Monday, October 1, 2012

October already?

When did that happen? Unfortunately for me, my October begins with a ton of tests. One in every class. So I shouldn't really be blogging right now, but oh well. I'll be fine.

So now that I've been in Spain for over a month, I want to record more of my impressions and observations. My perspective on life in España as it were:

Yes and no are used the opposite as they would be in the US. I was warned about this by my cross cultural training teacher. Here if a Spaniard asks you for example, "you're not hungry, right?" And you aren't hungry so you as an American would say, "yes" meaning yes, that's right, I'm not hungry. But the Spaniard hears "yes" meaning, well yes I actually am hungry. So the correct answer would be "no" as in no, I'm not hungry. That took some getting used to.

Also, in España if it your birthday, you're the one expected to pay for drinks. People don't buy you drinks because it's your birthday here. So be cautious telling people it's your birthday here.

If I leave my door open when I'm doing homework, my host mom or sister will come in and see what I'm doing. This may include picking up notebooks/ books on my desk and going through them. This is weird to Americans but they just are interested and want to help. I am ok with this. For my test on myths and legends my host family lent me mythology books. Cool.

Apparently my host mom read the entire odious Baroja book for the last student who lived here. I would never inflict that on anyone.  That's just evil. It's kind of like reading Nathaniel Hawthorne. Lots and lots of crazy syntax and description and not a lot of action. Actually, Hawthorne eventually has action. There is no action in Baroja. A lot of his short stories are nothing but description. Uff.

I wrote an essay on the relationship between poverty and development in Spanish today. Not sure if I should be please with myself for remembering enough from my classes in the US or if I should be horrified I attempted such a technical essay in a language I'm still learning.

I'm also beginning to assume that all bugs bite. I'm very glad I have organic bug repellant. There are nasty biting bugs other than mosquitos here.

Today my Spanish teacher taught our class all the bad words in Spanish. Not to use, she claims, but so we can understand better. Haha, sure. Our class could not stop laughing when she was using her teacher voice to tell us what these words meant in English. Interesting class today. Good topic for a Monday.

Also, my boss was actually in the office today. First time he and I have been there at the same time. He makes me nervous because I cannot speak castellano around him. He corrects me because I told him I need to learn. At least he says my pronunciation of Euskara is good. xD

I sang Rocky Horror and The Clash songs to my intercambio. A fairly decent Monday.

Ok, time to study.

Peace.

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