Homeward bound?

Leaving home for the first time, going away to college, is a moment that gets a lot of press. If you have yet to leave home, you probably know what I’m talking about. If you have already left, you can probably remember. People tell you how exciting it is, and what a big turning point it is for your life process. In many ways, leaving home for the first time marks an exciting new stage of adulthood: the beginning of your life outside your families. People tell you that it can be hard, too; that you might feel homesick or that your parents will have a difficult time adjusting to their now “grown-up” child.

The experience that gets less press is the first visit home. I spent seven months away from home before I returned for the first time, but for most this visit occurs after just a few months, at Thanksgiving or Christmas. For me, and for most people I’ve talked to, this moment was one of the most emotionally difficult in the overall trajectory towards independence. Integrating your new self into that familiar family reality is no easy reconciliation. But it’s all part of the process….

So as we’re finishing up papers and taking finals here, I look to my peers, many of whom will be going home for the first time in just about a week, and wish them the best of luck. It’s not easy to go home, and after the first round of hugs it suddenly becomes far less exhilarating than that initial departure. But while some things in life are easily changed, relationships certainly do not fall into that category. My only advice, what I remind myself of every day, is to be patient with the experience. It’s all part of the process.

Out and About

Barry Schwartz called it the paradox of choice: some choice brings freedom, but it doesn’t follow that more choice only increases freedom. How many times in your life have you felt overwhelmed by the choices you are presented with? Think about it. I’d be willing to bet it’s an experience you can all identify with on some level. Another paradoxical situation comes up when you live in a big capital city—there is so much to do, so much to see, so much to experience… and yet it’s hard to know where to begin.

Thankfully, we at Suffolk have Silvia, her weekly “What’s on in Madrid” newsletter, and the Disfruta Madrid Club. Through the Disfruta Madrid Club Silvia organizes evenings of tapas, theater, flamenco, or afternoon game days and cooking classes, all at a discounted price to students. My first outing with the Distruta Madrid Club was to a tapas tour, where Silvia marched us around the city to three of the oldest and most famous tapas bars in Madrid, where she ordered us the house specialty. It’s true that going out for tapas is something easy to do on ones own, but knowing what to eat where is arguably the most important part of the experience. It was a delicious evening.
My second outing then was to a flamenco show at Casa Patas. Casa Patas is a famous flamenco destination in Madrid, but it’s down a small, dark road, and I may never have ventured there on my own accord. It was breathtaking, though—a quintessential Spanish experience. Everyone who was there had a wonderful time.

Personally, I also really like receiving Silvia’s weekly newsletter: “What’s on in Madrid”. These newsletters give information on restaurants to try, movies to go see, art exhibits to catch. Of course it’s just a snippet of all that’s happening in the city, but it’s a great place to start when you find yourself presented with a free Saturday afternoon.

I think walking down the street and seeing posters for art exhibits, or riding the metro and seeing advertisements for concerts, shows, or movies is one of my favorite aspects of living in a capital city, a ‘destination’ city. One can easily fill all of his or her time just visiting museums, cafes, parks, restaurants, shops, and theaters… and still miss things. With so many options and so much choice, it helps to have a local to bring your attention to the hidden gems. Thank you, Silvia.

A day in the city-- La Casa Encendida

A mí me gustan mucho los museos. Tengo que decir que sí entiendo el punto de vista de las personas que piensan que los museos son aburridos, porque, de verdad, a veces lo son. Pero en mi experiencia, los museos también pueden ser espacios muy buenas para aprender y disfrutar.

Por supuesto, hay un montón de museos famosos en Madrid. Todos los turistas van al Prado, al Reina Sofía y al Thyssen, y los turistas tiene razón. Estos tres museos tan famosos son impresionante y tienen muchas de las obras de arte mas importantes del mundo. Pero también hay museos mas pequeñitos que tienen obras interesantes. A mí me gustan mucho los museos así. Es decir, a mí me gusta un museo en el que yo puedo pasar tiempo tranquilamente con las obras, un café, o un libro.

