One down

One exam done, three papers, two exams, and a final project until the end of my junior year!

It was supposed to be a positive thing, but now it kind of puts me in a "I'm drowning in a sea of work" kind of mood. Shucks.

A little compile of random things in my life currently:

A lot of my program friends are headed back to the States tomorrow. :( Makes me sad! One friend is graduating this semester, so I actually don't know when I'll see her next.

The exam today actually (knock on wood) went pretty well! BUT, I did mix English and Spanish together when writing the answers because there was just no way I could talk about how I could decrease the weight of the public debt in relation to the GDP all in Spanish. Nope. (The professor said it was fine.)

The weather in Madrid has been FANTASTIC!

But a strange thing. So as you can see, it's in the upper 80's here. In my mind (and most other Americans' mindset), this weather calls for shorts and dresses.  Or at least, it's perfectly acceptable to wear shorts and dresses.  Yet, the past two days I've worn shorts, and I keep on getting funny looks from the Spaniards! I see people still in their boots and coats! (Plus tights, plus scarves.) Holy cow! How are you not dying from the heat? Some things I will never understand.

As I'm thinking about going back home (less than two weeks everyone!), I'm mustering up all the different things I want to do when I'm home. There's a couple of staples such as taking a bath, watching a movie on my couch, FOODNETWORK, baking cookies, making guacamole, and eating lots, and lots of Korean food.  But aside from that, this desire to beautify my family's home is bubbling out. More like spewing out.  Hopefully I'll be able to get somethings accomplished. :)

And LASTLY (before I head off to write my paper), I've booked my final trip of this semester to Barcelona!!! This indeed is going to be a solo trip. Eeeep! I booked my flight, and just booked a B&B through Airbnb.com (which is a first for me), so let's see how things turn out! 

(Shout out to Jen. If you're reading this, which you may not be, forgive me for not sending an update email yet!)

Cultural differences: false cognates

Spanish and English have very similar words, similar sentence structures, and share the same alphabet, more or less.  And personally, I think that's why it's easier for English speakers to pick up Spanish, in contrast to Swahili. (In fact, a long standing joke among Americans is that if you add a -o or -a to an English word, you get a Spanish word. Obviously, not true.)

For instance, if I wrote, Ángela estudia economía en Boston. With some intellectual will-power, you could probably deduct that that sentence means "Angela studies economics in Boston," or at least something to that effect.

Likewise, you could probably guess, universidad means university, concentración means concentration, fútbol means football.

BUT! There are so many false cognates as well! AKA because the Spanish word looks similar to an English word, you assume it means the same thing as it does in English, but it actually means something completely different in Spanish.

Shall we look at some examples?


- Librería: looks like "library," no? Well, it actually means "bookstore."
- Actualmente: looks like "actually," but it actually (har har) means "currently." "Actually" would be better expressed as "en realidad."
- Colegio: Not "college." Refers to "high school."
- Culto: Not a "cult." Means "a church service."
- Red: Doesn't refer to the color red. In Spanish it means "network" or "web." So when they talk about the internet, sometimes they use this word.

So those are pretty standard, but here's two that I find hilarious.

- Embarazada: Does NOT mean embarrassed. It means pregnant!! Haha I know tons of people who have made this mistake.
- Constipado: LOL Funny story. My host mom was really sick at one point this semester, and she was telling me all her symptoms when she says, "Estoy muy constipada." And I think, "Woah lady, I know we've gotten close, but I rather not know about such bodily functions."  Then I realize she's talking about her nose!  Constipado is equivalent to congested, NOT constipated.

Yay for language barriers!

Querida Real Academia Española...

Dear Royal Spanish Academy,

I hereby humbly request a creation of a new Spanish word for the benefit of the Spanish people, to facilitate the expression of one's feelings and thoughts.

Please consider including the word "awkward" into the next edition of Diccionario de la Real Academia Española, for your beautiful language lacks such an expression.  And when taking this word into consideration, please, dully note the social context of this word. Failing to do so would be the upmost disagreeable thing to do to this wonderful word.

I do recognize that the Spanish find this word, well, awkward to pronounce.  However, do not be dismayed for practice makes perfect.

Thank you for your time and dedication to the Spanish language, and I look forward to the 2013 edition of Diccionario de la Real Academia Española.


With the highest level of sincerity,
Angela

La Huelga

Tomorrow is the big Huelga here in Spain.

Also referred to as 29M, the syndicators of Spain has rallied together and called the nation to a nation-wide strike tomorrow protesting against the labor reforms the current government has/will be enacting.

I don't know too much about it, but I know that daily life in all of Spain will be affect by this strike.  Flights have been cancelled (thankfully not my own), the Metro is estimated to only function 30-35% of its normal capacity, and most all classes have been cancelled.

