There's no doubt that this graduate program is an amazing opportunity for a number of reasons, the most obvious of which would be getting to live abroad for two years. A while I relish the chance to explore the world, live in new places and learn so many new things, that benefit can be a little intimidating when considering the flip side: that life continues without you back home. On the top of my list of things I was anxious about missing while I am gone was family holidays. My family has very strong traditions of spending the winter holidays together and as both the oldest child and oldest grandchild I am now the first one to be absent. Contrary to popular opinion, I prefer Thanksgiving over Christmas. That's not to say that I don't like Christmas, but there's just so much pressure and the build up is just so much (granted, I'm not the one cooking on Thanksgiving so maybe I'll change my tune once I actually have some responsibility for that day...). Every year my dad's side of the family gets together at my grandparents' house for the big day -- there's usually about 30 of us and it's just a really nice opportunity to catch up with everyone, especially now that the majority of my generation is in or past college at this point. Leading up to big day, I was quite anxious so see how I would feel. Usually I am pretty good at not getting too homesick and being able to appreciate the moment, but I had never been away from home for the holidays before and I wasn't sure how I was going to handle it. On the plus side, Thanksgiving is only an American holiday, so it wasn't even really on my radar. Especially since the date changes every year, it was super easy to just lose track and not realize that the holiday was upon me! In fact, my Thanksgiving day was basically just another normal day: I slept in since I didn't have class, I went to the library and did some research, and ran some errands. My Thanksgiving evening, however, was another story. My former study abroad office was kind enough to invite me to their annual Thanksgiving dinner, which, in classic Spanish style, went from 9 PM to midnight. I admit I was apprehensive about going to this dinner alone since it was meant for American undergrads studying abroad, none of whom I know. After all, Thanksgiving is not about having dinner with a bunch of random people. But I decided to go because it was very sweet of them to invite and it didn't feel right to just not acknowledge the holiday on some level! And, of course, it turned out to be a wonderful experience. The staff all knew who I was and were aware that I would probably feel uncomfortable sitting with a bunch of students I didn't know so I got to sit with my former professors and had a grand old evening! They had rented out a bar close to school (that I used to go to to do homework, so that was very surreal) and had a full meal catered, including turkey! It was actually an incredibly delicious dinner, completely outshining all my expectations for my Spanish Thanksgiving. Of course, Thanksgiving wouldn't have been complete without a Skype session with the entire family. Surreal doesn't even begin to cover the experience of watching your entire family living out the normal holiday routine without you. In a bizarre way, the whole situation didn't even feel that weird. I spent the better part of two hours on Skype, so I was able to see and/or chat with almost everyone and there moments of lulls in conversation when I could just hear the normal background noise: people asking one another if they want another cookie, shrieks and giggles coming from the basement, and someone giving someone else a hard time about this and that. It honestly almost felt like I really was there.
In the end, my Spanish Thanksgiving ended up being a delightful mix of the familiar and the new. I'm so grateful for the life I have here -- both starting fresh with this graduate program and coming back home to my IES family -- and for getting to still have an active role in my family back home in America. Talk about the best of both worlds.
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Immediately following my relaxing seaside vacation, I put on my hostess hat and welcomed my first visitor of the European graduate experience! And when I say "immediately following", I mean IMMEDIATELY following my vacation. As in my guest, Eric (a friend from high school who is now working in Germany for the year), actually arrived in Granada before I did on Tuesday night. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that I was flying late into Málaga (i.e. not Granada) and had to catch the very last bus to Granada that night otherwise I would have been stranded in Málaga for the night, missed my morning class and Eric would have been left to fend for himself, which would have been difficult given that he doesn't speak any Spanish. Despite an hour delay in my flight, what can only be described as a civilized confrontation with a flight attendant, sprinting through an airport, and a frantic taxi drive, I managed to catch my bus! But talk about a stressful commute.