Pienso que mi museo favorito ahora en Madrid es La Casa Encendida. La Casa Encendida está cerca del barrio de Lavapiés, en la Ronda de Valencia, número dos. La Casa Encendida es mitad museo y mitad centro cultural. En las primeras plantas hay espacios para exposiciones y un teatro para obras de cine, después hay aulas con ordenadores que el público puede usar y espacios donde hay clases para grupos escolares, y además hay una terraza con un jardín pequeño encima del edificio.

Yo fui a La Casa Encendida hace unos semanas, y me gustó mucho. Me gustó mucho el concepto de las exposiciones temporales. Hasta enero en las salas de exposición hay un exhibición sobre el arte de Rusia soviética. Se puede ver mucho de la propaganda política/económica de los comunistas, y también varias obras de artistas famosos de este época. Por ejemplo, tiene unas obras de Kandinsky, un artista ruso que me gusta mucho. Kandinsky es un pintador que pinta obras de arte moderno con colores brillantes en un estilo alegre, con mucho movimiento. Personalmente, el arte de Kandinsky me hace feliz.

Después de pasar por la exposición, yo fui a la terraza en la azotea de La Casa Encendida. Era un día muy soleado, entonces podía pasar más o menos una hora leyendo al sol. De verdad, fue perfecto para una tarde del fin de semana. Este terraza es un lugar muy tranquilo, que yo recomiendo para leer, escribir, o pensar. También hay una sala para exposiciones en la terraza que ahora tiene una exposición sobre la inmigración. En una esquina había un tablero en que muchísimas personas han escrito su ciudad de origen. Como puedes imaginar, muchísimos diferentes lugares del mundo están escrito allí. Fue muy interesante.

La Casa Encendida también tiene un café que vende varias meriendas, y una tienda que vende comida y ropa de marca Comercio Justo. Entonces, si quieres sentarte con un café, ¡no tienes que salir del edificio! A mí me gustan mucho los museos que son así ‘agradables’… porque si puedes pasar varias tardes en las exposiciones, en la terraza y en el café, vas a aprender mucho y conocer a gente muy interesante.

*pending a few edits, I know...

In the Mountains

There’s something refreshing, even quite literally, about facing raw, stormy nature. With an understanding, at some level, that we are no match for her, we human beings live protected. We don’t go outside if it’s snowing or raining too much, and, in our cities, buildings protect from the wild wind.

But just a few days ago I found myself, much to my excitement, in pure stormy nature with my Environmental Science class. In the mountains just north of Madrid, we made our way through the various ecosystems, feeling fall turn to winter as we gained elevation. All in the name of science.

A group of the bravest students and I took it upon ourselves to hike up the mountain, even though the wind was swirling fog around us, driving icy rain right at our faces, and, sometimes, threatening to blow us right off the path. We were just 30 kilometers north, and yet what we were experiencing could hardly be any more different from the Madrid city center. By the time we returned to the bus, we were soaking wet, cold, tired, and exhilarated. We napped on the way back to campus… some days Science can be particularly demanding.

But it was refreshing to be there. It was refreshing to see what we are learning in its real-world context. It was refreshing to see my professors eyes light up as he talked about the wolves who, though we didn’t see any, do live in those mountains. And it was refreshing to feel the rain on my skin, as it brought me face to face with wild, stormy nature.

And So The World Goes 'Round

Friendship, like most things, is a relative concept once you cross cultural boundaries. Not to say that friendship isn’t valued throughout the world, but rather to notice that it is expressed differently in different places.

In Spain, it’s not uncommon to live your life in the city in which you were born. The Spanish grow up in a place, surrounded by family; they go to college in the same place (provided it’s a big enough town), they may go abroad, but they’ll probably end up back in Spain, close to family and friends. Because really, why would anyone want to leave? The societal and familial benefits of this aside, it also has an interesting effect on friendship. It’s not uncommon for a Spanish woman in her thirties to have friends she’s known since high school.

