My life in bullet points

  • I cannot believe that I only have a month left of this semester. Before you know it, the summer will be nearly over and I will have my Masters and I'll be working again. It seems like yesterday that the leaves were red and the snow flakes were falling on Boston's autumn landscape. Now the temperatures are warm and I can barely keep myself from putting on shorts. Of course, New England is fickle and we could easily be back in scarfs and hats in a week.
  • I don't think I had fully experienced the American culture shock until this year. Sure, I experienced aspects of it when I was in college, but not really in regards to lifestyles and social interactions. I know that part of my feelings are stemming from the fact that I had such a strong gang of buddies in Madrid, while here I have scattered friends without the comfortable group reliability that I had in Spain. Part of it also comes from not living in a house full of roommates. Whatever it is, I miss having casual hang outs and social events. It seems like everything here has to be planned weeks in advance and leaves very little room for spontaneity. I miss when friends would just call me up and say, "You wanna hang out?" Now it seems like my social interactions are always: "are you free on X day to do X thing?" I know my current lifestyle is partly to blame; I am busy, but that is only a part of it.
  • I've begun job searching in earnest. I spent all day a few weeks ago at a school, observing classes, talking to teachers, getting a feel for the field and for the American educational system. I must say, I enjoyed Middle School much more than High School. I suspected this would happen. Middle schoolers are crazier, but in all the good senses of the word as well as the negative ones. I find them more creative and willing to have fun than the self conscious high schoolers. So that is the job I'm looking for right now... fingers crossed.
  • I really wish I had a dog. But I know it isn't the time yet. Maybe in a year or two. I miss dogs though.
  • After taking a Children's Lit Survey course, I am a bit sad I didn't pursue the MA in Children's Lit. My professor expressed her disappointment that I didn't do so. I am doing really well in that class and I'm loving the readings. If anyone wants me to recommend children's books (from baby books, to picture books, to early readers, to young adult books....) I've read and studied dozens of them so far this year. For my final project I've decided to skip the research paper and try for the "creative option" which would involve starting a children's book. We'll see how that goes.
  • I've also been trying to write more poetry this semester. I write, but I don't know how much of it is poetry.

Comments

Jenn said…
Ooh, I'll take any book recommendations you have! At this point I'm mostly interested in Toddler books or shortish stories about the length of "Where the Wild Things Are" because that's the extent of Isaiah's attention span, but anything you've read that you LOVE, I'm interested in.

Social life as an adult in the US is not simple at all. I wish you luck in finding a group with whom you can become fully comfortable.
5/4/10 11:40
The Puppy Pirate said…
I still really struggle with the social interactions here, especially now that we have moved to a new city and don't know anyone. It always bothered me that you had to have like an actual activity planned to invite someone to and can't just go dar una vuelta and have a coffee or something. I always enjoy the company and conversation and could care less about the activity or event. Seems like going out for drinks usually works though ;)
5/4/10 12:55
nepaliketi said…
this only means that the next entry better not be in prose ... !
5/4/10 14:11
eefpeef said…
I´d welcome recommendations, too! Have fun with the project: Daniel and I wanted to write children´s books, but gave up (as with everything else we impulsively decide to do).
6/4/10 05:22
Ryan said…
Jess and I have some children's books ideas too, but we've been too busy to put them into reality. Maybe in the future...
6/4/10 08:46
nepaliketi said…
my points in bullet points:

- i cannot believe the last time you blogged was in april
- i wish you would update
- i was wondering how you were doing
- maybe you could TELL US!!!
13/6/10 15:17
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Things I think in the city on the verge of winter

Winter is almost here. You can never tell for sure at this time of the year. One day it is warm, the next it is cold. But for the past couple of weeks, the Fall has been wrestling, and losing, to Winter. The mornings start out very cold, and slowly the day starts to warm a bit as the sun comes out. But the Cold stands patiently in the shadows, hidden from the sun's warmth, waiting for you to walk into the shade of a building or tree to show you how cold the air really is and remind you to bring a scarf. Today was especially chilly. Even our apartment made me wrap up a little tighter. It also made me close some of the windows that we had wide open. Our whole building is heated with a giant coal furnace in the basement that tends to turn our humble abode into a living inferno. We balance this out by opening windows. It is a terrible waste of energy, but we have no control over the heating. I read that madrid still has over 2000 buildings running their heating off coal. It is terribly...
Read more

Snowmelt demands movement

The sun is out again today. The snow has all but melted except for in the abandoned lots where they piled it up several stories high; but even those piles are melting, leaving behind all of the grime that was plowed up with the snow and rivulets of water running towards the nearest gutter. The fact that the water reaches the drain is quite a feat. Just weeks ago it would have frozen halfway across the sidewalk... and lain in waiting for an unsuspecting jogger. But, as I said before, the sun is out now, the temperatures are up, and the ice is nowhere to be seen. I am running out of excuses to avoid jogging, if you will permit the pun. I am in some of the worse shape of my life and I don't particularly feel good about it. Those of you who have known me for most of my life know that being "in shape" was never really been a priority of mine until recently. In high school I looked for ways to do the least amount of work possible in P.E class. When we played sports, I chose t...
Read more

Blogs

I remember when I started blogging. I think I was one of the first people I know to start blogging. Dont get me wrong, it was a cultural phenomenon back 4 years ago when I began, but none of my friends really did it. And then all of a sudden a bunch of us did. We all kept it up for a while, some came and went, but I had a pretty vibrant blogging community. Tonight I found myself checking my friends blogs and finding only abandoned websites for the most part. It kind of kills a lot of the fun of blogging for me. So I guess this post is a bit of a salute to all the blogs around me during this time: So I started thinking of all the people that had blogs I liked that stopped: -Jen -Erin Kidd (though she kept it up for a very short time) -Rebecca Wood (though it seems like she may start up again) -Kenny -Evangeline -Chris Cherene Or the ones that never really started up in the first place: -Charles And then there are the ones that I wish would write more often: -Ed Rand -Aitor -Erin Davidso...
Read more