Seriously?!

Looks like I won't be getting the Adelante beat. But how freaking sweet would it be to work for the radio station? I hope that is an option for me. If not, fall semester is not looking good.

Getting serious.

This is my second night in a row staying up way too late, but at least I accomplished something tonight! I am about 6 pages done with my supposedly 10 page paper. So basically, I have a really sweet introduction and a great outline of the meaty stuff which I'm avoiding until tomorrow. Going to turn the paper in on Thursday.

Tomorrow: Kyle, Kristin & Hannah!

Friday: First final. Should probably start studying for it. Also, Vincent is having a big dinner at his & John's piso that night (crepe!), which will be a lovely way to show off my life to my friends from home.

Just whisper sweet (past perfect) nothings into my ear...

Finally finished signing up for classes today. I signed up for an introductory German class. I am craving a third language. I then was immediately gripped by the senselessness of that act. If I am going to graduate from MU anytime in the near future with a double major, I really should take classes that give me credit for at least one of my majors. I double checked, and wouldn't you know it, the Spanish class I needed had opened up. I took the last spot and dropped the German class. Maybe in the spring. I want to speak it so badly!

Florian and I bought our tickets to Frankfurt the other day. From a German website. I hate having that wall up. I hate not understanding. But this feeling isn't about being lost in the dark. On the contrary, when I learn a word in another language, when I learn how to pronounce a group of letters or how to conjugate a verb, I get this rush through my body. Languages just turn me on.

Así, gute nacht a todos. I'm going to fall asleep to The Sound of Music (since Grey's won't be online until tomorrow) and dream happy little dreams about the apple muffins Anna made tonight. Sweet dreams to you too!

I take it back

As always when I open my mouth to insult someone, I end up being quite wrong.

She may have just felt guilty for being an hour and twenty minutes late, but my profesor was actually really helpful in our meeting today. I know now that the exam is going to be killah and I will probably fail, but at least she isn't planning on failing me without reading my exam!

Rhymes with Witch

I am in 5 classes this semester. The hardest by far is my 20th century Spanish poetry class. I love poetry. Reading in Spanish is incredibly difficult because I have to look up at least one word a line, but I find that I understand Spanish poems better than some English ones. I am forced to find the meaning behind every word (or be utterly confused), whereas I tend to skip over a few words when reading in English.

So. Luis Cernuda has a few poems that are about 3 pages long. Needless to say I have a new vocabulary sheet that is about the same length. I am learning. I love this challenge, it is my favorite class.

Today after class I went up to my professor and explained I was having some difficulty and asked her when her office hours were. Her response? This is not a class for people who don't have a very good grasp on Spanish.

Then she showed me the books I need to read for the class on the bibliography I've had since the beginning of the semester. The books she showed me were already underlined and I've been making copies out of the one relevant to our current theme for weeks. Only after a few more minutes of conversation did she give me her office hours.

If you are reading this and you teach something, please don't forget how valuable encouragement is to a struggling student.

Back!

I have been avoiding an update this week because there is so much to say, I am a bit overwhelmed. So to avoid all the whelming, I am going to write a bit about the past a bit about the present and a bit about the future. I promise photos of my travels with witty captions in the future.

Past: My dad managed to run 3 red lights in a row in Sevilla. Luckily my family & I survived our Andalusian vacation. We slept like kings in a timeshare condo in the center of a labyrinth on a hill. We saw every major city in Andalucia as well as a few tourist traps and small beaches. Favorite thing? Kebap in Granada.

Present: Making my own kebap tonight. And strawberry shortcake! Also, just recieved an automated reply from my journalism advisor informing me that she does not advise over email and that I should stop by to make an appointment. All the more reason to give up and move to Frankfurt!

Future: Though I am not moving there(after all, I can still live up to half of the promise I made to my mom that I wouldn't "fall for some european and never come home"), I am spending the summer in Germany with Florian. We are going to hit up Prague, Amsterdam, Berlin and some campgrounds in Scandinavia. Hopefully Helen and Sarah will be involved somehow!

Ich bin freue!

Yesterday was lovely! It became lovely when I met Miguel. Miguel is in my Women's History class (the orange from the previous post). He does an excellent non-flattering imitation of our professor.

But the highlight was The Cure! I've never seen more middle-aged women dressed in all black. It was freaking awesome. Did you know that in Europe, bands usually do two encores? When he finished singing the first time, I was disappointed because I thought he'd only come back up for a few more songs. But he ended up coming back up 3 times in total! Crazy. Why not just have an intermission or something? It was great though. I've had this song in my head all day, along w/ Boys Don't Cry. Thanks to Flo's mom for giving sweet birthday presents to her son.

Then this morning we said goodbye to Jenny. Lame.

Tonight? Pizza made by Roberto, clearly.

Will someone please chose my classes for me?

