Life is about people

Bueno, voy a probar algo nuevo... voy a escribir el post completamente en castellano y ver cómo va... pero primero...

Ok... I apologize in advance to those of you who don't speak Spanish, but I need the practice. Try Google Translate. It really doesn't butcher the meaning too badly. And hey! You may learn some new vocabulary! :)

Ahora...

La verdad es que tengo un montón de temas en que he pensado escribir... han sido unos 10 días más o menos mágicos. Increíbles. Podría hablar o del fin de semana anterior en Nieva de Cameros con la maravillosa gente de Couchsurfing, o de mi primer Thanksgiving y los majos con los cuales lo pasé, o de la continuación de la diversión este finde...

Nieva de Cameros, La Rioja Couchsurfing Rural Meeting, November 2012

Podría hablar sin fin de la felicidad que me he sentido, de las amistades que han crecido-- tanto las nuevas como las que ya existían.

La cena de Thanksgiving en mi casa... mira la comida!

Podría hablar sin fin, pero al mismo tiempo, no tengo las palabras para describir lo que me está pasando, ni en español, ni en inglés. Quizás por eso hablaría sin fin... constantamente intentando a acercarme a la verdadera verdad, pero sin éxito total, y entonces, sin fin. Interesante cómo las cosas que nos parecen tan importantes, tan emotivas a veces son las más difíciles de explicar...

De todos modos, lo que quería decir es que en estos 10 días, he llegado a sentir más cómoda, más a gusto aquí en España, pero específicamente Logroño, que nunca durante el año pasado. No es que pasé el año pasado tan mal... simplemente que ahora, siento que Logroño es más un hogar. Tengo amigos aquí que son divertidos, cómicos, interesantes, pero sobre todo, que son buenas personas.

Qué monos... en los dos sentidos :P
La Comida de "Jóvenes en Conserva" el 24 de noviembre

Alguna vez, me dijo un amigo mío algo que siempre me he acordado... y seguro que lo hemos oído dicho de muchas maneras, pero lo digo yo así:
La vida se trata de las personas. Life is about people.
Se trata de las personas con quienes pasamos el tiempo, el cual, para todos, es la moneda más preciosa. Se trata de cómo tratamos a estas personas de nuestra vida. Hay una cita (cómo las quiero :) ) de la película "Shall We Dance" en que la esposa (Susan Sarandon) del protagonista (Richard Gere) le habla a él de la importancia de tener un testigo de la vida. En el momento, habla específicamente del matrimonio, pero creo que se puede extender la idea a todas nuestras relaciones:

We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying, "Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness."

Con tantas personas en este mundo tan grande, una vida, desde perspectiva amplia, no significa mucho. Claro que existen unas gran personas que cambian el curso de la historia, pero la mayoría de nosotros no somos ellos. Yo no soy persona muy importante mundialmente y si me muriera mañana, hay casi un mundo entero que no lo notaría. Pero las personas de mi mundo, sí, lo notarían. Como dice la cita, las personas de mi vida son testigos de mi vida. Son la evidencia de mi existencia.

¿Qué pensáis? ¿Cómo veis a vuestras existencias? ¿Y a las personas en vuestras vidas?
...
(15 minutos después)
Me he perdido un poco... en las nubes. Estoy cansada, pero el resumen:
Si las personas que están participando en mi vida ahora son indicativas de cómo soy yo... pues, qué suerte he tenido! No podría estar más agradecida... a todos que he conocido en estas últimas semanas, pero especialmente a la "comuna hippie"-- os conocéis quienes sóis. :)

La comuna hippie... es decir los majos invitados de Thanksgiving (faltan dos)
:)

 Ahora, a la cama. ¡Hasta mañana!

Kicking off December with a bang...

I've only gone a little bit past my self-allotted one week between posts, and yet, so much has happened! It's been a whirlwind of working, trip-planning, moving and thinking. Here are the highlights:

1. I have moved!
After returning from Santander to an apartment where:

• The internet was down, 
• a particular 19 year-old Spanish roommate STILL hadn't cleaned up dishes that had already been in the sink one week before I left, 
• the kitchen faucet was still dripping, and 
• aside from him mentioned in #2, there is not a native Spanish speaker in sight, 

I decided it was time to look for something new. And I lucked out on the first try! As I write this, I'm sitting in my lovely (full!) bed in my new room on Saturnino Ulargui. The street name doesn't have quite the allure as Avenida de la Paz, and sadly, I no longer have my own balcony, but to be honest, I wasn't using it anyway-- too cold! 

Blue dot is my new home, red is the old. Click for better detail :)

Anyway, this place is CLEAN, there are no smokers, the kitchen is immaculate and my room is nice and bright. It's on the 5th (and top) floor, so no more street noise. I'm a lot closer to Casco Antiguo (old town) and yet, it will probably work out to be less expensive here. All in all, I'm very much looking forward to living here and my only regret is that I had to leave 2 lovely roommates behind, Emma and Martin. I will miss them, but I probably left just in the nick of time, as a fifth room was just let. That would've been 5 people sharing one bathroom and a tiny kitchen! Here, I live with two nice Spanish girls... one's a pharmacist, the other, a psychologist... with the potential of a third moving in in the next couple of weeks. The two don't speak any English so here's hoping my Spanish improves tenfold! But talking extensively with them will have to be put off for about a week because on Monday...

