no music, no announcements. But what they lack in ceremony, they make up for in sermon. I don’t know how it’s possible in such a short service, but the homily is much longer here. It’s good listening practice anyway. When it comes time for communion, there’s no pew by pew line business. Lines aren’t really popular here. It’s just a free for all. If you’re in the last pew but you hustle to the front, good for you. Anyway, it’s efficient. And I can truly say mass is the ONLY place I’ve seen in Spain where efficiency exists.

Well that’s all for now. My volleyball team beat the undefeated first place team in our league last Saturday. It was really fun! We have two more matches and then I’m free. I’ve really liked it, but it will be nice to have a little more time to do other things.

Also, completely unrelated. Have you seen Slumdog Millionaire?! I saw it last night and it is incredible. I laughed, I cried, I got my 8 euros worth. I highly recommend it. The soundtrack is great, too.

If you're wondering what the deal is with the cow pictures, there is an art exhibit of sorts going on with hundred of these cow statues placed all over the city! They are all painted or decorated in different ways by Spanish artists. It's pretty fun to see a new one everyday!

I may be making a trip to the good old USA soon to visit law schools. Pretty exciting!

Today I'm going to do some city exploring, so I’m off to aprovechar!