On trying to be tidy

One of the good things that moving fairly often has is that you are mostly aware of what you have. Say that you live in the same place for a couple of years or more. You buy clothes, home accessories, books and perhaps some furniture. All those things, added up to all the stuff you had from your previous home(s), start piling up more and more every month and suddenly you have a pile of papers over your desk. Yes, that pile of papers that you never go through and that you swore to yourself, to the Gods of anti-clutter and to your ever so organised partner, never allowing it grow again. Then, when you move, you surprise yourself with the amount of crap that you have kept. Sure, sometimes it is nice to have to have to stop yourself going through memory lane since you find all those things that remind you of those moments. Other times though, it is nerve-wreaking not being able to know where your stuff is.

Well, for a bit I haven't been in that place and I am happy. I have made a clothes spring cleaning every once in a while, I have bought a special folder for all my documents, I have a small bookshelf just for library books and I have found a special place to leave my Spanish mobile.
I know, it's pretty amazing. It's been blood, sweat and tears, but I am almost there... almost at the point in which I can rely on finding stuff when I leave home in the morning instead of looking for it for half and hour and be late for work. Almost at the point in which I am aware of what I have and where I have it. The next step will be trying not to forget things. Not to forget birthdays, sending emails and buying food. Not to forget sending letters, house keys and mobile phones on daily basis. Not to forget to check how warm it is outside before I decide to dress. Not to forget to eat when I am busy and realise what I have done just when I start getting in a really, really bad mood.

Not everything at home is in its place though. Despite having tried really hard to have everything as much organised as possible, despite all the good intentions and despite the fact that we've just lived in this flat for over six months, things have started to get lost. And I am not taking socks, no. I am talking passports. How can, in a semi organised tiny home, a passport disappear? How can something that has always been on sight, disappear from the face of the earth? How can two people look for one thing for hours in a row and not being able to find it? How can this happen in 40 sq metres?

No Swedish Easter for stakars Johan. I am going to bake him something to cheer him up.

This morning I woke up late, I was exhausted after a long day of University topped up with late night TV watching. I woke up as a result of weird dreams, product of sleeping either too much or with too much light. Then, when I struggled to make a cup of a much needed coffee, I realised that i am on my own for the weekend. It is weird that this always gives me such a big boost. Don't misunderstand me, I love spending time with Johan and I hate having dinner on my own but occasionally, I enjoy the solitude and I look forward to it. Lovely solitude... So I put loud music and washed up 2 days worth of plates. I chose Maroon 5 CD "Songs about Jane", a choice that Johan would have most definitely complained about but that I enjoyed greatly. There I was, washing plates and remembering past times. Times when I wasn't fed by a great cook and so was much slimmer, times when I chain-smoked and tried to make up my mind about what I wanted. Job, parties, boys... The concept of dating, however repeated by people and TV programs, was totally foreign to me until then. I went out with a few guys, saw the pros and cons, laughed and gossiped with my friends. It was time when friends came to visit, when my wardrobe was at its best shape and when I tried to keep alive a semi relationship with somebody who I could not understand over the phone. It was so much fun! I do not miss the hungovers, but the excitement... I sure miss that. Just sometimes though.

I want to:

• Take a Photography class
• Take a cookery class
• Play tennis or any other sport that involves more than one person.
• Go rock climbing
• Learn to swim properly
  

I tought I'd make a note here so I won't forget... because it happens a lot!

The best thing about working in a school is that once in a while, when nobody from the non-school environment expects it, you have a week holiday. Yes, half-term my friends, is a blessing. There´s a week when you can catch up with studies, with sleep or with reading. In this case, however, I have decided to come to Spain. And here I am, in my childhood home! It is nice not having to worry about making a dinner that can be stored in a lunch box to take for lunch the day after. It is nice to be with my family and hear the non-stop voices coming from the radio or the tv. I have discovered (not so much as a discovery really, but an information for blog readers) that Spain seems to be a place where there is no silence. Not with my family, at least. There´s the massive tv and all those digital channels, which´s films I watch one after the other although I get oh my so angry because of the dubbing. When are we going to start reading subtitles? That´s a much better option! I am not trying to undermine the work of dubbing actors, but maybe somebody should make rules? Accents, way of speaking and the use of non-standard language are a common feature in many foreign (non-Spanish, I mean) films. So it is in books, and although this use of language brings a lot of colour to a story, in Spain we do not seem to be able to translate it. Standard voices and correct and flawless Spanish accents permeate films, series and translated books. It enfuriates me, but I would be kind of ok with it if this was applied to every aspect of translation. Being a translator is a very, extremelly difficult and unrecognised job. Prestige and salary do not match the effort, that is for sure. That´s why, I guess, there are constant horrible translations around. Spaniards who read this blog: do you not get angry when somebody in a film says, fo example, "Yo no no hice"?. What the hell is that? "I didn´t do it"? Nobody would say that!! Maybe "No he sido yo" might be a better choice, one that does not make you brain blow up if you have a bit of English knowledge? I am sure that the same applies to other laguages and that is why I say NO to dubbing in films and tv series!! And if they keep doing it, regardless my appeal (insensitive bastards!), could they not give enough time to translators to deliver a satisfactory make-sense kind of work? Books have better translations.

