Y bueno, ya está la hora de mejorar mi español a todos costos, incluso escribir mis blogs en español. Y la verdad es que es vergonzoso; siempre estoy cometiendo errores. Pero como todos los días impongo mis alumnos escriban en inglés, supongo que yo también debo hacer la esfuerza.
Los últimos dos días han estado increiblemente llenos. Ayer, el lunes, dejé mis clases de la historia del arte... pues, para ser honesta, tampoco estoy matriculada en estos cursos todavía. Necesito matricularme lo antes como posible, pero como tuve que irme de repente a los EEUU hace una semana y media, todavía estoy atrasada en todo de mi vida española. Supongo no importa tanto porque ya planeo salir de España en mayo en vez de junio. Así, me es posible conseguir créditos en los cursos. Tampoco quiero el crédito. Tengo un montón de créditos bajograduados, y si gano más, la oficina de apoyo ecónomico no va a ayudarme más. Pero, como dejé las clases, utilicé el tiempo para calificar examenes y ensayos que hicieron mis alumnos mientras estaba yo en los EEUU. También, planifiqué una breve lección para dos niñas de las edades 6 y 11 que encontré debido al hecho que su madre es amiga de mi profesora de italiano del cuatrimestre pasado. Fue la primera vez que conocí a ellas. Son adorables e inteligentes, y creo que va a estar divertido darles las clases particulares. Después, fui a Mercandona a comprar algunas cosas y después al Centro de Idiomas para calificar más y intentar a planificar la lección de hoy. Eso no pasó, por supuesto. Pasé todo el tiempo calificando y no tuve tiempo bastante para planificar la lección. Fui a casa, comí algo pequeño (no me acuerdo de qué) y por fin, anduve al Café Shamash donde ESN estaba haciendo un Tandem. Es la primera vez que he asistido hace algunos meses, pues, porque algunas veces que me fui, no estaba muy satisfecha por la cantidad de español hablada. Pero ayer lo pasé muy bien. Tomé dos cañas y hablé con una cantidad increíble de gente, y todo era en español. No me molesta ayudar a la gente mejorar su inglés, pero hay que considerar que he cruzado el mar, he dejado el prometido por nueve meses, y me he puesto atrasada por un año en mis estudios por venir aquí y mejorar mi español. Ya he sacrificado un montón; no quiero que cada vez que me voy a un tandem, la gente me obligue a hablar en inglés todo el tiempo. Pues, bien, también, en una hora durante el día, también fui al gimnasio y corrí 60 minutos (caminé 5). Fue la primera vez hace herrí el tobillo que he estado capaz de correr así. Por eso, estaba bastante satisfecha con mi sesión de ejercicios. Por la noche, durmí más pronto que lo que es normal para mí. Me puse a dormir a la 1:30.
Hoy fue otro día muy lleno. Fui a clase... pues me quedé por dos, porque estaba perdia en la otra por no asistirla nunca. Qué mala estudiante soy yo... pero bueno... no estoy aquí para ser estudiante. Estoy aquí para mejorar mi español hablado y enseñar inglés. No siento nunca culpable por no asistir a mis clases. Puedo asistir a clases de nuevo en agosto... y joder... como voy a asistir a clases en ese tiempo. Después de clases, vení a casa para lavar los platos y comer algo. Luego, Savannah y yo fuimos al gimnasio. Ella hizo una mezcla de ejercicios. Yo solo levanté pesas. Fue mi días de 5 8´s. Es decir... 5 series de cada ejercicio con 8 repeticiones en cada serie. Es pura misería. Pero es la mejor manera de aumentar la masa muscular... ya, yo lo sé que soy una rara chica por querer aumentar la masa muscular. Pues nada. Después del gimnasio, fuimos a Mercadona... compré una pizza de microondas, lechuga, pan (siempre compro pan aquí porque está hecho todos los días... todavía era calienta a la compra) y ketchup. Comí la pizza. Me duché. Planifiqué la lección para mi clase... que pasada. Y sin más de 10 minutos extras, terminó la calificación de los ensayos. Fui a enseñar. La clase pasó bien, en mi opinión. Los alumnos eran un poco desordenados, como siempre, pero participaban... hablaban. Y bueno, ahora, estoy aquí en el sofá escribiendo esto. Ahora me voy a prepararme un sandwich de queso y calentarme una lata de sopa para comer con ello. Después a leer y hablar con John en Skype.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Funeral stuff
