There's a first time for everything.

Last night's first: sleeping with rolled-up Kleenex in my ears to block the sounds coming from the opposite side of town--late-night music (was that an accordian?) for the town festival in honor of our patron saint.

My Kids

There was a time in my life when I could say, "Well, I speak a little Spanish," and kids thought that was cool.

Here, when I say that I speak a little Spanish, I've already put myself light years behind my students. Between the 29 of them, at least 6 different languages are spoken (Spanish, English, French, Korean, Arabic, German). I have been able to discern about 4 different accents (including German, Australian, and British). One boy, when asked what event in history he'd like to witness, told me he'd make sure the ruler of North Korea had never become president. Another one had no idea what My Chemical Romance once, and I haven't yet heard one word about Justin stinkin' Bieber. Oh, and I haven't needed to make a box covered in flames for all the renegade cell phones, either.

I spent 2010 learning and reading about TCKs--those kids who grow up not quite belonging to the country where they live, not quite belonging to the country on their passport. The one place they feel truly at home is only in the "third culture"--with others like themselves. Rather than a location, the third culture is this fluid entity that deals less with place and more with similarities of lifestyle, identity, and heart. Except for our Spanish students, a good chunk of the ECA population is made up of TCKs.

There are major benefits to being a TCK. The language, thing, for instance, or being able to say that you visited half of Europe before you were 15 years old. I'm generalizing, of course, but many generalities come from a basis in truth, so generally, TCKs are known for a sharp awareness of the world and for their high level of adaptability. At the same time, they can often be known for a sense of rootlessness, which leads to difficulty forming deep relationships.

I read all about this, but I had no idea what it looked like. And now I've had a taste. Here are 29 kids who have been all over the world, who can talk about futbol and presidents and tell you why Americans are too patriotic--but may have trouble speaking the language of pop culture once they are "home." Some of the new girls are already giggling with the other girls, a slight blur on the boundaries between "new" and "old," boundaries that shift with every passing year in this transient place, where a classmate might stay for a semester or ten years, where they might miss all of 6th grade because they're in the States fulfilling residency requirements that they leave the country. They miss their old teachers; they wonder how long their new teachers are going to last. And while some will be here to watch them from 1st grade until graduation, others will be here just long enough to capture a part of their hearts and fly back home with it in hand.

I gave them a survey on the first day of school. This was one of the questions: If you could have anything you want, regardless of money or natural ability, what would you choose? Why?

I got several different answers, but a theme arose across all grade levels:

-I would choose some sort of teleportation so I could visit family whenever I wanted to.
-To be able to see my family more in the U.S.
-An airplane, to visit family
-To always be able to meet with my friends physically. Because I always leave my friends behind when I move.

That last one just broke my heart. I read about this for a whole year, but now there are faces I know writing these things in their own words, and I am awed by what they go through and how much they probably don't even realize they're going through, and I am humbled knowing that I get to be their teacher.

Tomorrow's the first day of school!

And I just can't figure out which outfit to go with, so I'm consulting pictures of other first-days-gone-by.

Perhaps the attractive tie-dye?

Maybe a trendy windsuit would be more appropriate.

Finally, I could pull out the pants that tried to eat my puppy shirt.

So many options! Guess we'll just have to see what the morning brings...

Clearly, I'm procrastinating.

It's 8:39pm, and I should just go home.

My classroom finally feels like a classroom. My brain feels like old marshmallows. My nerves will feel better once I stop thinking about the fact that tomorrow morning is the last morning I will wake up and not be responsible for 29 students!

The elusive "they" say experience is the best teacher, but the real best teacher is Dr. Sommers, and now I wish I could relive all of her classes and write down every single thing she ever did and then do it myself. Including, perhaps, introducing my textbooks as "content-laden and aesthetically pleasing."

It. Is. So. HOT.


I can't remember the last time I've pined so hard for cardigans and scarves, rainclouds and thunder! I don't know that I've ever wished harder for cooler weather--and meant the 80s. And this after an (allegedly) unseasonably cool summer. Okay, I shouldn't complain: it's not humid, and it has rained thrice in the past week.

But...do you think it'd be weird to wallpaper my classroom with pictures of mountaintops and Norskes in festive sweaters? First-week-of-school field trip to the home of Hans Christian Andersen?!

International Birthdays Don't Count

At least, that's what I've been told. So as long as I'm living here, I can accumulate experience but not age. I think I'm okay having both. :)

So, on Wednesday morning, I went back to school for the second half of new staff orientation. What I was not expecting were the surprise brownies and cookies! Or--best of all--the milk, fresh and cold and not from a box. It's the first Spanish milk I've been able to drink in gulps, nearly as good as milk from home. (Thank you, Lisa, for that. Love truly is small things that become big things.)