I'm still recovering from a week of all-nighters (both study sessions and parties) and now I have to start all over again! I just sat through this really sweet Art History class only to realize at the end that class attendance is mandatory. I'm going to be in Paris & all over Italy for like 3 weeks coming up. Lame!

So far I have 2 of 5-6 classes needed. The Art History class from last semester and a Women's History class that seems pretty sweet. Anyone have any suggestions? I can take almost anything I want, so the process of selecting 5 is kind of overwhelming. I am really disappointed because a lot of the classes I wanted to take aren't offered this semester. As always, I'm going to end up in a bunch of classes I could care less about. Sweet!

Exasperatedly yours,
Cass

Almost there...almost there...

After finishing my second and last paper, I found out you can conference call on skype! Sweet! I caught up with Molly (studying in Granada) and Anna, who studied in Italy last semester and is now at home in Columbia. It was so good to talk to my friends again as if we were all in the same room together. Molly is having way more fun than I am-staying out late and living with an amazing-sounding commie homestay mother. I need to go visit!

Tomorrow after my 3PM exam I am free. Hallelujah. Going to spend the next few weeks staying out all night and sleeping in the sun in Retiro all day with Florian. This was the longest semester ever!!

Revisiting the Library

Today I finally went to visit a professor during office hours. Profesora Ruiz Montejo is my favorite for two reasons.
1. I understand 90% of what she says.
2. She smiles.
She explained the final exam to me: 6 short questions over 6 slides, 10 minutes for each question. Obviously, I need to study the images, so I explained my trouble with the library. She told me to try again and that the books are organized by class.
So I gave it another shot-I had time to kill before my next class anyway. I went to the 2nd floor, to the art section, and there, to my surprise, were about 1/2 of the books on my bibliography list-all on one shelf.
The library immediately seemed a little brighter. I noticed windows letting in the ever-bright sun. There were nice long tables with individual lamps. It was quiet.
My sports-fan-like devotion to Ellis began to fade.
So maybe it is just that the geographers and the historians have one up on the Filología department, but I sat there with a book in my hands not caring where the difference lay. The photos and the font in the book were HUGE. It was in Spanish, English, French and German. I'd have to be a blind idiot not to learn something! That said, I still need to look up the meaning of "soteriological."
Besos!

P.S. The doctrine of slavation through Jesus Christ. What a word.

Trying to enjoy my own damn grass.

I forced myself to get up for class today. In class I finally copied the syllabus from another student. Yea Cervantes!

I sat in the cafeteria-the only other warm part of my facultad besides the computer lab, which is closed right now. I sat in the cafeteria and read a book (in English!) on Spanish women writers. I was reading the history of women's suffrage in Spain when I realized I was actually interested in Spanish history. I am beginning to identify with Spain in some way. My apathy towards Madrid is so lame! It was refreshing to CARE about this place for once.

Just now I walked over to another building to use a computer lab, and it started to rain. I almost started crying I was so happy. It is cloudy and cold and sprinkling a bit, and honestly, I'm just glad for something different. I walked through a garden in the midst of this happiness and found a (dead for the winter) pomegrante tree. Which couldn't have been any cooler.

It is raining!!!

Cervantes

I'm about 3 weeks into the semester and I'm still hoping that one day I will walk into my Cervantes class and magically be able to understand my professor. It might be the 10AM class time (which means I have to get up at, gasp, 8:30AM), or his unreasonably fast speech. Either way, I'm taking comfort in the fact that my French friend's notes aren't too much better than mine.

Today I think I learned that Cervantes was captured by pirates and wrote them stories. And then he and Lope de Vega wrote some plays in Madrid. Right, it is time for an amazon.com trip. Need to hear all this en íngles.

Why life seems slow

An introduction: I am not as depressed as this blog makes me seem, forgive me for this has become my outlet for cultural frustrations.

I tend to be slightly pesimistic in Madrid, with the assumption that if I expect the worst, I'll usually be pleasantly surprised. So far, this attitude has helped me avoid all kinds of despair.
I'm sitting a library at my university, thankful for a silence I haven´t found anywhere else in the city. In front of me is a wonderfully old smelling book on Cervantes. It is one of the recommended books for my class on Cervantes-one of the few published in NYC.
In this library you have to request the book and the librarian hands your handwritten request to some mysterious man or woman in the back who retrieves the book for you. I requested this particular book because it is written in English and I was pretty sure I´d be able to take it home with me.
"Pretty sure" means "I hope" in Spain.
The librarian told me to wait for 15 minutes. I waited for 25, read a chapter of Harry Potter in Spanish and cried as Harry saw his parents for the first time in the mirror. Finally I realized I probably had to go up and ask about the book. The first librarian said something to me that I didn´t understand and moved on to the next patron. In this scenario, I assumed the best and threw a helpless glance to the second librarian.
She consulted the man in the back and brought me my book.
I stumbled in Spanish, asking if I could take the book home with me and then tried to use my public library card instead of my university library card, but eventually I found myself here, seated in a far corner with the book I chose to read on the life of Cervantes. It is a joy in any country to sit down quietly and open a book.
Unfortunately for me, no level of Spanish or English language proficiency will help me read a 183 page bibliography of the works of Cervantes.
God said something about finding joy in our suffering. Tomorrow I'm going to find joy in a biography on Cervantes, but for today I'm just going to read more Harry Potter.

