Why the lack of blogging?

The answer is simple. Time and energy. My co-worker has been on sick leave for the past month, so I've been doing my job plus some of hers. I'm hoping things will start to go back to normal soon, so that I can blog again. I've got tons of great pictures to share!

Overwhelmed

As many of you already know, I got a promotion at work to be the new Director of Studies, which I'm very thankful for. It's a really big improvement, but as with any promotion, I have triple the responsibility as before. It happened right at the time when the academy is starting the Fall campaign. New students, new courses, new schedules. I've had to absorb so much new information this past week and I'm feeling really overwhelmed. We've got some major deadlines coming up and I'm beginning to freak out. Plus, I'm still teaching my summer courses that last until October. It's just plain crazy in my head right now.

The Dangers of Cooking

When making octopus in a pressure cooker, make sure that the sealing mechanism is working correctly. Otherwise, you might witness the incredible erruption of a purple geiser right before your very eyes. It's a spectacular sight, but if your not carefull...you might shoot your eye out. Not to mention the purple foam you'll have to wash off the kitchen walls and curtains.

Spinning

Whoever invented the concept of Spinning (intensive stationary cycling to music) obviously never tried it. Would it really be that difficult to make a seat that wasn't the size of remote control or stuffed with rocks?

Cry Today and Laugh Tomorrow

I'm sure one day this will be a funny anecdote that I'll tell my grandkids, but for now I'm pretty much just ticked off. I failed my Spanish driving test for yielding when I didn't need to. I wanted to turn around in my seat and say, "I was driving before you were out of diapers, son." The only problem is that he was a 60 year old man, so that wouldn't have worked. I mean, if I had run a red light or hit a pedestrian I'd understand, but all I did was YIELD. I told you it was a mafia.

Fast Forward

(Photo by Ben found here)

The days, weeks and months seem to be flying by. Have we done anything significant since September? The answer...no. Wake up, get up, get dressed, quick coffee, class, class, class, run home, quick lunch, class, class, class, class, drag myself home with aching back and feet at 10 PM, eat whatever we can find, watch TV in bed, fall asleep during first commercial break. Then everything just repeats the next morning. There's the occasional Tuesday and Thursday where I don't work until 10 PM that Jose and I go to the gym, the only change in schedule are the last two classes, because we still drag ourselves home with aching back and feet! The rest has already been mentioned.

Everything seems to be in fast forward (just without the catchy circus music playing in the background). We're looking forward to me getting my spanish driver's licence and being able to escape on the weekends, which I will hopefully have before Christmas. Getting in the car and getting away is the best way to disconnect from the constant routine. Something that we desperately need! Right now we would settle for a relaxing dinner at Fogar de Santiso! As Jose says, "durante la semana somos unos vegetales". No translation needed. (9th grade spanish should suffice...sorry for those of you who took Latin or French).

You must be wondering, "If you're so busy, why are blogging right now?" Easy answer, my 9 AM private lesson cancelled on me this morning...said she wasn't feeling well...pretty sure it's just a hangover (she likes to party harty into the wee hours), but I'll let it slide...heck, her late night partying gives me an extra hour to do something constructive like putting a load of dirty clothes in the washer...but what do I do?...I blog :))

Why is that when you're a student time seems to drag on forever, but when you enter the working world it whizzes by you?

Rules of the Road

Having driven for 10 years in the US means nothing to the Spanish DMV. I wouldn't be so peeved if it just meant spending 15 Euros and taking a quick test, however there seems to be a Driver's Ed mafia looming in Spain. The only way to get a driver's licence is by registering with a private "auto school"...registration price...85 Euros. Same as in the States, there's a written test and a driving test. Price that the Spanish DMV charges to take the written test...83.40 Euros. Before you can do the driving test, the auto school has to give the OK that you're ready. One 45 minute driving lesson with the auto school is 18 Euros. New driver's need between 10 and 12 lessons before they get the OK to take the test. If you happen to fail either the written or the driving test twice you have to pay 185 Euros up front before you can try again, plus you have to take 2 more mandatory private lessons. I'm convinced it's a mafia. People have to take out mortgages just to get their driver's licence!

Anyway, so that's what I'm doing now. Going to driver's ed classes, despite having a driver's licence for 10 years and never having gotten a ticket. The world's gone mad.

Note to self...

...diesel engines require diesel. Simple enough, you might think. Well, not simple enough for the Edwards family. How it's possible for a diesel engine to run for 5 days on gasoline is beyond me, but it did.

In Venice we rented a car and for the next 5 days we travelled to Verona, Padova, Trieste and Belluno, stopping twice to fill her up with GASOLINE. The most logical thing would have been to look at the big print on the fuel cap that said DIESEL before lifting the green, non-leaded gas pump instead of the black one, but that would have been too easy. We thought it would be much more interesting to sit for 2 hours at a gas station with a car that wouldn't run before deciding to call a tow truck, whose driver only spoke really fast Italian (Jose went a long way with the two Italian cassette tapes he had listened to years ago...imagine if he had listened to all sixteen!).

If you've ever seen a tow truck you know that there is only room for 2 maybe 3 people in the cab. We were five total (including the driver). My parents volunteered to ride in the car on top of the tow truck. All the people stared at my two very American parents being towed through a small Italian village. Good times. You have to laugh, cause otherwise you'll cry.

In Italy (and Spain for that matter), "I'll be there in five minutes" is a downright lie. Five minutes is like a milli-second on the Italian schedule. As said so exquisitely on the Princess Bride, 5 minutes is just "inconceivable". Our "five minute" wait for the only taxi available in the entire town to take us to the car rental place turned out to be around and hour wait in tow truck garage with mosquito assassins.