That evening, several of us drove up to Aguas Vivas, a little retreat center settled in the mountains, and we finished the day with Dutch Blitz. Mountains, milk, real food cooked by someone other than me, pine trees, and great people. The only thing that could make a birthday better would be a surprise visit from Prince William.

Our staff retreat, which just wrapped up this afternoon, was so encouraging, and not even necessarily because of what we talked about. See, I arrived in this country at kind of a funny time: just a week before graduation. My first month was spent meeting people who were leaving (whether for the summer or forever). The American presence in Camarma cleared out, leaving a silent school behind.

Now, as everyone has returned, my anticipation has been growing. The school feels like a community, rustling with people at work. Rather than employing my Catherine Zeta Jones moves to get past the alarm, then sitting alone in a quiet workroom, I just walk in and am greeted by friendly office faces. My co-workers have already been crazy-affirming, and I can't believe that I get to work with these people for the next two years. They're just great. So, so great. Can I use that word that many times without having it lose its flavor? GREAT. Greatgreatgreat. I love these people. (Plus, how awesome is it to sit in a bilingual staff meeting?!)

Thanks, God, for a new year--new in so many good ways. Or should I say great ways?

A Quick P.S.

One point I missed but should have included (I'm still 26, so endlessly blathering on to clarify a point is permissible for now!): I think it all seems worse because listlessness is (relatively) new to me. I used to be quite driven, which makes this regression (or whatever it is) harder. Here's something I've learned but daily need to be reminded of: Comparing yourself with people who are more driven will nearly always make you feel as though you've failed. But being driven isn't the most important thing one can be. Unless it's being driven by love, which beats everything.

May we all know such drive.

Me and Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse died a couple weeks ago. I barely knew any of her songs nor much about her life, other than that they tried to make her go to rehab and she said no, no, no. Of course it's sad to hear about anyone passing away young, but it really hit me when I heard her specific age: 27. The same age where life stopped for Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and Kurt Cobain. The age I'll be tomorrow.

Now, there are many things the aforementioned 27ers and I don't have in common: fame, for one, and for another, illicit drug use. Still, 27 is a strikingly low number, and to share it with someone is even more striking. Perhaps it's because I grew up feeling as though I'd been born in a time vacuum--my friends were all claimed by 1983 and 1985. Perhaps it explains why I reel each time I realize that people my age are even old enough to be famous. Well, whatever the case, Amy Winehouse was 27, and her death left the music industry whispering, "Tragedy. Such a tragedy. So much left to offer."

As I get closer to 27, I've been hearing those whispers myself, about myself: Tragedy. Such a tragedy. Not the death kind of tragedy, obviously. (If you believe otherwise, then I definitely should be famous: blogging from beyond the grave!) I've been evaluating my twenties lately and, in doing so, stumbling across regrets--more over things left undone than wrongs committed.

I don't mean getting famous (I gave up that dream after realizing that I could barely do a cartwheel, much less compete in the Olympics. Bela Karolyi, if you only knew my heart's devastation!). I don't even mean having a megalist of accomplishments. I just mean...I thought I'd be different than this. Amy Winehouse left at 27. Was she--with that voice, that hair, that audience--what she'd hoped to be at that age? Am I?

Last night, I found myself revisiting a lingering malaise, and I sat here for several hours, trying to think of the best way to be honest without getting inappropriately personal for the internet. After deleting and revising fifty million sentences, the best I could come up with is this: Aimless. I've spent much of my twenties being aimless. The path to 27 has been lined with good intentions, and now I'm scattering the ashes of really nice ideas--ideas that got left out too long, cold and stale, expired. I got overwhelmed. Perfectionism slapped me across the face, and laziness offered me a cozy rut where I could lie down and recover indefinitely. I exist in a really rich, theoretical inner world that rarely translates into outside action.

I heard something by Jerry Bridges recently: "As we begin to conform to the will of God in one area of life, He reveals to us our need in another area. That is why we will always be pursuing--as opposed to attaining--holiness in this life." And that's where I am right now, feeling this wide-open pit of need inside myself, something that I've ignored in my faulty all-or-nothing expectations. This isn't necessarily about feeling like I'll never be good enough in general (though that's part of it, and I'm my own harshest critic, I know); it's more about recognizing that I have not been obedient to a lot of the simple things I've been called to, and God is prying apart the crevasses, letting me break. Because it's harder to heal properly if there's not a clean break.

Amy Winehouse had a really beautiful gift, and now that's gone. Okay, okay, she's not a perfect example of living well, but the situation still forces me toward this question: is it more tragic if you're using your life well and then die early...or if you survive to a tender, old age without ever living? Maybe it's not so tragic if you allow it to be redeemed. I'm heart-broken that the defining characteristic of my twenties has been aimlessness; it isn't exactly the legacy I was hoping to leave. And tomorrow, I will not wake up and magically find myself full of purpose and vigor. I know I won't just drop my selfish tendencies because I'm another year older and supposedly wiser. Instead, I have a feeling that 27 is going to be another long battle with myself, a sinner--and I hate that I can't just wipe it all up like spilled milk and move on. I will spill daily, spill and wipe, spill and wipe again.