Got back yesterday from an emergency trip home for my grandmother´s funeral. It all felt so surreal- I´m still integrating it all in my mind. One minute I´m putting the finishing touches on my lesson plans, the next John is calling me to say that my grandmother has not only been put on life support, but that she´s being taken off of it, and I´m calling Savannah to come get my lesson plans and teach my class for me. The next thing I know I´m buying a train ticket online, packing my suitcase, and waiting for John to finish the purchase of my airline ticket home. I slept two hours that night... Valentine´s Day... waking up a lot crying, imagining her face. We all knew she was ill, but we didn´t expect a fall that would cause hemorrhaging and sudden death. But that´s how it went, and really... I suppose it´s better that she didn´t have to suffer anymore. She was breaking out a lot, having more bad days than good ones, unable to eat, itching, and depressed. If it was only going to get worse from there, I´m glad she´s free of suffering now. I just wish I could talk to her again, hug her again. In honesty, the last time I hugged her, when I was leaving to go back to Morgantown before coming back to Spain after Christmas, I guess there was this sort of pressure to it. Those arms that had been so week were squeezing me with such firmness... and her eyes were filling with tears and she was looking at me hard. I felt she believed that would be the last time I saw her. But then things were going ok, as ok as it gets with advanced liver cirrhosis in someone operating on one kidney after a heart attack... and then she was just gone.
I was confused. Savannah had to basically sit on my bed and remind me to pack underwear, socks, and bras, because the only thing I remembered on my own was sweaters. Everyone was in- Erica came up from Miami, Emily drove in from Virginia, Natalie, Bryan, John and Megan made it from Clarksburg of course, I made it from Spain, and the rest of us live in the area. Jesse came down to her mom´s from Wheeling to be there for me. That meant a lot.
I felt like I wasn´t processing things for most of the time I was there. I mean, I was sort of slammed with reality on Skype, traveled for 22 hours, crossing the ocean and 6 time zones, and then I woke up in the morning and was making pancakes and eggs with Dad, and Pap-paw and Bryan were there, and Bryan was asking me to do a eulogy. I didn´t mind being asked. In fact, I thought about it on the way home, in the plane, that there was a fair chance I´d be doing that and that it would be an honor to speak about her, for her. So from that point, I felt like I just couldn´t lose it in the moment or I´d be lost and unable to do it. John, Megan, Erica, Emily, and Carly all stood up with me while I read it. Carly was crying uncontrollably behind me, so I paused for a minute to grab her. She settled down. I let her go. I kept going. Jesse was right in my line of view, so even though I had to keep my eyes on what I was reading, that gave me a visible, supportive soul to focus on. Joe was there, too, drove in with César and Claire from Morgantown. Of course, my family was there, too, but I felt more like I had to support them in that moment than to rely on them. Had I begun to think too much about them, I would have just buckled, too. I´ve given a lot of speeches, performed a lot in my day, but I never spoke with my knees knocking that hard before. Ultimately, it was OK.
She looked beautiful. The funeral home really did a good job on her. Too good. I kept feeling like she was going to get up and hug me. We were at Lori´s having lunch between viewings on Thursday, and I thought I was going to see her coming through the doorway of the kitchen into the dining room at any moment. John had something bothersome going on with his shoulder while I was home. My first thought was to tell him to ask my Mam-maw.
I really just felt disoriented the whole time I was in. Just the suddenness, not only of death, but the planning of such a long journey, and then being home when I wasn´t supposed to be... when I was supposed to be 4,000 miles a way, was just confusing to all my senses. I kept feeling like I just had to... wait it out, ride it out. I kept telling myself, this is fine, this is just the new reality as it is, and she´s at rest now.