Needless to say, we finally got to the car rental counter at the Treviso airport to pick up a new car. Final words to the car rental man as we left the parking lot: "Diesel?" His response: "Diesel."

Tangled

This is what my brain looks like right now. I haven't quite disconected from my project yet. Today I sent it off in the mail, which was the final step towards sanity. But I still have a feeling of anxiety inside from it all. I'm a creature of habit...It's hard to get used to not having to do anything! Hopefully vacation time will cure me.

San Juan and Cacharelas

Tonight is the night of San Juan in Spain. The magical night of witches and fortune.
Not that anyone actually BELIEVES in any of it, though. It's just a fun excuse to get together with friends and eat traditional foods and drink wine for free in the street! The main part of the night is having to jump over a bonfire 3 times. Only the truly brave actually jump over the blazing bonfire...the rest of us whimps just light a newspaper on fire and jump over that. It works.

Frustration

Frustration is when you finish an extremely difficult, 40-question marine conservation exam (in Spanish, I might add) that took you days to finish, and then go online to post your answers only to realize that online all the questions are different from the ones they sent you in the mail, and you have to start the exam over from scratch. Yeah, that's frustrating.

Stressful Sleep

I spent the entire 2 1/2 hours of sleep that I got last night dreaming about adjectives, nouns, prepositions and verbs in Spanish, then in English. I had to finish a 48 page translation about Gerontology for today, so for the past 72 hours I've been eating, sleeping and dreaming about old people.

This happened to me a lot throughout high school and college. The night before an organic chemistry or physics exam I would dream about what I was studying for.

"And Courtney was snuggled all tight in her bed, while visions of chemical reactions, vectors and photosynthesis danced in her head."

It wouldn't be so bad if I weren't doing everything WRONG. That was the worst part about it. In my dreams I would calculate everything wrong.

So last night I experienced once again, Stressful Sleep. Just a bunch of Gerontology in Spanish on a white background, and the simultaneous English translation.

Today I think I'll just stare at some flowers all day. Maybe my dreams will be a little more peaceful tonight.

Back to the Grind

This morning my alarm went off at 7AM, I rolled out of bed, jumped in the shower, got dressed, made coffee, and watched the morning news. All of this was in zombie-mode of course. Yes. Today was the big day. I had to go back to work after 3 B-E-A UTIFUL weeks of vacation.

Since it's a new year, I've decided I want to make better use of my time. My teaching schedule is so whacked out that it's hard to organize my time. I have so many hobbies, swimming, graduate school, teaching, and house work...that I just don't know how to get it all done. I have plenty of free time, but it's all spread out at weird times. For instance, today I teach class from 9:30-11, 4PM-5:30, 7PM-10PM. Tomorrow I teach from 9:30-11, 12:30-2PM, 7PM-8:30. Jose's lunch break is from 2-4, and here the lunches are big...full course meals, which takes the whole 2 hours almost. So, it's not a lack of free time on my hands, it's how to organize it.

Enough rambling for today...

Running on the Spirit... and Coffee

Since Monday I've been teaching English 10 1/2 hours a day and 4 hours on Saturday trying to push forward my December classes so I can take vacation time hile my parents are here for Christmas. I have to keep up with this schedule until December 16. I'm only on day 3 and already struggling. Coffee seems to be my friend these days. I get home at 10 PM grab a quick bite for dinner and jump in bed, just to start all over again at 8AM. Right now my students are doing a listening exercise so I'm using the down time to write this. Jose's been really sweet lately. He made me 'chocolate con churros' last night when I got home. But this is all starting to wear on me, and coffee only goes so far! I'm losing my voice, my mouth hurts from enunciating and going back and forth from English to Spanish, and my back is breaking from standing up all day. So I've decided to turn to the Spirit to keep me going, keep me awake, and not turn me into a Jello Jiggler. Well, I'm off. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Exodus 15:2
The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my victory. He is my God, and I will praise him; he is my father's God, and I will exalt him!

Swimming Pool Stress

Yeah, I never thought going to the pool to swim laps could be stressful. First of all, it's a rule that everyone has to wear a swim cap...and if you add a pair of goggles, the combination is frightening. I've learned there are times to go and not to go. 5PM to 10PM are the times NOT to go. I mean, it's like rush hour traffic on I-40. You can have 5 or 6 people in one lane. So you have to follow the pool etiquette...just like on the highway, you have to stay to the right. If you decide to disobey, the collision could be tragic.

Just the other day, I was doing some freestyle, minding my own business on my side of the lane, when all of a sudden an impatient swimmer decided to pass 2 swimmers. That meant that he was going the wrong way down my side of the lane. I normally just stare at the black line on the bottom of the pool to guide me, but when I came up for air I saw it coming...BOOM...the collision caused a 3 person pile up...I inhaled about a gallon of water and I couldn't stand up because the whole pool is about 8 feet deep. The confusion was horrific. He said he was sorry and order in the pool was restored.

Today was equally stressful. There were about 4 of us in the same lane and there was this one guy who was like a bullet...I'm talking Olympic speed...whereas I go at a nice steady pace. The guy was stressing me out. The dynamic of the lane made me feel like I had to go faster so as to not cause a traffic jam. So I almost drown at one point because I couldn't breathe I was trying to go so fast.

And Lord forbid when someone passes you doing the breast stroke. I've had my share of kicks in the kidney that'll take your breath away.

So, needless to say, I've decided that 3:30PM is the best time to go. I can have a whole lane to myself! There's enough stress in day to day life to have to be stressed out at the pool too.