Expatiperro

My first week has finally ended. As you might be able to infer from the tone of that opening sentence, I'm extremely excited for the weekend. Teaching is beyond exhausting. But I'll write about my experiences and reflections later, so to not depress you as you all begin your weekends.

Another good reason to be excited about the end of the week is that Friday is payday. Because my boss is the world's most awesome man, he let me choose how often I wanted to be paid, and weekly seemed the least stressful and most regular option. And not only that, but due to the fact that I'm working here illegally, I have the benefit of getting paid in cash, without any money deducted for taxes. With perks like that, it's a wonder that any English teacher even thinks about becoming legal in Spain.

So if you see a white guy walking down the street with a big grim, looking in store windows for things to buy, and 180 newly acquired Euros to burn, say hi!

Last week, both my Catalan and TEFL classes came to a close with final exams, test corrections, and much celebrating. While this was a generally happy period, it did mark a major shift in my life. With my language classes over for good and no more courses looming on the horizon, I could not tell myself that I was "on vacation," or "taking a break" between semesters. No, my friends, I was now officially and unquestionably "unemployed."

I suppose that finding myself in this position was a given at some point in my life, since all schooling must come to an end. Unless you're one of the lucky ones who has a job lined up while in college and never gets fired or leaves, being stuck between jobs or schools with no paycheck or class schedule is a pretty standard experience. And since I had never experienced anything like it before, seeing that I spent my previous 20 years enrolled in school, I was excited about the possibilities it might bring. Just think, I could do anything! No obligations to tie me down, no matriculation to a university just months away, no schedules or constrain my desires. All I had on my plate was pure, unencumbered freedom.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), my romantic view of joblessness has been put on hold. Today, I was hired for not one, but TWO teaching positions at different private language institutes around Barcelona. (Let me take a quick break to reread the last sentence, and to break into a ridiculously large smile when I let it sink in.) I start work next week, initially at 15 hours a week, but with a chance to increase that to 20, or maybe higher. And the starting pay is nothing to complain about, either- at 15 hours a week, it's enough to cover my basic living expenses, and any extra hours I get on top of that is just icing on the cake (or, more money to travel with).

As for the classes themselves, I'll be teaching kids in one-on-one and small group classes, and adults in company classes. From what I hear, their levels are intermediate to advanced, which is a huge relief since I don't have much practice teaching beginners. And most of the classes are conversation-based, which is great because not only do they require less preparation, but they are infinitely more fun to teach.

I don't really know a lot about the companies I'm working for, but when I start work next week (actually this Friday for one of the classes), I'll let you guys know how they go. Also, the interview process was pretty entertaining - I interviewed at five places overall, out of the 20 places I sent emails to - and definitely worth relating to you all. Look for it in a post in the near future.

In September, before I packed up my life in the US and moved to Barcelona, one of my concerns was that by being abroad, I would be missing out on much of the election coverage and excitement. Sure, I would be able to read updates online, but that human element, the feeling that you're part of a unified, collective voting public would be missing. I was scared that I would be so tuned out that I would wake up on November 5th and have no idea how Oba-, I mean whoever happens to win came out on top.

Well my friends (said sincerely, and not in the McCain overused and insincere way), after wasting my entire Saturday agonizing over political blogs, polling sites, and make-your-own-electoral-map pages, I can say that my fears were misplaced. I'm as up to date on the latest polling and Electoral College scenarios as any "Bob the Machinist," "Sally the Statistician," or "Mott the Hoople" (thanks to John Stewart for the last one) living in Topeka, Boise, or Nashville, which of course would make me a real American, as opposed to all you latte-drinking, gay-marrying, effete liberals who are surely reading this. Now excuse me while I bake an apple pie, yell insults at some Muslims, and find ways to protect my wealth from being redistributed.

If anything, it's way too easy to get access to the latest political information, and being 6 hours ahead of East Coast time means that I read much of the news before most of you all back home do. Newspapers publish articles online before they go into print, and everything that is broadcast on TV is either available on Youtube, or on the stations' websites. And the main blogs that I follow (here, here, and here are a few) sum up most of the news I want to know, from across the rational chunk of the ideological spectrum. If it wasn't for the exotic food in the refridgerator and the street signs in Catalan outside my window, I could easily think I was at home.

Just before I left the States, I read an article in Esquire by Chuck Klosterman on the experience of being an American abroad (in his case, Germany). Even though he's 4,000 miles away from New York, Klosterman still can't escape the pull of the hyperkinetic and self-obsessed American media. And not only that, but his awareness of the events described in the press were the same as they would have been had be still been in the US. Klosterman writes,

Even if I were in the U. S., I still would have experienced both of these events [the NBA playoffs and the Democratic primaries] with the same remoteness I have in Europe. I was not going to travel to Boston or Los Angeles to watch a basketball game; I wasn't going to hold a cardboard sign and hop around like an idiot at the Pennsylvania primary....

As far as I can tell, my experiences with both phenomena were virtually identical to the experiences I would have had in New York. I was not more or less informed. The experiences were not more or less real.

Klosterman goes on to say that it's only by living abroad that he's seen how static life really is in America, despite the media's declarations to the contrary. Distance leads to perspective, and then to a realization that most of what we take to be news is really just recycled garbage, designed to tempt, but not quite whet, our appetite for more "news." And unless we manage to isolate ourselves from the media-produced ether that surrounds us, we're all captives to the narratives that are spun for us.

I guess that most of this post is a way to make up for wasting an entire Saturday doing... well, nothing. I would say that I can't wait for the election so that I won't be captive to political blogs, but something tells me that nothing will change after Tuesday. We'll all find new things to agonize about, new debates that polarize us, and new issues that demand our investigation, donation, and dedication. Or if we don't find it, we will have it handed to us by someone in the CNN Center, 30 Rock, or the Fox News Mothership. And life will continue on as usual.

But in the meantime, if you want to know about the latest Obama rumor or dirty Republican trick, just ask me. Even 5,000 miles away, I'm right in the middle of things.