In the UK, foreign films are also subtitled and I would adventure to say that it is the same in the other English-speaking countries. Sure, they might not release much foreign (or non English-speaking) stuff, but at least what they do is "faithful" to the original. In other countries like France and Germany, the Spanish case repeats itself. Dubbing, dubbing, dubbing. Is this really necessary? On the contrary, in Sweden, every film and series is in its original language, subtitled. I am sure that this is one of the reasons why 99% of Swedish population has an incredible facility to communicate in English, but that is another matter.

Right, I have gone on and on and on about it and I am sure that this is not such a simple issue and that I have not been too impartial but hey, this is my blog! Feel free to disagree (and to let me know about it too!)

In the meantime, loads of love from Spain, where the sun shines and the TV is never switched off.

My life is very very boring. I have finally finished my last set of essays and now... I see the end! A couple of corrections and off I go to write my dissertation! It is going to be a hard long job but hey, at least now I can focus on something specific instead of meet deadlines every week and then write those damn essays. I am going to write about (children and teenage) novels based on the Spanish Civil War. So, if any of you guys from any of continent find any, please please please will you let me know??

With this "seeing the end" to my MA I am thinking more and more about the future. I am not sure that I will get the kind of job that I want in my present job (sadly, I like it there) so I might have to move somewher else. Looking for a job is a pain: interviews, hours and hours on the internet and preparins CVs and cover letters... Bufff, not looking forward to that! I guess that we might stay in London a couple of years more and then it is very likely that next destination will be Sweden again. Johan wants to study, and why pay a lot of money here, struggle with the costs of living (like me!) when you can study for free and not worry but for your studies? The good side is that I can start applying for jobs from here and move only when I get a job, and I will likely know about this months in advance, so the moving needent be so tough. So where will it be? Stockolm, Goteborg, Malmo again? It depens on where I find work, since Johan is flexible for that. Then we would need to buy a flat since renting over there is almost impossible. That is a scary thought since the biggest thing that I have bought so far is an Ikea Klippan sofa, and that already felt like a huuuuge step towards adult life. Well, that is a couple of years along the line.

Anyway, I am full of exciting plans, but not much exciting stuff really happenning. I am trying to loose weight and not starve, so maybe I should write a post about my very very funny gym!

Less than two weeks to the deadline for semester's essays is NOT a good time to catch a heavy cold. Are the Gods listening??

On Friday my school broke up for the Christmas holidays. What a better way to celebrate than go out to dinner and binge drink with a couple of friends. After way to many bottles of cheap red wine, we felt too wintery and Christmasy and drunk that I ended up crying in the middle of Carnaby Street. There's no better place, is there? With the average of 1000 tourists per square metre and many Londoners on their office Christmas party and all the school teens on their first holiday day... I am pretty much sure that nobody that I know saw me in that deplorable state...
Talking about work Christmas parties: why is it that we always get so extremely drunk in those that we wish we had never gone? Or that we had the common sense of knowing when to leave? Of course I do not have any of those and cheap Australian wine and not enough food make of Ana a person that Johan has to drag home. Thanks God he did drag me home! On the way though, I decide to be really angry at him because he was walking quicker than I. And decided to blame him for me very smart idea of wearing the higher hills that I have. It seems that I twisted my ankle because then it was sore for a week. Although I was sore for a couple of days too... However, maybe I twisted it when I fell on the gym a couple of days after. I fell on the stairs because I was very wet going from the shower to the steam room and my flip flop broke. And I ended up naked in the middle of a staircase, showing every bit of my pride and my not very waxed legs to this woman coming up from the pool. I took home a very long bruise that has reminded me of the incident for a week. I am glad that I chose a "ladies only" gym though.
Sometimes think That I should ALWAYS stay at home...