Life is good.

I, again, have been neglecting my blog. I have been quite busy lately with work and enjoying life, but here I am on a Saturday writing a blog while watching a thunderstorm outside. All I can say is I'm happy to be inside in my cozy little room, with Blues, the dog, sitting next to me with his quizzical look on his face. I don't think he likes the thunder and lightning.

I recently had a sort of realization about life, which I don't really know how to put into words. But essentially I am beginning to really think about what life is all about and what's important to me. Living in Spain and being away from loved ones has been difficult and I have let myself get depressed and overly stressed out about things, which had been taking away from my experience here. I realized just how lucky I am to be where I am and to have this experience. I realized that what matters most in life is happiness. And no one else can make me happy. I am the only one who can do that for myself. So what I need to do is make sure I do what makes me happy and be around people who make me feel happy. I feel so lucky to have such good friends and such a wonderful family. Life is good!

My classes lately have been a mixture of ups and downs. It can be quite frustrating at times, especially because I never know exactly what I will be doing beforehand. At San Sebastian, sometimes I show up and the teachers don't even have anything for me to do. I've gotten pretty good at occupying my time doing things for other classes or doing research about other things when this happens. And at the language academy I work at in the afternoons, it is so informal and I just show up and have different classes every day. The director is always shuffling things around, so I am not always with the same kids. And she sometimes gives me activities to do and sometimes I just have to wing it. Which does NOT work well with 5 and 6 year olds! If I had it my way, I would be in charge of my own classes and lesson planning. It is definitely a good experience to get the practice but I am realizing that I'd rather be in charge in the future. I am falling in love with teaching and with my students and the benefits are definitely outweighing the difficulties.

Yesterday I spent a whole hour chatting with staff at San Sebastian and started to finally feel like part of the team instead of an outsider. They got really excited when I asked for help finding the rock climbing gym in the town (see below) and one of the very difficult to understand (but increasing less difficult!) school staff even gave me a ride. Everyone seemed really interested in the fact that I like climbing and were giving me recommendations about areas where people climb and gyms where I could do other activities/sports. I think I even convinced the gym teacher to come along next week and try climbing!

I finally got the chance to go salsa dancing in Malaga last weekend. I realized that salsa is not as big here as it is in Minneapolis, which is unfortunate, but I am happy that there are at least a few places to get my "salsa fix."
Also, yesterday I finally made it to the rock climbing gym (just bouldering, no top-ropes) that I've been meaning to check out. I went right after school yesterday, which meant I was the only one there, since most people are at home having lunch and siesta-ing between 2-5 p.m. It felt so good to do one of my favorite activities again, even though I am not in that kind of shape anymore. Little by little, I will get that strength back. :) The guy who owns the gym is from England and we talked a bunch about climbing and the climbing scene in this part of Spain. He told me that there are not many gyms because people are so all about outdoor climbing. But we both agreed that it is important to have somewhere to train regularly if you want to improve and really be able to appreciate climbing outdoors.

I think I am definitely getting past the difficult part of the "culture shock" process and am really starting to love life here. It's all about a balance of different aspects of my life. I am so happy that I have my American friends here with whom I can dance around the living room with in my pajamas on days when we don't feel like being very Spanish. I also love sharing all things American (i.e. all of our wonderful music, food like pancakes and maple syrup) with Spanish friends and vice versa. I am especially excited to have a big Thanksgiving dinner next Saturday with Americans and Spaniards and about sharing the history and meaning of Thanksgiving with my students this week.


"Don't rely on someone else for your happiness and self worth. Only you can be responsible for that. If you can't love and respect yourself - no one else will be able to make that happen. Accept who you are - completely; the good and the bad - and make changes as YOU see fit - not because you think someone else wants you to be different."