In the United States, by contrast, these ties don’t seem to exist at the same magnitude. Americans travel back and forth across the country, leaving family and childhood friends behind, usually at the behest of their careers. It’s hard to keep friendships up with this jet-setting mentality, and so over the years many seem to fall, peaceably, by the wayside.

That’s why I was so happy the other day, to find myself on Skype with one of my best friends, an amazing young woman I’ve known since pre-school. We shared the events of our lives as she sat sipping her morning tea in Carmel Valley, California, and I listened to car horns fill the darkness outside my bedroom window in Madrid, Spain. We’re far apart, and I miss the days that I could meet her, real time and in person, for a cup of coffee. But still I’m not about to let all those years fall by the wayside, because no one knows me better.

And after our conversation, as I stepped out into the city, off to my Thursday night, I felt unbelievably lucky, and even a little Spanish.

Lost in Translation

Some things just don´t translate. If you´ve ever taken a Spanish class, then you probably know that "embarazado" does not, in fact, mean "embarrassed", rather it means "pregnant". This is one of those stereotypical cognate mistakes that you don´t want to make- the one that your Spanish 101 teacher will insist on warning you about quite a few more times than is really necessary. But it´s not only language that gets lost in translation, culture too can be misinterpreted, for better or for worse.

In the U.S., Halloween is that one night of the year where every young woman competes to see just how little clothing she can wear without being completely naked. American men, presumably, just enjoy the show. The Spanish, by way of contrast, have chosen to really embrace the scary aspect of Halloween. It´s not a typical Spanish holiday, so those dressed up were relatively few, but when they did dress up, they truly committed to the experience: full zombie, mummy, monster outfits, etc. In other words, not the least bit sexy. To the American eye this was sort of adorable... like a whole nation of trick-or-treaters before puberty set in and, with it, the desire to start taking off one´s clothes.

So maybe the Spanish just didn´t get the memo, or maybe they´re trying to revive that apparently forgotten aspect of fear. Either way, I fully support the Spanish in their Halloween endeavors. Because personally I think cultural translations, or mistranslations, make the world a more colorful, and more endearing, place.

From the Mouths of Babes

There were a couple things I wanted, or thought I wanted, when I set out to find a college. The first, and most enduring of these, was small classes and devoted, approachable professors. I knew that I’d be more engaged, and therefore learn more, in an intimate, conversational environment. The second aspect was a matter of much personal contention: did I want a ¨campus¨ or a school set in an urban environment? I could see the advantages of both: a traditional campus seemed like an attractive and somewhat safe option, while the prospect of living in a great city, in the way that it would make my experience more true-to-life, also appealed to me. And so I sat, balancing (sometimes) contrasting desires, and searching for whatever felt like the right thing.

We all have these hopes and expectations for our college experience. Nowhere was this more obvious to me than recently, in a freshman meeting with my illustrious classmates. All together we discussed our experience of Suffolk Madrid so far, the good, the bad, and any constructive criticism. It was really interesting to hear, from my peers, how their expectations have translated to reality and how they feel that their needs are, or are not, being met.

For me, Suffolk Madrid has done well so far. My classes are small, and my professors are wonderfully personable and passionate. The faculty and staff are like one big family, a family that constantly seeks to integrate orbiting students. For me, and I think for most of us, this is a very rewarding and nurturing environment to be in. As far as the traditional v. city campus issue goes, I know what I’ve given up. Sometimes it seems difficult to integrate my outside life with my academic one. Sometimes it feels like each of my feet is planted in such a different world. And yet to live in the city of Madrid? To have all the opportunity and diversity that it gives me? So worth it.

In The Thick

It’s hard to remember what it was like now that it’s gone: that stomach-turning queasy feeling. As the hour grew nearer and nearer, I withdrew more and more, unaware of the world around me, focused only on remembering dates or facts that felt perched precariously in the corners of my mind. It made no rational sense, my nervousness… I knew these things, and the knowledge went far deeper than the corners of my mind.