2. I'm going to Italy... and later, to Greece! This coming week we have a puente from Tuesday through the end of the week. And guess who doesn't work on Monday's :) So, with a solid week of free time, I thought it'd be the perfect opportunity to go someplace a little farther away. In searching, I decided to google "european swing exchanges" and guess what?! There's a Lindy Hop exchange in Thessaloniki, Greece from December 9-11. And guess what?! Thessaloniki just happens to be one of the cities RyanAir flies to. 

Swingalonica!!!

The one downside: no flights there from Spain. Oh well... guess I'll just have to fly to MILAN first!!! :) 

The Duomo! [source]

And another 6 Random Ramblings...

1. Perhaps I should make these random ramblings a weekly occurrence so that several months don't pass between posts.

2. I am currently on Amelia Island, staring out at the Atlantic Ocean. Mom and I have been here for about a week... and I'm afraid it's not been long enough to make me okay with going back to work. The good news is that the rest of my working days are broken up by visits to friends, a wedding, and a visit from Alex (he's my boyfriend!). Then, it's off to Spain!!!

3. SPAIN!!! Oh my goodness. I am leaving for Spain on September 18th and will get to Madrid on the morning of September 19th. Orientation isn't until the 29th so that gives me 10 days to get to Logroño, La Rioja to find an apartment... which could be difficult since the festival of San Mateo will be going on pretty much that whole time. I'm thinking Couch Surfing and a lot of luck will be my main allies in this endeavor. SOOOOOOOOO excited though :)

4. I just downloaded an unhealthy number of ebooks onto my Kindle... and paid nothing for them (yay public domain). Now, I am excited but also a little daunted (by the sheer volume of literature to get through). One (electronic) page at a time...

5. I've been reading this book from the library called Decoding the Universe. It's a history lesson of sorts leading up to the development of information theory and the science behind it. I'm in the middle of a chapter discussing the gentlemen that honed the laws of the behavior of gases and the relationship between work, temperature and energy... Boyle, Charles, Joule. My high school chemistry classes came rushing back to me and I very soon was missing all that knowledge I once possessed. Then he started talking about entropy and the second law of thermodynamics... how entropy (or equilibriumness) is always either constant or increasing. I'm going to stop myself now, but let's just say I was nerding out big time. And REALLY missing math, stat, and science. Maybe I should go back to school...

6. Speaking of school, I've been investigating possible post-Spain adventures and endeavors, including the Erasmus Mundus scholarship for graduate studies in Europe. The program I've fallen for (seriously, my heart speeds up when I read its description) is a Masters in Economic Development and Economic Growth (MEDEG for short)... Just read it again while I was searching for the link. Just got excited again.

Ayayay... :)

Lincoln, Power, and Library Cards.

About a week ago, I started reading Team of Rivals, a non-fiction book that biographically relates the "political genius" of Abraham Lincoln during his presidency as well as his rise to power. The book also gives back-stories on Lincoln's adversaries bidding for the Republican nomination in the Election of 1860: William Henry Seward, Salmon Chase, and Edward Bates... all brought up with ready access to superior educations, afforded them by their relatively well-off circumstances. On the other hand, Lincoln was the son of an illiterate father and could only afford any kind of formal schooling for a few years, after which he had to work to help support his family. From then on, he was completely self-taught through an incredible and insatiable love of reading. From those humble beginnings, he grew to become one of the greatest and most memorable leaders this country (and dare I say, the world) has ever known.

I am only about 100 pages into this very weighty book, but already I've been inspired by Lincoln's lesser-known past. Books are filled with knowledge, and as they say, knowledge is power... so, as evidenced by Lincoln and by logic, it would follow that reading is the greatest way to gain access to the power that any given person has brewing inside of them-- makes me think about Teach For America and how important their mission is.

TFA tangent aside (perhaps saved for another time), I have decided to tap into my potential with reading as my guide. A few days ago, I renewed my public library card... and today being a glorious (and free) day-off from work, I headed to that great building of books to take the first step toward improving my mind. I had to restrain myself from checking out every interesting spine that I saw! I am now the proud borrower of:

• a set of Berlitz Beginning French audio cassettes (to be used in conjunction with my saved French I textbook and flashcards) Parlais-vous français? :)
• 3 books on coffee-- I want to turn my current occupation as a barista into the optimal learning opportunity
• 2 soundtrack CDs: Slumdog Millionaire and Juno (so excited!!)
• and finally, a novel by an author recommended by a good friend (the best kind of novel in my book): A Pale View of the Hills

Again, this was me compromising with myself (and trying to be realistic about the number of books I can actually read in a certain time-frame). 

Now, I am sitting in a (different) Starbucks, bumming free wireless off the bagel shop next door, already two chapters into the very interesting Coffee: The Epic of a Commodity by German H.E. Jacob. Suggestible person that I am, I imbibed a deliciously caffeinated (and cheap!) Soy Cappuccino as I read... 

Goodness! I have missed reading. So glad college is done so I can learn on my own terms...

Back to the books for me. :)