On campus, almost everything but the walls and chairs are spray painted with a large 29M in red or black, and everywhere you can see signs saying "LA HUELGA!" or "PARA VUESTRO FUTURO!" etc. etc. Spain and their leniency with the law never fails to surprise me.  This type of vandalism would never fly on Boston's campus.

I might get stoned for saying this, but from an Economic point of view (tainted with probably an Americanized bias), these labor reforms in general seem really necessary for the Spanish economy.  And as a college student who often fails to be well informed on the things of this world, I wonder if even half of the students who are rallying tomorrow will know exactly what they are protesting against. A colleague told me that the people are angry because these decisions were made only by the government and the businesses without discussing with the workers.  I don't know whether that is true or not, but in my humble opinion, even with these reforms, the workers in Spain benefit so much more than the workers in the U.S.

Let me give an example. If an employer wants to or needs to fire an employee, he/she needs a strong reason such as the employee comes to work naked or did something horrible. If such reasons don't exist, the employer is required to pay the employee he/she wants to fire 45 days worth of pay for every year the employee worked for the employer.

That is to say, if I wanted to fire an employee who has worked for me for 10 years because I needed to reduce the number of employees in my small business (which is not a good enough reason according to Spanish labor laws), I would have to pay 45 days of work multiplied the number of years the employee has worked for me. So in total I would have to pay 450 days worth of salary in one check if I want to fire this employee. !!! The reforms reduces this number from 45 days to 33 days.

Okay, it is only a small portion of the reforms, I'm sure, but either way, the workers here have it REALLLL nice.  A part of me wants to say, stop your whining.

Anyhoo, let's just hope that I can get to the airport tomorrow okay so I that I can be on my way to Paris to be reunited with one of my best friends.  YAY for Spring break! :)

Cultural blurb

Today in Spain is 28/02/2012.  Or 28 de febrero de 2012.

Today in America is 02/28/2012.  Or February 28th, 2012.

I still have yet to get used to this change.

Cultural Blurb: Thank You for Smoking

I think the title "Cultural Blurb" is a little more attractive and funky, no?

To lessen the pains of waiting for Sevilla update, I thought I might tease with a cultural update.

Move aside BU smokers, Madrileños got you beat. 

SO many people smoke here.  And not only do they smoke often, they smoke everywhere. Here on the campus of Autónoma, there are signs on the walls, the doors, the chairs, the windows, the tables on how this is a place Smoke-Free environment.  Yet, between classes, I see groups of students hovering near the doors, in corners of the hallways with a thick cloud of blue-grey smoke above their heads.  Yes, they are smoking INSIDE the school building--an unfathomable idea for us Americans.  In America, even if you were to smoke indoors, I think you would smoke with the utmost discretion.  But not here.  One time, we had about a 30 minute break between classes, and during that 30 minutes, this kid takes out a cigarette, closes the classroom door, props open a window, and starts smoking inside the classroom.  I was so taken aback!

But this lack of consideration of rules seems to be common trend here in Spain.  Maybe it's because Spain was governed by a oppressive dictatorship until fairly recently, people don't seem too keen on heavy enforcement of social rules such as prohibition of smoking in public areas.  Then again, this may be a completely inaccurate observation on my part.

P.S. I actually haven't seen Thank You For Smoking. Just remembered hearing that title, and thought I'd borrow it for this post. I'm such a poser. :P

Cultural differences --- Happy late Valentine's Day

Happy belated San Valentín! :)

Valentine's day never really had any significance for me, except during middle school.  That's only because we had Valentine's Day party aka lots of candy, paper cards with heart stickers, and no class.

(I think it might be the first year in the past 13 years

where I didn't receive these candies...)

Maybe it's because I don't go into stores very often in Madrid, but I almost forgot that it was that time of the year! In America you are reminded that a major holiday is headed your way because approximately two months before the actual holiday, the stores are filled with insert holiday here themed candy and decoration. I mean think, Easter, Christmas, Fourth of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day.  And think Walmart, Walgreens, CVS.  Classic.  And the day after the holiday, all the candy go on sale, so I've known people buying pounds and pounds of mixed chocolate bags (Twix, Snickers, Kit Kats, Milkway, M&Ms, the whole shabang.)

Stupid consumerism.  Glad that that mentality doesn't quite exist in Madrid.  (But that might be because there is no equivalent to a CVS here in Madrid---which at times is very inconvenient...)

Anyways, that's that. Another thing.

Cultural differences part 4

Okay, it's not solely a Spanish cultural difference, so this post is slightly mis-titled.  But on Sunday I went to Spanish-speaking church with a friend I had made at the UAM (wahoo for friend making!! :D).  During service, I realized that they were observing communion this week at this particular church, and I didn't think too much of it.

