The End

My taxi comes in less than an hour and a half to take me to my 7 am flight home. I am packed (with space to spare) but not ready to leave Madrid. But since my life will no longer revolve around jamon, this blog comes to an end.

Nothing but time

Last night, or rather, very early this morning, I was amusing myself by poking the cat with my toothbrush. This came to an end when the toothbrush was wrestled away from me with a combination of feigned indifference and very sharp claws. Sitting on my bed, wondering what else there was to do at 3 am on a Sunday, I finally appreciated the situation that has been looming all year: unemployment. As of last Thursday, I have no job, nor job prospects. Indefinitely. All I have is time gaping in front of me. This freaks me out only a little, and honestly, probably less than it should, or else I would have something lined up by now. I suppose its something that will become more familiar as I get older, but for now, this "indefinite" amount of time is a new and strange concept. Maybe I will look more closely into moving to Buenos Aires for a little while.

The High Life

Our lovely group of Fulbright girls took a day trip today to the Ribeira wine region, outside of Valladolid. Morgan, who has the coolest family friends, knew the owner, a Brooklyn native who has lived in over 10 countries, and settled in Spain to make wine for a living. His vineyard produced the 2005 winner of best red wine in the world in a (the?) London wine tasting competition. We were given a private tour through the vineyard and winery, an extensive tasting menu in a beautiful monastery, received free bottles of the winning wine, and treated to a delicious lunch. I even bought wine-infused salt. The only downside was that it involved almost eight hours on the train, when it should have been five, because of construction, delays, etc. Renting a car is really the best way to get anywhere in Spain. I need to learn how to drive stick-shift.

My Spanish life draws to a close

Today was my last day of school! I didn't think I would be sad, but I was. There were three separate times that I got choked up, particularly when my favorite student came up to say goodbye and thank me for everything. The teachers seemed mildly sad to see me go, and I think they genuinely wish I would stay another year, but we weren't best friends or anything, so my despedida was short and sweet. The teachers in the English class that I taught after school gave me a Spanish novel, and they all signed their names on the inside, which was very touching. One of them wrote, "Alexandra, I'll never forget you!" which made me laugh. I don't think he knows how forceful that sounds in English.

Why I appreciate the SATC movie

I have been excited about the Sex and the City movie coming out for quite some time, because I thought it would provoke more of the same gushing articles celebrating the show's representation of modern women that I had read for eight years while the show was on the air. I wanted to be angry and indignant about this. And while a fair share of lovey-dovey female empowerment sentiment has been expressed, and the movie has earned a bazillion dollars, something even better than me getting to be angry and indignant has happened. Everyone is angry and indignant! The release of the movie has provoked endless rage from male and female commentators about how the unattainable and undesirable lifestyles of these four women represent the worse ideals of modern feminism. What took everyone so long?

Possibly the positive energy towards the show was mostly held together by the strong bond of female friendship it presented, something that appeals to me as well. But everything else was so terrible, and the movie pushed the ideas the show embodied to their logical extreme of mindless consumption, endless frivolity, ridiculous self-absorption, and a mind-numbing obsession with men. Now people are finally talking. (I haven't actually seen the movie, but I've seen a lot of the show.) How is it that the ideal of modern womanhood came to be represented by four women who cannot talk intelligently about anything other than sex, dating, and their own insecurities? Who have prolonged their adolescence so indefinitely that their reaction to marriage and children is sneer and derision, while their reaction to impractical stilettos is unbridled excitement? Why is Carrie such a terrible writer? What does Charlotte actually like about art?

Even if one chooses to ignore these damning values that the show perpetuates, and concentrate on the entertainment value, I am still confused. These women are terrifying. I would never choose to spend time with any of them, and the fact that people spend so much energy devoted to discovering which SATC character they are most like, and then continuing to model themselves after them, baffles me. They have very few positive character traits with which I would like to identify myself. Of course, I would love to live in this New York fantasy world, where I make enough money being a low-brow writer to have a large, light-filled apartment, have the time to attend champagne brunches with my girlfriends every day, and be courted by rich, attractive men who want me because I am "quirky" and wear birds' nests in my hair. But if it meant being as vapid and uninteresting as any of the characters, I would give it up in a heartbeat.

Rejection

I felt all productive yesterday because I finally e-filed my taxes, and the IRS REJECTED them! The birthdate provided to them by the Social Security Administration doesn't match the one that I provided. So I was instructed to call the SSA and get this cleared up. I'm sure this is not that big of a deal, but for some reason it kind of freaks me out that Social Security has a different birthdate for me than I have for myself. This is very basic! I am dependent on official documents for this kind of information about myself. I mean, I don't remember my birth, so for all I know, they could be right. I hope not though, because it would be highly disconcerting to start celebrating my birthday on a different day.

Porto was lovely and relaxing. It was genteel and glamorous in a old-fashioned way, but still had the laid-back charm of a Mediterranean beach town (even though we were on the river and the ocean was a few miles away). And there were precious few tourists, a rarity in early June in Europe. Talia and I took river boat and winery tours, sat around drinking port wine and eating cheese, and generally savoring the fact that our lives are amazing, and will probably never be this cool again. Even if I am a millionaire in 20 years, flying to Portugal for a relaxing weekend will never be as accessible and care-free as it is now.

Although I don't leave for another six weeks, I have seven working days left in Madrid. I started liking my job a lot more after the Global Classrooms fiasco, and now I'm sad to leave the kids. I tried to teach them about foreshadowing today, which was largely unsuccessful, but last week I taught the Allegory of the Cave and it went surprisingly well (thanks, Rita). Why do I have to leave now?

Puppies, Spanish, and a Cruise

I went to Starbucks to study for my upcoming Spanish test, but there was this adorable puppy outside the window, and all I could do was watch it frolic and coo about how cute it was. Unproductive. Although I'm not even sure that I have a Spanish test, given that I am going to Portugal on the day we are taking it, and my Spanish teacher has been absent for the past two weeks, complicating my attempts to reschedule it. I started another Spanish class, to use up the 200 Euros remaining in my "research budget" before the end of the year. There were only two other people in my class, and the teacher is quite intimidating, so maybe I will finally learn how to properly use the subjunctive in all of it's glorious intricacies.

I got 300 euros for writing my final report, a good chunk of which I spent buying a ticket to Venice for my cruise. I'm going a day early to do some sight-seeing before embarking on a seven day trip around the Greek Isles (and Croatia!). I'm going to spend the other chunk of the money buying new clothes so that my cruise pictures are not replicas of the last ones that I took.