I don´t think it was until I got on the plane in Pittsburgh that I really let the hurt all the way in. There was a woman sitting behind me, I think she was dying, but she was definitely a cancer patient, and she was traveling with a friend to Philadelphia. I think they were going to see someone for the last time. Listening to them talk, dancing around the truth, her calling herself pathetic, was just so... reminiscent of what I´d just been through. Mam-maw used to refer to herself as pathetic when she wasn´t feeling well, when she felt like all she did was complain. So I started crying on the plane, unseen, thankfully. I don´t know what I would have done if some stranger had begun trying to comfort me. I just held onto the gold heart-shaped nugget she had made out of the old chains of her mother´s jewelry while the plane took off and stared hard out the window. It felt like, taking off, I was really leaving her for the last time. I could look at her in her casket, I could visit the newly dug grave, but getting in the air, leaving the ground where she´d most recently had breath, that´s what did it.
And then I was back in Spain, also suddenly-seeming. And I figured out the train back to Valladolid, and I was in a taxi. Then I was in my bed, taking a 4-hour nap. Then I woke up and it was 3:30 in the afternoon, and I´d gone home, been with family, been to my grandmother´s funeral. I went for Mexican with Jesse and drank a huge margarita while staring at the floor and not being conversational at all. I showed my grandpa pictures of my London trip. And then... I was just... back here. Going to get groceries with Savannah. Unloading them into the refrigerator. Reading to focus my consciousness. Going for paella with Ntina, Aleks, and Savannah, again... mostly to focus my consciousness and also to keep myself awake to try to get over the jet lag sooner. Walking home from dinner, Savannah was buzzed and talking a lot to me. I felt I could not respond. I was just focusing on getting up the sidewalk and getting into my bed.
Today I slept in. Trying to let myself recuperate gradually from the stress and the jet lag so I don´t get sick. I spent hours planning my conversation class only to have a technical difficulty, rendering my Power Point presentation on Valentine´s Day incorporating the use of the conditional... useless. Usually, that would irritate me, but today it made me absolutely crazy. I taught class. It went well. I think they got something out of the role plays they did and enjoyed the class, so maybe my three hours of planning didn´t go completely to waste.
Then I went to the gym. Ran lightly on the treadmill for 40 minutes. Took it easy because I´m recuperating from several things. Two weeks before I went home I started having a flare up of tendonitis in my ankle. The next week I had a stomach bug and couldn´t eat. Then I found out about my grandma and went through jet lag to encounter grief. Then I came back. So... I just didn´t want to overdo it the first day back to it. 40 minutes running with 10 minutes walking was plenty for today.
Came home. Made some dinner... was thinking of doing porkchops and a zucchini pasta, but then I thought, the pizza I heated up for lunch due to realizing I had no bread for a grilled cheese sandwich... would dry out before tomorrow. So I reheated the rest of the pizza, fixed some broccoli and had that for dinner. Good enough.
Anyway, those are about all my thoughts right now. I need to get back to this. I feel better when I write... as negative as this post probably seems. But I needed to get that out of my system before sleeping, so... meh.
I was confused. Savannah had to basically sit on my bed and remind me to pack underwear, socks, and bras, because the only thing I remembered on my own was sweaters. Everyone was in- Erica came up from Miami, Emily drove in from Virginia, Natalie, Bryan, John and Megan made it from Clarksburg of course, I made it from Spain, and the rest of us live in the area. Jesse came down to her mom´s from Wheeling to be there for me. That meant a lot.
I felt like I wasn´t processing things for most of the time I was there. I mean, I was sort of slammed with reality on Skype, traveled for 22 hours, crossing the ocean and 6 time zones, and then I woke up in the morning and was making pancakes and eggs with Dad, and Pap-paw and Bryan were there, and Bryan was asking me to do a eulogy. I didn´t mind being asked. In fact, I thought about it on the way home, in the plane, that there was a fair chance I´d be doing that and that it would be an honor to speak about her, for her. So from that point, I felt like I just couldn´t lose it in the moment or I´d be lost and unable to do it. John, Megan, Erica, Emily, and Carly all stood up with me while I read it. Carly was crying uncontrollably behind me, so I paused for a minute to grab her. She settled down. I let her go. I kept going. Jesse was right in my line of view, so even though I had to keep my eyes on what I was reading, that gave me a visible, supportive soul to focus on. Joe was there, too, drove in with César and Claire from Morgantown. Of course, my family was there, too, but I felt more like I had to support them in that moment than to rely on them. Had I begun to think too much about them, I would have just buckled, too. I´ve given a lot of speeches, performed a lot in my day, but I never spoke with my knees knocking that hard before. Ultimately, it was OK.
