Last weekend was my birthday, but there isn't really much to report. It coincided with a long weekend and I found myself in Valpo once again. We explored the alleys, which I've done before but is really infinitely entertaining. It's the kind of city where you could live there and explore a little bit every day and still find new and interesting places. Little streets and alleys wind their way up the hill, crossing and overpassing one another, and just as you're getting sick of the street your on a staircase will present itself and lead you to a terrace that overlooks the entire walk you've done thus far. And it will always be a different terrace. Every inch of wall is covered with the artisans' graffiti of elaborate tapestries and portraits. It's a cool fuckin' city. The people all seem to be the seaside artist type, but maybe that's my confirmation bias talking. As the sun set we made our way to a cafe that was repurposed out of an old abandoned train car. It had a piano inside and we were treated to ragtime as we sipped mediocre coffee out of styrofoam cups (it's an atmosphere thing, not a beverage thing). Then that night for my birthday we went dancing and I was drunk enough both to participate enthusiastically and also to fail thoroughly. It was a good time for all.

This week work really picked up--relatively speaking, at least. I teach two classes twice a week at the local Canal 13 TV station. All my students are adults and they're all nice and fun and willing to participate, for the most part. As far as the job itself...well I've got a few thoughts. First, the negative: lesson planning is a chore and I definitely feel like a dork standing in front of a room full of fully-grown adults trying to make a foreign language not horribly boring and terrible. The school has also been very concerned about our methodology in the beginning: we were called to a couple meetings and spoken to by the University about exactly what they want from us, which seemed to be pretty inconsistent and what most of us thought we were doing anyway. It doesn't help that the progression of my Spanish is comparable to a particularly gummy molasses and whenever they want to tell me something when I'm actually at the building I have to give them four successive blank looks before I pretend to understand what they're talking about and then ask one of my colleagues for a rough translation five minutes later. I really hate to complain, though, and it is definitely a good gig. First, the lessons, and their suckiness to plan, are becoming easier to prepare each successive week, and I'm chalking up my initial aversion to a lack of experience; in other words, I'm definitely improving, planning better lessons more efficiently. On the second point...I don't think I can get much lamer than being a substitute at a suburban middle school, so at least it's a feeling that I'm used to and that I can work with. Plus, I'm still working criminally few hours each week and getting paid a full salary. So I'm not complaining.

As far as the Spanish goes, I think I exaggerate and I'm overly modest. I'm definitely improving. Every short conversation feels like a minor victory. But it can be frustrating. I read a comment on reddit the other day that really spoke to me:

"I remember when I was a little kid, a few times when I got really, really bored, I’d turn to a Spanish television channel and I’d try with all of my might to just do it, to just force myself to understand Spanish. I had nothing to work with at all, besides your basic hola mi nombre es. But I’d just sit there and try to will those words to make sense in my brain. And obviously nothing was happening, but it wouldn’t stop me from holding out just a little bit of hope. I mean, these people were communicating, there had to have been a way for me to access what was going on.

It’s like, I see some Chinese text on a billboard in Flushing, or the Korean church van that passes me in traffic, it has symbols or pictographs or glyphs or whatever they’re called scrawled along the side. And a part of me still tries the same trick. Like, come on, reveal yourself to me, just tell me what you’re trying to tell everybody else.

And again, there’s nothing there. But still I can feel my brain doing its best to stare intently at the line configurations, the two characters that look familiar except for maybe a slight difference that a non-native reader wouldn’t be able to pick up. Well look at that, I just picked it out. That’s something, right? What does it mean? Why can’t I read Chinese?"

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/24zilp/what_makes_perfect_sense_until_you_think_about_it/chc7isr

He rambles on further (much, much further...if you're into that style, here's a hilarious commentary on Starbucks posted by the same user: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1nkrwk/reddit_what_are_you_not_afraid_to_admit/ccjhioh), but at times it really does feel like that. When I listen to people talk or read a piece of text longer than a sentence found in my textbook, I feel like I'm trying to just will it into my brain. But of course, my study habits (though not stellar) are better than all that. I write things down and reread them and translate endlessly in my brain, and the patterns really are forming. It's kind of neat to watch unfold and my friends are all telling me the same thing. But I've got a long way to go. So, in case you were wondering, that's how the Spanish is going. 

Last week I trained with my frisbee league again, and after finally shelling out for a pair of decent cleats (!!!), I'm once again the discus machine that I used to be. Well, not entirely, but it feels nice to be able to legitimately compete. All the great things about the sport are present here: the spirituality, community, joking and party culture, and intense love of the game on the field. It's different, it has a bit of a Latin American flair, but it's all there. A few of the guys actually really know what they're doing, and although their more technical understanding of the game seems just a shade below top-tier, they know at least as much as I do, and I have to work hard to keep up with the quicker ones. But I hold my own. The league is small, only four teams, and I would put it at about the level of a summer league. There are some really talented players mixed in with some new players, but everyone works hard and has a good time. Some of the best games I've played have been in a summer league; it's just a different set of variables that you have to work with. After the games, the two competing teams get in a circle and give each other compliments (presumably, at least: they're all delivered in rapid fire Spanish). It's actually very adorable. And the camaraderie within our team is like nothing I've ever seen. Everyone welcomed me in as soon as I showed up for my first game of pickup, everyone is friends and invites everyone else to all their parties, and I have a good personal relationship with most of the players on the team. We have a group chat in WhatsApp that gets roughly 200 new messages every day, most of which are silly photoshops of players at games from weeks past (and emoticons...they are very good with their emoticons). I think it's just a cultural difference: for instance, every time people arrive somewhere new, they say hi to everyone--re: shake every man's hand, kiss every woman on the cheek, and introduce them self to everyone they don't recognize. It's a very friendly way to operate which I feel directly contributes to everyone hanging out with each other outside the league games. There are some gringos on my team, who are all hilarious, and they and I agree about this one: on the bus ride home from practice on Thursday, after getting honked at by four cars driven by teammates as we waited at the bus stop, one of them uttered "what a find." What a find, indeed.