Midterms, it’s so lovely to meet you.

I had two big tests on Tuesday, so I spent most of the weekend studying. Occasionally I’d find myself distracted by something like the sudden urge to clean my kitchen, wash my clothes, and paint my nails. But mainly I progressed forward: preparing, going over things I knew, but needed to have readily available. I had all weekend, so I took my time: studying, a run in the park; a little more studying, a read through the newspaper; still more studying, a political protest.

But come Tuesday morning, though I had done all I needed to do, I was incredibly nervous. It wasn’t that I didn’t know what awaited me in those exams… quite the opposite. It was that I knew exactly what would be required of me, I knew it would be difficult, and I wanted so very much to do well. I felt silly and vulnerable and real. Academic anxiety, having studied and read and listened and understood, was not so known to me.

So when it was time I went into the classroom, sat down, and faced the test. And really… it wasn’t so bad. Granted, results will soon be available to tell me just how bad, or good, it was. But as my favorite high school teacher used to say, I walked into the test young, intelligent, and beautiful, and I left the same way.

I’m told it gets easier…

Dia de la Hispanidad

Yesterday was “Día de la Hispanidad”, the national day of Spain. People took the day off from school and work, there was a parade on Gran Vía, and military planes flew overhead. “If you can manage to stay in all day that’d be good”, a Spanish friend advised, a tad facetiously, “The city will be over-run by out-of-towners”. Mindful of this, and given that I had a lot of work to do, I moved to my own beat. I enjoyed some tea and the sunshine over my morning reading; I ignored the military bombers. Then I found my way to a plate of my favorite paella in Lavapies, in a cute corner café that only serves paella on Wednesday’s and Saturday’s. It’s always humming with customers, and the bartender is very sociable. It’s becoming a Wednesday/Saturday tradition. From there a friend and I meandered to El Parque de Buen Retiro, one of the biggest and most beautiful parks in central Madrid, where we spent several hours sitting under a tree. I read, and she wrote a letter. We listened to music and watched the world go by.

Later, on our way back to the metro, we passed the Ministry of Agriculture, which was hosting an open house in honor of Dîa de la Hispanidad. They even boasted an exhibit on “the Mediterranean Diet”. “Let’s go!” I said to my friend as we passed the entrance. She looked at me as though I was a little crazy. But I wandered on ahead, we scanned our bags, and found ourselves in a beautiful, palace-like building. “What is this again?” my friend asked.

Inside, there were security guards and makeshift barricades to guide us through only certain hallways. These hallways were mostly empty, though adorned with paintings of the Ministers of Agriculture, dating back to when they went to work wearing swords slung at their hips. We walked onward, and soon found ourselves in the Mediterranean diet exhibit. A kind of public service situation, it gave advice on healthy eating with a tie to Spanish cultural norms. Resisting the urge to eat the artesian bread exhibit, we each obtained a pin featuring a picture of some fresh tomatoes, and left the building.

So this week I have a thought, a challenge, and some advice: follow your nose, heart, and intuition. Sometimes it’ll only take you as far as the Ministry of Agriculture, but it’ll always be an interesting ride.

On The Road

I remember how it felt, after living within a one or two mile radius in central London last year, to finally leave the city and go… TO OXFORD. There is so much to do in the city of London that one has no real reason to leave, especially in the short-term. So I stayed within that world of a city for months, without fully realizing that my California wandering tendencies were making me more and more restless. Oxford is only about an hour outside of the city, but the bus ride was terribly exciting. I could feel myself leaving the confines of my life, I could feel the countryside change around me, I could even feel air quality improve. I trembled with anticipation. In the end, my day in Oxford was one of the coldest I have ever experienced: the snow was piled high on the streets, and the wind whipped across the countryside. By evening I was overjoyed to return to the more insulated city.