While I never cease to be enchanted by this city, it is invigorating to get to share it someone else. Eric was here from Tuesday to Saturday and while there aren't that many classically tourist activities to do (besides the amazing Alhambra, of course) it still seemed like we were constantly frantically running around trying to do everything before he left. I'll give you a brief summary of our itinerary, in hopes of convincing some of you readers out there to make the journey one day. I have always tried to do live my experience abroad as fully as I am capable and when I left in 2012 after my semester in Granada there really weren't that many things that I regretted not doing while I was there. The very top item on that short list, however, was not visiting San Sebastián. One of the most popular resort towns in Spain, this coastal city is known for its stunning beaches, picturesque beachfront promenade (seriously it looks like it is straight out of some 1920s F. Scott Fitzgerald novel), and world-renowned restaurants. I had planned to make a day trip when I was in Bilbao (about a hour bus ride away) with some friends during my spring break trip in 2012, but we unfortunately had very rainy weather during the entirety of our stay (which is pretty common in that region), so we decided not to go in the end. Ever since then, it has been on the top of my travel to do list. As fate would have it, my good friend Lindsay, who I met through my graduate program, had worked in San Sebastián as an English teacher a few years back and was hoping to take a trip up sometime this year to visit some friends. Naturally I jumped on the opportunity to travel with her and benefit from her knowledge of the area. We decided to go for a long weekend, Friday to Tuesday, in November when there was some time off from classes. For those of you interested in the pragmatics of traveling, Granada has an airport but it is pretty small and therefore flights to and from there are pretty expensive. The preferred solution, which Lindsay and I did in this case, is to take a 2 hour bus from Granada to Málaga and fly out from that airport. We flew out Friday evening on the 13th (we didn't realize the irony of flying on Friday the 13th until after we had already booked our flight) and arrived around 11 PM in Bilbao, catching a bus to San Sebastián where we would be crashing with some of her friends. Now, from my experience I have learned that there are some friends who simply do not make good travel companions and traveling with someone for the first time is always nerve-wracking. Fortunately, Lindsay and I had similar objectives for the trip (i.e. relax, eat some good food, and enjoy the beautiful city). Of course, it helps that San Sebastián is a pretty small place and there aren't that many high ticket "to do" items, so enjoying the resort town is a pretty low key task. Besides, we each had individual objectives so while Lindsay caught up with some of her old colleagues I was able to get some much-needed work done on my end-of-term research projects. We were incredibly lucky in that we had uncharacteristically good weather while we were there. It didn't rain at all during any of the days and only slightly on the night that we arrived so we were able to take advantage of the beach even in November! We didn't fully immerse ourselves in the water, of course, but we did take our shoes off and "partoezin", if you will. Now, don't get me wrong -- I love the beautiful tropical beaches of southern Spain, but there is something so refreshing about the north of Spain. The air even feels different. It reminded me slightly of my summers in northern Michigan, where the beaches aren't always classically enjoyable (and you often have to wear a sweatshirt to tan) but they sure are beautiful. All in all, we had a wonderful, relaxing trip. We slept in almost every day, walked along the beach, ate well and made some new friends. The only thing I could think of that might have made the experience any better would have been getting to also share it with my dear friend, Kelsey, who was also terribly disappointed that we didn't make it to San Sebastián in 2012. But there's always next time -- especially since the city has been chosen as the European Capital of Culture for 2016! One of the most thrilling parts of learning about social justice issues is getting to put the theory of the classroom into action in real life. Such an opportunity arose for me with the 7N National March Against Male Chauvinistic Violence that occurred on November 7, 2015 in Madrid. Discriminative violence of all kinds seems to be all too common in our current world-- acts of terrorism, racial and gendered violence, these aren't new problems. In the past year alone, 54 women have been killed in Spain as a result of male chauvinistic violence (a term the Spanish Feminist Movement has adopted to refer to what we may call in the US "domestic violence" as it reflects the severity of intimate partner violence that is often normalized). As a way to bring attention to this problem, the Spanish Feminist Movement organized a nation-wide march, the first of its kind, to bring together allies from all parts of Spain.
Obviously, as a group of feminist studying gender studies in Spain, my GEMMA colleagues and I were very interested in participating in the march. The commute to Madrid is quite easy from Granada, being only a 5 hour bus ride away, but what was so incredible was that the local feminist organization, Asamblea Feminista Unitaria de Granada, coordinated an effort that provided free transportation for any University of Granada student who wanted to attend the march. So seven of us GEMMA girls got ourselves up and to the bus by 6 AM on the morning of November 7th, with our matching tshirts and home-made banner (translates to: "chauvinistic terrorism is a matter of the state"), ready to take the streets! The air was positively electric that day in Madrid. The capital's most busy streets were completely blocked off from traffic, staffed with police officers, and full of people chanting, carrying their own banners of protest. According to news sources, estimates are that over 200,000 people were in attendance that day. And what was incredible was that there really was representation for all types of people--men, women, young, old, Spanish, and foreign. All were allies together, marching against a type of violence that had touched almost all those who were present personally. It was during one of the group chants that the reality of this situation really struck home for me. Standing there, chanting, "if you touch one, you touch all of us", I realized that while the sentiment of the cheer was one of solidarity, the reality doesn't add up. There are so many women who are living with this reality of violence and some whose lives are stolen from them as a result of that violence. They are the ones being touched, not me. I cannot fathom the fear they must feel. This line of study that I have chosen to gone into is not easy; but it's not easy because it matters, because it deals with painful realities, because it makes you look at the world and think about what you can do, should do, and will do to make a difference. Unfortunately, since the 7th, there has already been four more femicides in Spain. This issue of gendered violence is obviously not unique to Spain and should be addressed as widely as possible. But there is a movement happening, right now, in Spain, on the national level, demanding change. And I feel honored and privileged to be able to stand up and be a part of that movement in this moment. For more detailed information about the ideas behind the 7N event, you can read my blog post on the European Young Feminists' blog site here. Or check out the March's official website here. OK, now that I've had some closure from the emotional turmoil that characterized the end of last month, I can see with fresh eyes how stressful that whole situation really was and I feel validated in sheer and intense panic I was feeling at that time. BUT, the good news is that things have significantly improved since then!