I'm not good at New Year's resolutions or granting myself fresh starts, but that's what I want 27 to be. New. Fresh. A little less like the me I've been. A little less caught up in myself, choosing to live instead of just getting by. I don't know how to manufacture motivation; I don't know where to buy energy. But I have to believe that maybe if I grant myself the grace to be imperfect tomorrow, if I deliberately step in one direction rather than stagnating in an easy place, maybe it will become a characteristic, overriding all the negative things I've let slip in and define me until now. I will force myself to step forward and step forward again, and it will be painful, and I will probably get frustrated that it's going so slowly. But even crawling is moving forward.

So, thank you for your voice, Amy. Thanks for jolting me. Here's to you.

Here's to 27.

Porto: Where Old, Rusty Things Look Nice

...At least that's what it said in an online review I read before leaving. I wasn't sure what to expect from Porto. I mean, I'm pretty willing to see anything if I can get there on a cheap ticket, but Portugal's never been on the top ten list--and now I can only say that my top ten list has been pathetic! (Caitlin suggested I revise it into a "Thirty Places to See by Thirty" list, and I may do just that.) Porto, home of port wine, is the most enchanting place, full of things that are broken, peeling, decrepit, and absolutely beautiful.

The abundance of azulejos (blue painted tile) in Porto made me just die of delight. They are everywhere: cathedrals, train stations, in fancy restaurants and around abandoned doorways. Nary a wall is lacking for detail. And every little souvenir shop has racks of bookmarks with pictures of the azulejos on them. Caitlin gets an honorary medal for this trip, because she heard each of these phrases at least eighteen times and still responded with a smile: "It's so charming!" "These are so beautiful!" and "Bookmarks. Oh, bookmarks." I sighed over those bookmarks the way women normally sigh over babies. In Europe, I feel nudges of beauty in every crack. Surely beauty is everywhere, but in cobblestone streets and plazas, it makes itself known so readily--like the little girl in a tutu who can't help saying, "Mom. Mom. Mom! Look at me. Are you looking? Look at me!"

A few trip highlights:

On the first day, we visited Lello, the world's third most beautiful bookstore (who determines these things, I don't know, but apparently it was beat out by bookshops in Holland and Argentina). I could only spy one employee, a poor man who split time between ringing up purchases and barking, "No photos! No photos!" It made me kinda sad; I would probably be cranky, too, if I spent my workday herding tourists rather than making sales, but it seems like there should be policies against it. (Against dual cashiering-grunting positions, I mean. Not against crankiness itself. There should be a security guard who deals with the tourists, and the man at the till should get to secretly camp out on the upper level of the store at night, maybe unroll a sleeping bag and read Swiss Family Robinson.)

We climbed the Clerigos Tower, 225 steps high.

We stopped by the famous indoor market, which the guidebook promised us was full of fruit, flowers, trinkets, and emotions. I didn't spy much emotion at all, at least not until we located the supersketchy restrooms, hidden away under a staircase full of pigeon feathers.

And then it was on to the Luis I iron bridge, designed by Gustave Eiffel himself (it was one of his projects before the Eiffel Tower). A bunch of teenage boys were diving from the pedestrian level into the river, and as we passed, one of them reached his arm through the railings and snagged Caitlin's plastic shopping bag. She turned to look at him; he just kept tugging until he'd ripped a hole in it, then smiled devilishly up at us. For a split second, I thought all her belongings might tumble out into the river (Noooo! Precious bookmarks!), but we made it to the other side with all possessions intact--and burst out laughing. Because...really. That was not mentioned in the guidebook.

When we were flying out of Madrid, I realized how dry it looked from above: brown and sandy, just a few thin rivers snaking through. My soul has been craving greenery, water, nature, and when we saw the Rio Douro, all that anticipation just leaked out of my muscles, leaving spaces for happiness instead. We plopped down on a patch of lush grass and sat forever, just sat and listened to water moving.

And so, with the call of the wild ringing in our ears, we kept walking alongside the river, figuring that we might as well go all the way to the ocean. It was just around the riverbend.

Side note: it is just around the riverbend, but the riverbend is deceptively long. Five-ish miles and a few hours later: the Atlantic.

Caitlin and I have taken many a rotic walk together (that's "romantic" without the man), and this was no exception. All along the beach were darling eateries lit up with cute lanterns and candles and things that signified we couldn't afford them. It was getting late. We were starving. We were nearly ready to turn around and hop a bus back to the city center when we passed one last lit-up dining joint. "Probably can't afford this one, either," one of us commented. Then we realized it was Pizza Hut. And it was the best Pizza Hut I've ever eaten.