Given this experience however, I am now mindful that cities can be a bubble, and that one should never underestimate the importance of getting out and seeing the world from a different perspective. In other words, I knew that no matter how engrossing and wonderful my life in Madrid proved to be, it would also be vital for me to get out, if only every once in a while.

Setting up my life in Madrid was a full-time job in the first weeks, so I didn’t yet want, or think it prudent, to leave. But this last weekend, on the occasion of it being one whole month since my arrival in Spain, I was finally ready.

I hopped on a bus full of fellow students at midnight on Thursday night, and watched the stars out my window as we traveled north. Seven hours later, we arrived in Santiago de Compostela. The air smelt different, and felt different; the language sounded different; and the lifestyle looked different. Once again, I trembled with anticipation.

What followed was one of the best weekends of my life. We explored Santiago, then went to the sea. We visited museums, and THE cathedral. We ate traditional seafood, and tasted local wines. We explored, and found treasures, and got lost. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much in one single weekend.

It was grand. And yet, after a second seven-hour bus ride on Sunday, I found that I was profoundly happy to be HOME. And that realization, that I feel at home where I am, is arguably the most important of the weekend.

Great Expectations

I was walking around the Madrid neighborhood of Lavapies the other day with a good friend. As per her priorities in life, she was missing outdoor spaces and the fresh organic produce of California. “Are there any urban gardens around?” I asked, thinking that since she had been living in the city since mid-May, she might have found something. “Not that I know of”, she replied. I was surprised, given that urban gardening is a very hip concept in many of the cities that I have visited.

Lavapies is a sort of ‘hippie’ neighborhood, with a distinct revolutionary flair. It´s full of alternative food stores, and dreadlocks, and balconies that hang socialist or anti-religious banners. In other words, it´d be the perfect place to find an urban garden.

Shortly after my initial questioning, almost comically so, we found just what we were looking for. “Este Es Una Plaza” declared the almost parking garage-like gate, open so that we could peek inside. There we found a vegetable garden full of tomatoes, basil, squash, and some strawberries. There were fruit trees as well, and an amphitheater, and some vaguely political graffiti. A woman, who sat crocheting in the sun, told us that if we came back later we could help out. Our smiles stretched ear to ear.

That’s the thing with a city, with Madrid. If you come from the country, like I do, you may give up that vegetable garden in your front yard, or the herd of cattle who live next door. But if you look for it, if you let yourself wander with an open mind and a sharp nose, you can find anything you want. And, truly, so much more…

Introductions

For years, living in small-town California, I never really had the experience of having to introduce myself. More often than not I met people who already knew who I was, where I lived, and a few intimate details about my family. This was both disconcerting and amusing, and certainly unique.

Since leaving home, however, introductions are something I´ve become quite good at. I know now how to play to what people expect, presenting myself as a portfolio of the accepted identifiers: name, age, hometown, current home/occupation. Granted, to the invested listener these facts mean very little in the overall scheme of who I am, but coming to truly know someone takes time and a great deal of effort. You, reader, will come to know me slowly, through what I will reveal and through your own synthesis of those revelations. But we have to start somewhere… so let´s start with the basics.

My name is Tajha, I´m 19 years old, and I grew up in coastal California, spending time between San Francisco and a family ranch somewhat south. I completed high school in 2010, and then chose to take a year off before beginning college. During this year I lived in London, studied Spanish in Salamanca, and traveled around Italy, France, Germany, and Poland. I had always known I was going to need that time, and I am lucky enough to have parents who supported me in a year of self-discovery. I believe that one can never underestimate the value of learning that takes place out of the classroom. So I had a little fun: I visited museums and cafes and street markets. I rode in trains, planes, and buses. I stayed in hostels and with family and with new friends. I had scary experiences and wonderful experiences and I learned from each and every one.

And now, a year later, I feel ready to enter into a new phase of my education as I begin my college studies at Suffolk University in Madrid. I am excited about the opportunities given to me by the city I live in, the classes I´m taking, my professors, mentors, and new friends.

So, WELCOME to my adventure.