In terms of school, due to bizarre realities of the pragmatics of my schedule this month, I barely have any classes. And while that may seem to insinuate a break of some sorts, I have actually have a great deal to read, write and research but now I have the leisure of doing it on my own time. I can actually take advantage of the library! It's a miracle! This newly acquired freedom also means that I can now do basic daily tasks without feeling anxious for how much time I'm "wasting" not studying. I never thought I'd be so happy to wash my dishes or scrub a toilet! It is amazing how rejuvenating it feels to just be able to perform daily tasks without having to account for every minute spent and how that is going to impact the rest of your day. Additionally, one of the few classes I do have this month is a second year seminar on the history of the socialization of the body. Not only is the topic of this class something I am very interested in, which makes attendance so much more enjoyable, but the smaller class size has also made such a difference! Even in the States, I've always felt much more comfortable participating in more intimate courses (which characterized basically all my courses since there were 3 women's studies majors and ~7 anthropology majors in my year at IWU) and that has especially proven to be the case when speaking Spanish! It has been such a frustrating experience feeling like I couldn't contribute in a meaningful way to the course based on language barriers in my earlier courses here but the intimate nature of the smaller seminars have really helped me feel comfortable and happy to participate during class. I feel like in addition to playing a more active role in my education I am also building a more meaningful relationship with my instructor, which means so much to me. We even got to the point where she recommended her hairdresser to me! (Now THAT is intimacy!) On a practical level, I can also tell that my Spanish has dramatically improved. After being inundated with hours of lectures in Spanish, I was feeling discouraged because there was still so much I wasn't understanding but after a few days off of lecture it seems like my brain had the opportunity to actually reset and absorb! I am still a far way from fluency, but communicating has become much less taxing for me. There have been three instances in the past week where I have really recognized that this is truly the case. Example 1: I was even able to call my Spanish bank's helpline and speak with a representative without any problems! I can't even articulate how proud I was of that accomplishment, as silly as it sounds. Example 2: I enrolled myself in a pilates class (because I had been seriously neglecting my body during the stressful month of October and I had finally received my stipend so I was trying to treat myself right) and I was able to participate in the course without any trouble. Now, that may seem simple, but by the nature of exercise classes you don't have the option to get physical cues on what the person is saying. That is to say, when I am facedown doing whatever stretch I can't be looking at the instructor for context clues of what they are talking about. This is especially difficult in classes like pilates or yoga, in which the instructor is talking about breathing out of places that are not conventionally associated with breath -- you better make sure you know your vocabulary ahead of time! I do think the class will also be super helpful for my body-related vocabulary so that is an added bonus. Example 3: I finally went and got my haircut. I am VERY particular about my hair and in the States I've been going to the same salon and seeing the same hairdresser for years (shout to you, Tina!) so the idea of seeing anyone new is disconcerting. I was especially nervous given my previous hair cutting experience here in Granada. Now, for those of you who remember my last Spanish haircut, it was a MAJOR disaster. Seriously, I left looking like a middle-aged soccer mom. It was horrendous. But my roots were out of control and I had to face my fears. I had looked up all the pertinent vocabulary ahead of time ("bangs", "highlights", "curls", "slight bob", etc.) and my fears were immediately quelled after my hairdresser used the word "texture". He got it. This was going to be fine. And 3.5 hours later, I was blonder, happier, and lighter! It's amazing how much brighter your outlook on life can be when you are rocking a good 'do! |
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Meet the Author:Graduate student of GEMMA Eramus Mundus Master's Degree in Women's and Gender Studies. Currently living in Budapest, Hungary. Originally from the American midwest. Archives
October 2016
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