She looked beautiful. The funeral home really did a good job on her. Too good. I kept feeling like she was going to get up and hug me. We were at Lori´s having lunch between viewings on Thursday, and I thought I was going to see her coming through the doorway of the kitchen into the dining room at any moment. John had something bothersome going on with his shoulder while I was home. My first thought was to tell him to ask my Mam-maw.
I really just felt disoriented the whole time I was in. Just the suddenness, not only of death, but the planning of such a long journey, and then being home when I wasn´t supposed to be... when I was supposed to be 4,000 miles a way, was just confusing to all my senses. I kept feeling like I just had to... wait it out, ride it out. I kept telling myself, this is fine, this is just the new reality as it is, and she´s at rest now.
I don´t think it was until I got on the plane in Pittsburgh that I really let the hurt all the way in. There was a woman sitting behind me, I think she was dying, but she was definitely a cancer patient, and she was traveling with a friend to Philadelphia. I think they were going to see someone for the last time. Listening to them talk, dancing around the truth, her calling herself pathetic, was just so... reminiscent of what I´d just been through. Mam-maw used to refer to herself as pathetic when she wasn´t feeling well, when she felt like all she did was complain. So I started crying on the plane, unseen, thankfully. I don´t know what I would have done if some stranger had begun trying to comfort me. I just held onto the gold heart-shaped nugget she had made out of the old chains of her mother´s jewelry while the plane took off and stared hard out the window. It felt like, taking off, I was really leaving her for the last time. I could look at her in her casket, I could visit the newly dug grave, but getting in the air, leaving the ground where she´d most recently had breath, that´s what did it.
And then I was back in Spain, also suddenly-seeming. And I figured out the train back to Valladolid, and I was in a taxi. Then I was in my bed, taking a 4-hour nap. Then I woke up and it was 3:30 in the afternoon, and I´d gone home, been with family, been to my grandmother´s funeral. I went for Mexican with Jesse and drank a huge margarita while staring at the floor and not being conversational at all. I showed my grandpa pictures of my London trip. And then... I was just... back here. Going to get groceries with Savannah. Unloading them into the refrigerator. Reading to focus my consciousness. Going for paella with Ntina, Aleks, and Savannah, again... mostly to focus my consciousness and also to keep myself awake to try to get over the jet lag sooner. Walking home from dinner, Savannah was buzzed and talking a lot to me. I felt I could not respond. I was just focusing on getting up the sidewalk and getting into my bed.
Today I slept in. Trying to let myself recuperate gradually from the stress and the jet lag so I don´t get sick. I spent hours planning my conversation class only to have a technical difficulty, rendering my Power Point presentation on Valentine´s Day incorporating the use of the conditional... useless. Usually, that would irritate me, but today it made me absolutely crazy. I taught class. It went well. I think they got something out of the role plays they did and enjoyed the class, so maybe my three hours of planning didn´t go completely to waste.
Then I went to the gym. Ran lightly on the treadmill for 40 minutes. Took it easy because I´m recuperating from several things. Two weeks before I went home I started having a flare up of tendonitis in my ankle. The next week I had a stomach bug and couldn´t eat. Then I found out about my grandma and went through jet lag to encounter grief. Then I came back. So... I just didn´t want to overdo it the first day back to it. 40 minutes running with 10 minutes walking was plenty for today.
Came home. Made some dinner... was thinking of doing porkchops and a zucchini pasta, but then I thought, the pizza I heated up for lunch due to realizing I had no bread for a grilled cheese sandwich... would dry out before tomorrow. So I reheated the rest of the pizza, fixed some broccoli and had that for dinner. Good enough.
Anyway, those are about all my thoughts right now. I need to get back to this. I feel better when I write... as negative as this post probably seems. But I needed to get that out of my system before sleeping, so... meh.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)