españa tercer mundista

Moving back to Spain is a bit like returning to the third world. There are parts of Valencia that could pass for the dilapidated streets of Centro Habana. Mind you, one could say the same for the slums of Philadelphia. Still, there is something about Spain that is just insistently third world...Like, for instance, when people start the ignition of their scooter (which is inevitably parked on the sidewalk, probably somewhere between the rubbish bins, the dog shit and the crosswalk, or in what would seem to be an otherwise pedestrian-only area, such as a plaza), just as you walk past, sending a cloud of exhaust into your face, then they fly down the sidewalk cutting-off or dodging whoever may be in their way (what self-respecting developed country sends its people to work on scooters anyway? Italy you may say, but I said self-respecting, not self-enamoured). The haphazard flow of motorists knifing their way across the city, like the antennas planted atop the city´s rooftops, scream third world: Valencia from above looks more like Cairo than Paris.

None of this has really started to bother me yet. Nor, perhaps, should it. I make ¨third world¨ sound like an accusation, which it is, and it should be: it means hopes crushed, people beaten back into their holes (by their own police, if need be), development halted, sovereign states overrun by foreign military or capital... I suppose I´ve been throwing ¨third world¨ around a little too loosely then, but my use of the term is not entirely feceitious. Partly, I´m just pissed off because it doesn´t seem Spain can get its act together. But, there is a creeping sense here that we´re losing ground. There is dirt on the streets, bums on the street corners, outside the glitzy cocktail bars and the re-developed port that hosted the America´s Cup, there is poverty. And it has caught my attention. I think it was Carol Goar, the columnist for the Toronto Star, who asked: what good is your $90,000.00 BMW 4X4 if you need a 24 hour private security guard to protect you from the poor bastards waiting to slit your throat?
Forget keeping the third world down and out so we can keep on happily exploiting it, we´ve got to keep it out of our own back yards. And by that I don´t just mean that the third world is literally creeping through our national borders, though the waves of immigration Spain and Europe are experiencing may mean just that to some people, but that the first world seems to be becoming a smaller and smaller place. There are first worlds within first worlds.

And you can see this in Valencia. Even Amanda, having spent the past month in Stockholm, commented on it.
—Don´t you think this looks like the third world? It´s horrible. ¡Dios mío! It´s like 1 Franco 14 Pesetas, when the family returns to Madrid only to find how dirty and backwards everything looks [is]. Admittedly, this was her opinion as expressed on a particularly frustrating day in our search for a new apartment, and just after climbing 5 flights of stairs to look at another god awful flat built for midgets, in a semi-abandoned extremity of the city. But, the fact remains, this place is a bit backward.

Maybe it´s like baseball.Baseball is an attitude. Half the game is scratching yourself in a really macho way, spitting, and fucking being on the ball, man. So is being backward (an attitude, that is). It´s that intangible quality that can perhaps only be conveyed by stereotypes and anecdotes (but is later reflected in the overall productivity and quality of life of a country): the men who, Amanda assures me, run the gamut from construction workers to suits, and make kissing sounds and yell, "GUAPA!!!" (or worse things) at the passing women. The way nobody lets you get off the train when the doors open. The newly renovated buildings whose windows leak when it rains. The dog shit all over the place (what´s up with that? Come on, guys.) It´s the general disfunctionality of stuff here (nothing works). These things are difficult to articulate, to even put your finger on, but I think every ex-pat (from N. America, anyway) must be to differing degrees aware of or bothered by them.You just have to take it with the right attitude.

Just finished reading:

Freakonomics. I´m sure those guys could come up with an interesting explanation for the quantity of dogshit here, something about the incentive structure (moral, social, economic) not being sufficiently strong to encourage people to stoop & scoop. If you ask me, we have to start whipping offenders (the people, not the dogs), or at least forcing them to step in the poo (the punishment should suit the crime, after all). 200€ fines wouldn´t hurt either. Also, we should yell at offenders and wave our arms the same way we do at the corner fruit store when you touch the fruit without your little plastic gloves. Shame on you!

a window fell on me

Got to start posting on this thing more often. I get caught playing catch-up all the time, filling-in the blanks of my ongoing personal narrative to make sure it makes sense later on, instead of just posting what´s up at the moment. Hey, Check out the eucalyptus trees!
Whatever. I´m in Toronto for a month (until Sept. 21). I decided to come home before classes start up again in Valencia, seemed like as good a time as any. The weather´s perfect, not too hot, not too cold. Wasn´t doing much back in Spain, anyway. I finished working at Pendueles English camp back on Aug. 22. All sorts of stuff happened to me there—I nearly didn´t get out alive. I could´ve gone with Amanda to Sweden (she´s spending 4 weeks there learning Swedish), but I didn´t really feel like spending another month at somebody else´s house, tip-toeing around and pretending like I´m not doing nothing. Also, she wants to practice her Swedish. Enough said. Actually, if we´d already had our own place in Valencia, I probably would have just headed home to catch up on sleep and chill out in Valencia till October.

Turns out I´m really glad I came back to Toronto. It´s been nice to spend some time with my mom and have some beers my dad, to see my friends, though, I haven´t been able to see as many people as much as I would have liked, or even at all (sorry Andrew, Chris).