First day of classes, kind of...

I am drinking the worst cup of coffee ever. I'm sitting in the basement of one of the Filología buildings on campus. I've gone to two classes and I have two hours to kill until the next one.
During the whole month of October I get to choose my classes. That's right, I have a whole month to choose. So obviously, today, all of my (potential) professors decided not to do anything except briefly summarize the syllabus.
Today has been a frustrating day. Every day in Madrid depends hugely on me-do I have the energy to explore? Do I want to speak the language? Can I get out of bed? It is so easy to hide in my comfortable apartment with my American roommates watching Friends on my laptop. The moment I do take a risk and talk to someone or even just leave my apartment, I have good experiences. Last night Anna and I found the "edge" of Madrid and a beautiful park where we sat in a slight drizzel writing letters to our best friends and loving the fact that we'd managed to stumble across something amazing (a view of the sky, a temple, a fountain) in the ever-claustrophobic & winding streets of Madrid. It's hard to convince myself to leave my apartment, because it is so hard to find places I feel comfortable in Madrid. I'm used to knowing Columbia like the back of my hand. It's like Cheers went off the air or something, I don't know anything or anyone!
Seriously! This espresso is so bitter! I'd kill for Kaldi's.
Anyway, I think I'm going to take Spanish Literature since 1975 instead of Medieval Spanish Lit. For one, the words "castellano antiguo" (old Spanish-think foreign Shakespeare) TERRIFY me. I have enough trouble with modern castellano! Reasons 2 & 3: The 1975 professor talks SO fast, but she smiles. Also, her class is in the afternoon, and we all know how I am with mornings. I couldn't even make it to my 11 o'clock class last semester.
I'm glad school is starting. I haven't had to think about anything but mochas, enchiladas and plane tickets since May. It will be nice to challenge my brain again!
At the same time, it is scary. I have a whole new set of confusing experiences coming my way. I wish someone would choose my classes for me! That said, I have been depending on my friends and roommates too much and I look forward to being more self-sufficient and curious. Current plan: Pick classes and establish schedule, get a job teaching English, spend money from job on travel.

Love, Cass
P.S. After I wrote this I met a guy from Sevilla! I love it when I get out of bed in the morning!

It's siesta time, so I'll make it short...

In usual Cassidy fashion I am living to the fullest. This morning I went to bed at 6:30 after a breakfast of chocolate y churros (fried sweet dough with hot chocolate-but it's like a melted chocolate bar...amazing) and a very full night of dancing. The metros are closed from 1:30AM to 6:00AM. I woke up at 9AM for my Spanish class. I bought a café solo (espresso) at the bar in the metro and mixed it with some cold water to make my own iced americano, and was therefore quite able to follow all the verb conjugating in class. Even with an alert brain this is a task. My teacher is about 3 inches shorter than me, skinny and loud. She looks like she's been smoking a pack a day since she was 14. Deep, raspy voice and amazing teeth. Thick black eyeliner and a lisp and Madrid accent like I've never heard before. She pronounces my name "Cachidy". I had gone out w/ an Italian guy from my class (plus my friend Anna and Giovanni's friends). So we sat there and moaned while she talked about the present tense. I made it through, and even managed to eat lunch in the cafeteria with some friends-a girl from Finland, a girl from France and two guys from England. I had tortilla, which is this lovely egg/potato omelet thing. Served cold and it's probably horribly bad for me, but it's the only thing I KNOW I like.

The last couple of days have been days of languages. I've been learning Italian from all my Italian friends, and speaking Spanish with people from all parts of Europe and then speaking English with my roommates and Anna. I've found my English grammer is totally messed up. I keep saying things like "I have thirst" because that's how you'd say it in Spanish. One of Giovanni's friends, Lydia, knows 5 languages. Holy cow right!? She's from Italy but has an Australian accent when she speaks English because that's where she learned it. So, if you find yourself in Italy and want to greet someone, you can say "¿Come stai?" Which is, "How are you?" And then they will say, "Bene, gracie, ¿eh tu?" And you will say "Bene." Or maybe "Fuerza Italia!" but probably not, because that has nothing to do with this. Most of my vocabulary is only useful at a fútbol match. Oh, I also probably spelled all of those words wrong...

That's all I've got for now. I love everyone and am trying to live in the moment instead of thinking about the things I miss about the states. Although last night, I almost started crying because I wanted Gumby's so bad. I could literally taste it in my mouth. Ha.