Every church does communion a little differently, and that much I expected.  The bread, signifying the body of Jesus, was slightly different from what I'm used to, but that was nothing in comparison to the little gift of surprise that was to follow.  When the little plastic cups of "wine" signifying the blood of Jesus Christ came around, I was a little confused because the color of the liquid was not the color of grape juice, which is what I've grown up with, or even wine!  It was the color of apple juice.  So my natural thought process was:

"Well, this is a strange color.  Oh, do they use real wine instead? No, that is not the color of wine.  Hm, I wonder if grape juice is expensive in Spain.  Probably so, and if so, they probably just substituted it with some other juice.  They didn't fill the cups all the way either, so they must be trying to conserve money Well judging by the color, it seems like they used apple juice.  How strange, but I guess in the end what type of juice doesn't really matter."  

 (That's a glimpse of Angela's very strange an rapid thought process for you.)

The usher told me that here we drink it right away and put the cups back onto the tray, so not thinking too much about it, I threw the liquid into my mouth, and boy, was I surprised.  It was neither grape nor apple juice.  Quite honestly, I still don't know what it was, but it was a surprise indeed.  It was sweet and bitter, and warm while giving little jabs while going down my throat.  My eyes probably went O.O for the first time while taking communion.

You ask, why were you so surprised?  See, the reason to why my guard was down was because last Sunday, I went to a different church, and they had communion too.  I suspected the "wine" part to be actual wine since wine is a no biggie in Spain, but it was grape juice.  So I thought Spanish churches were like the American ones and used grape juice.  Hence the element of surprise this past Sunday when it turned out to be something very different from grape juice.

Back in the US I have never had anything but grape juice for communion, but I know that some do use real wine.  That's why I said that it's not a Spanish cultural difference per se, but still a difference nonetheless.  Yay for new experiences.

:)

Cultural difference part 3

I don't what it is, but people in Spain have HORRIBLE handwriting.

I don't think I have a high standard for what a decent handwriting looks like, but man, what do they teach kids in first grade here in Spain? Did they not use this??

I had a Spanish professor for an Econ class in Boston, and I thought he just had a bad handwriting, but after taking classes in Spain for about three weeks now, I have come to the conclusion that people in Spain generally have bad handwriting. Whether it be the professor writing on the chalkboard or making corrections made on my essay, or the girl who sits next to me in lecture and kindly let's me look at her notes when I miss what the professor just had said...they all have awful handwriting. (So me copying notes from the girl is often times really unsuccessful.)

To make matters worse, because I'm not fluent, I can't make out words from the horrible handwriting as I usually would be able to with English. So I just end up basically taking shot at the dark at what the word could potentially be. My notes are probably filled with fake Spanish words right now.

Things I miss about America

I'm learning to love this country more and more each day, but that is not to say that there aren't things I miss about home.

Here's a list of the first ten things that popped into my head when thinking about what I miss about the good ol U.S. of A.

1) Being able to communicate effectively

2) Spicy food

3) My bed

4) American TV (I know shocking, but I really would just sometimes like to go on ABC family and watch oldie-but-goodie movies...and cheesy shows)

5) Being able to enjoy my classes

6) Korean food

7) Knowing what I'm ordering at a restaurant

8) Being able to text and call people without worrying about my saldos, or how much I loaded onto my pay-as-you-go phone

9) Getting to class by walking at most 15 minutes

10) And of course, my friends, my church, my family. I don't mean to write this as an afterthought. It almost should just be assumed that they/you guys are sorely sorely sorely missed. Everyday.

A Little Bigger Cultural Difference

BOOBS ON TV. I completely sounded like a sixth grader just now, but no, in all seriousness, there are boobs on TV. And not just TV, but on the 9 o'clock news. The news blurb was about (or at least what I think it was about) how this one doctor is getting arrested for bad breast implants. Throughout this 5~7 minute news story, there were bare boobs all over the place. It was strange.

Speaking of TV, I think the TV here is much more liberal/less censored here than TV is in America. There was an ad for something during the middle of a game show, and it legitimately were two fantom-like couple having sex. VERY VERY awkward to watch with your host mom. Maybe less censorship is yay-freedom-of-speech, but at the same time, this is the time in which families are watching TV together. I mean, should 8 year olds be watching this? Am I just being super-conservative? Call me an old grandma, but sex scenes for commercials just doesn't seem right in my eyes (no pun intended).

TV shows in general here are weird. And not that interesting.

Cultural differences

So I thought I might extend the last part of a previous post on cultural differences, and dedicate a whole post (or a whole series of posts) on small cultural differences I've witnessed here in Spain.

The first one is a small one.

The sun rises REALLY late here. I leave the house at 8, and I feel like I'm leaving at 5 in the morning. What's the sun doing??!? It makes my morning commutes so much harder.