On the second day, we walked atop the iron bridge. No bag rippers here!

We had water poured on us from a few stories above. (Cooking or bathing water, we're pretty sure. It smelled clean. Clean-ish.)

We made it to the Atlantic again (this time, doing half the distance by trolley). The sea wind was so angry and kept trying to steal our clothes!

And that, friends, was Porto. It was nice to get away. And, as always, it was nice to come back home. Check off one box on the Thirty by Thirty! I like you, Portugal.

A Very Scientific Vacation

Not long after my arrival, Caitlin and I realized we like the same kind of travel: cheap and laid-back. So we decided that we should book a flight during August, to escape that deathly heat we kept hearing about. Caitlin created a huge list of locations, complete with prices and predicted weather. Then we unfolded a map and sat on my bed, scientifically narrowing down the list. The highest prices got crossed off first, followed by the highest temperatures. Of the remaining options, we each secretly picked a top three, figuring we could weed out any options that didn't overlap. Except we ended up with the same three: Brussels, Belgium; Manchester, UK; and Milan, Italy. We were both totally fine with any of the three.

The day Caitlin was going to book the tickets, she called me up. "Well...all of the prices went up today."

And that is why, on Wednesday morning, we are going to Portugal.

The Nightlife

You know, I've thought it curious that my neighborhood is so quiet after 10pm.

I usually take Biscuit out for a little walk on our hill in the evening, and there's the usual small crowd: the folks who do their own dog-walking at dusk, the neighbor man whose cigar smoke (I assume) is always wafting through my living room window, a couple of boys on bikes. But once it's dark--actual dark--it's so quiet over here (not including the nightly chorus of dogs). It's weird; I've waited for buses in Alcala at 11, midnight, and the streets there are just buzzing with people out for drinks, tapas, romance, whatever.

Tonight, a little after 10, I decided Biscuit and I should go for a walk to the other side of town. There's a paseo that runs alongside the river ("river" is a very, very loose description, by the way); plus, it's a beautiful night. We left out neighborhood--which is just a little jut of town on the opposite side of the highway from the rest of Camarma. It's a few blocks wide by a few blocks deep--a development left unfinished by the discovery of some precious birds whose habitat it was invading.

First we passed an older lady and a pizza delivery man on motorbike, then a woman with small children in a stroller, then a couple of old men, a family blocking the sidewalk...and just as we turned on to the paseo, I heard the buzz. So this is where all the Camarmites are at night! All along the far side of the paseo, behind a playground, the terrace of a restaurant was full--a restaurant I've only seen, empty, in daylight hours. And in the playground, at least 15 kids were running, playing futbol, swinging. Further down the paseo, another playground, this one also full of kids running wild while their parents stood on the sidewalk, chatting away. Those kids won't be in bed for a long, long time.

Spain is like the awesome aunt who lets you stay up as long as you want and doesn't get mad when you don't get up in the morning.

This blog will get better once school starts and I am no longer the main character. Promise!

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

Here's to 31 more (at least)! Love you!

Back to the Basics

It's been a milestone kind of day. Until this point, my possessions in Spain have been primarily functional and suited for survival needs: toiletries, food, clothing, plastic organizational trays, and books. Today, I have acquired a backpack, an exercise ball, a whiteboard, a sketchbook, and thread, which are not crucial to survival but which make survival much more pleasant and healthy. It's like I'm really moving in to stay!

At the same time, I am not being run out of my room by paper trails and clutter piles. Man, I love this back-to-the-basics kind of life! I didn't want to bring more than two suitcases of stuff to Spain because I wanted to actually wear out clothes, get holes in shoe soles, leave all the auxiliary junk behind. Certainly there are one or two things I regret not packing (but mom, you'll be happy to know that I perused the entire women's section of the shoe store today and couldn't find a single pair in my size [it's possible I suffer cravings from my past life as a Payless junkie]). Since I moved away from dorm life, I've been struggling to pare my possessions down to just what I need and not much more (Hoarders, anyone? Thrift store bargains? Post-it note mountains?); it was ideal that I could literally just hop on a plane and (mostly) start over.


So now, one of my life goals is to be someone whose life could be described this way:

If I could expand it, it'd say: Have less. Give more. Do more. Love more. Be more.

Getting there. Slowly but surely.


Unrelated P.S. Something I've come to appreciate about Spanish: 70% of the time, if I don't know the word for something, I can try using a similar English word pronounced with Spanish vowels, and it works! Not sure how to explain that something is a lie? Try decepción. Can't resist something? It's a tentación. I thought for sure I'd sound exceptionally dumb when I went to the pharmacy and asked for a multivitamina, but sure enough, the lady knew exactly what I was talking about. God bless those Latin roots.