♫ Gustavo Pena - Pensamiento de caracol ♫

de madrugada, de madrugada, con el rocio, brillando sol

(at dawn, at dawn, with the dew, sun shining)

amaneci en carretera, con pensamiento de caracol

(i awaken in the street, with snail thoughts)

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‎‎ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ

short update:

I've been: eating and sleeping and teaching and day-tripping and drinking and meeting and greeting and leaving and breathing and tea-leafing (spanish milk depresses me) and bird-watching (big seagulls) and sleeping and drinking again and walking and walking and walking and writing and thinking and reading (fahrenheit 451) and buying and I've been on my phone a little too much.

a longer update

I started school. I'm an english assistant teacher at IES (which means high school) Emilio Ferrari. The term used for my position is an aux. It's a 25 minute bus trip, or a 40 minute walk. I've commuted with the latter more.

Because the teachers took pity on me as young, different, or maybe even stupid, the head coordinator organised me to take one set of classes with the other aux for the first week, and take my real classes alone for the following. This means I have done two weeks of unending introductions to Australia. I don't know how long I can keep up this enthusiasm for Australian wildlife and customs, meeting a new group of kids every single time. You can even notice how my care factor has considerably dropped since day 1. I'm no longer Steve Irwin on the late show yelling CRIKEY about crocodiles. In class and introduction number 20 I'm much closer to a Ray Shoesmith/Mr Inbetween, shrugging at the dangerous animals and coolly mentioning how a snake could kill this whole classroom if it wanted to. And it might if you keep this behaviour up. I'll bring in a huntsman if I have to. DISCLAIMER: this is only kind of true. the one thing I try to impress upon them, as I do with any foreigner about Australian animals is that they're not to be feared or hated but respected.

Classes have ranged in behaviour and quality of teaching. To some kids, I am a shiny new thing from Australia, a celebrity with weird facts. A lot of the kids don't care one bit for my existence. Por ejemplo, in my first week I received a standing ovation from the year 8's who are taking an accelerated English speaking course. The following week, with my new classes, I felt like I was talking at a brick wall. A few cracks shined through, for sure, but the wall won. I have a class with one teacher, who really does try her best, but I left class today really frustrated with the whole ordeal. The class is acoustically cursed, as every remark travels to the other side of the room and back again making it hard to retain anything. Some kids that were paying attention I saw frequently squinting their eyes at me to hear over the others. The teacher isn't respected also - and it's not looking too hot for me either. She is constantly sh-ing and talking over other students, even if they are actually responding, until the whole thing feels completely unproductive and a waste of time for everyone. This class is a real challenge, and I am wracking my brain for a solution that doesn't involve swimming against the stream of loud children. I am also jealous because the boys in the back have set up a ping pong table with the school desks, to play in-between breaks, which is sick.

After that first week of teaching, I took a trip with Santander with Maddie and Anna. These two are from the UK, teachers also. I made sure we swam in the beach. This is a town of escalators, and 'funiculars.' Wikipedia defines funicular as 'Cable railway in which a cable moves permanently attached rail cars up and down a slope.' Funicular sounds like a disease, and it's terminal. Santander is very touristic usually, but we went on the half-price off season. We tried their dish 'Rabas' which is honestly just calamari, and went to a flamenco show, which I could write a whole entry on! Other regions describe Santandians (?) as apparently 'two-faced', and snobbish of character. I found it pretty French, very maritime, and a bit too posh for me. But that beach!

JACK LOFTUS TIP TO LEARN SPANISH OF THE DAY

Get a haircut from a spanish speaker. In my case, the hair on my head was bothering me to no end this week, crawling down my back like a live animal and interfering with my aerodynamism. Aranca from Balance Salon de Peluquiera fixed me up real good. But the real score was the conversation. You see, while they may not be contractually obliged to have a conversation with you, it's really awkward sitting there without a chat. In my case, Aranca, who was a Valladolid native, was so patient and kind over my stumbling spanish. I also forgot how relaxing the experience of a haircut and wash really is. After a HARD DAYS WORK of 2 classes this was just what I needed, for my good health and spanish confidence. I hope to return when my hair grows back so she can grade me on any Spanish improvement - or worsening; one can’t hold one’s breath.

NEW PEOPLE LIST:

• Darwin (yes!) from Peru, who lives in Madrid. This was the first person I talked to who was mid 20's, student, and also incidentally a dude like me. I met Darwin on the train, before sunrise style, on my trip to Santander. He was awoken by someone else to move to my seat, and I asked if "tienes sueños?" if he was sleepy. We got talking and I was definitely waking him up. He explained the phrase "mi mente está nublada": my mind is cloudy. Because I didn't know this word, nublada, he had to explain the idiom to me as if for the first time, which was enjoyable. He told me about Peruvian food and we arranged to someday go out in Madrid when I'm in town.
• Naeem from Erasmus, a very cheery and smart guy from Ramallah, Palestine. He's studying mechanical engineering in Spain, 19 years old, really switched on and we both got along through history at an Erasmus meetup. He and I were the most sociable at the meetup and so got along. Things are less intimidating when everyone's kind of so-so on the Spanish and visibly shy. I told Naeem of my refined 4/20 meat pie Australian palate and he described traditional Palestinian meals to me. I haven't cracked the code to eating well in Spain yet so I'm frequently hungry. Tapas is a great invention, really gets the people going at night, but sometimes I miss a big meal of food in front of me at 6:30pm.
• Pedro from Guatemala + Erasmus, who insists "QUE TRANSAS" is the right way to greet someone in Spanish. He laments that people here are more standoff-ish. We initially had the rock bottom, absolute worst dap up I've ever even seen or heard about from anyone ever. We were trading blows and parries for at 30 seconds before we decided on a fistbump. I wanted to end my life then and there but glad I didnt - Pedro promised he'd show me to a guitar shop in Valladolid later. cool guy.
• Maria from Erasmus, who said their home town was Tejada, next to Sad Hill Cemetery, where the Good, the Bad and the Ugly was filmed.
• Aranca, my hairdresser. Did bring up that the spanish speakers from south america who come here "don't work", but I didn't press it.
• Cordelia, another AUSTRALIAN aux teacher here. Legend from Brisbane. I found her on the WhatsApp and we made dinner, had drinks with her roommates and basically regressed for a couple hours. Hanging out with another Australian, especially in the presence of other Americans, made me feel less like an insane person, and more like the sane person among the insane (NO OFFENCE CALIFORNIA).
• Antonio, the museum attendant at the Cantabrian Museum of Prehistory and Archaeology. So glad I asked him a question - it evolved into a 30 minute chat. He was so informative and so patient with our spanish. I probably got about 70% of it. I asked him how the Cantabrians - the warrior peoples who lived in the area before the Romans got em - made the stelae, these huge stone circles with designs on them. The designs for the Cantabrian flag come from these structures. One of them (photo below), as Antonio described to me, shows 2 warriors and a horse, who are in heaven, while a dead warrior below them is pictured with a bird, to convey this separation of planes. Antonio kept offering up information we didn't know how to ask for in Spanish, like how they carved the stones, theories, etc.
• Javier Monja: creates a comic series set in Valladolid, called Silver Knight. Actually a really intuitive and easy way to learn the language because of all the pictures.