My foot´s feeling a lot fucking better than when I started physio in May). Actually, looking back on my scant posts over the last few months, I realize that I haven´t even said anything about my stupid bum foot. Here goes: shortly after arriving in Gran Canaria at the beginning of April, it started to really hurt (this isn´t really new, I injured my post tib tendon playing lacrosse in my last year of university and it´s never really healed). So, after getting X-Rays and seeing the doctor in Las Palmas, I spent the next 2 months going to physiotherapy, which meant getting up every day, 5 days a week at 6:30am to catch the bus down to Las Palmas, where I received treatment for an hour and a half (massage (painful), electrolysis (weird), magnetic therapy (also weird, kind of buzzy feeling...), ultrasound, anti-inflammatories: the works). The therapists were super cool, especially Dany, who took full advantage of me to practice his English. After all that, I´m more or less back to how I felt before injuring my foot, which is to say it hurts, but not that much. I could go into further details but I can´t be bothered and it´s probably really boring.

My 3 months in Gran Canaria certainly weren´t all bad, though. I headed to the beach everyday afterwards to work on my tan and do aqua aerobics with the old ladies. But it slipped-by a little too routinely, and instead of doing stuff like heading over to check out Tenerife (12€ boat ride), I sat around nursing my foot and drinking gin and tonics. It was nice to experience living in Gran Canaria for an extended period, isolated out there in the middle of the Atlantic and, all in all, I´d say I had a pretty good time.

a window fell on me. I´m still not very comfortable admitting this. I feel a bit like a first time AA member struggling to declare that he´s an alcoholic. And I didn´t even do anything.

Long story short: a window pane from the second story of the house we were living in during July and August at English camp, fell on my shin. The house this gorgeous, kind of glassed-in balcony, which covered the ground floor front entrance (in Canadian, we call it a ¨porch¨). I was sitting on the stairs with a bunch of 11 year old kids making kites out of wool thread and kebab sticks, when an 11´ by 8´ slab of glass landed on my shin. I can still remember it perfectly and I keep having these intrusiones mentales of the moment when the glass hit my leg. There was an instant of shock as the kids around me began screaming and I focused on the seemingly frozen and intact pane of class crashing on my shin, the little trickle of purply black blood seeping out of the gash, my skin, white, then, my brain, working faster than my nerves, I thought, oh shit, hope my leg isn´t cut off. I must have said something along the lines of "Aaaaghh, fucking shit!" as the pain shot up my leg, and immediately realized that I was basically O.K., and confirmed that there were no dead kids lying on the stairs, then I hoofed it up the stairs to get some first aid and some chocolate. It´s the first time I´ve ever seen stars (in my head). It´s not a nice experience, but it´s interesting to note that what I saw were rows upon rows of neatly arrayed stars. They weren´t moving, or lifelike or anything, and seeing through them to the people in the room whose voices sounded another room away made me want to swoon and vomit. Looks like Ireland, but it´s Asturias.
As it turns out, I only needed 2 stitches, but had the pane of glass fallen at a slightly different angle, or hit a different part of my body, or a kid, it would have been much, much worse.

The day after the incident, the director of Cursos Internacionales, Dan, arrives. Asks me how I am, asks to see the window, scratches his head and tells me, as I stare him unbelievingly in the eyes, that we have to "agree on a story", that "this can´t go out like this." So, he heads across the street to Concha, the bulging matron in charge of everything physical at the Casona, including its upkeep and bringing the unending parade of kids and monitors to the medical centre, and doesn´t come back until 2 hours later. Tells me he´s just had coffee with Concha´s son, whatever his name is, who saw the whole thing. ¨Apparently¨, there were towels hanging—and, by the way, you know you really shouldn´t let the kids do that—in the windows, and a gust of wind blew the towel, and that´s what broke the glass. End of story. Pay more attention to your job. Towels´ll get you every time.

No fucking kidding. I really didn´t know what to say. Still don´t. But I´m going to put the incident ¨in writing¨ and make sure that next year when a window or a ceiling or a brick kills somebody, my experience is on record.

I´m pretty sure that if this had happened in Canada, they would have cordoned off the area and had some sort of official inspection. But, Dan just told us to try and keep the kids away from the area, which just happened to be the main entrance to the building. Then, after buying us a crate of cider, he headed off home to Salamanca, apparently content and unconcerned.

The next week, however, while we were out on a trek, dutifully avoiding the Casona, a whole chunk of the ceiling in the girls bathroom above the showers collapsed, nearly wiping out one of the cleaning ladies in the process. I couldn´t help but laugh somewhat hysterically and snap some pictures in case they try to deny it happened. After that, I spent the rest of the camp, cringing whenever the chandelier´s shook and eying the damp spots on the ceiling of the dining room (right below the showers) and half-expecting another swath of ceiling to come crashing down on some kid´s head. See crime scene photo below.Back in Toronto, I decided to go see Hamlet with my mother at the Stratford Festival, and I can´t stop raving (internally) about how awesome an experience it was. I can believe I´ve never gone to Stratford before. Must be my parents fault. I suddenly feel let down, like they beat me or didn´t give me brand name peanut butter as a child or something. The actor who played Hamlet, Ben Carlson, was awesome. It was a strange decision to set the play in the 19th century, though. I guess they´ll do anything to draw a crowd, but it´s kinda hard to create that dark, grim, cold, brooding atmosphere that only the nighttime ramparts of a medieval castle in Denmark suggest. Cocktails and shirttails just don´t quite cut it. But hey, it was probably more interesting than seeing the same production of Hamlet for the umpteenth time would have been.

Stratford itself really surprised me too. It´s very, very nice. We saw ducks, swans, geese, lots of white people and pretty houses. We even ate really nice, overpriced Indian (i.e. Pakistani) food.

Just finished:
A.C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy (should be mandatory reading for any english speaker along with Funk and White´s style guide),

Ian Rankin, Exit Wounds (Rebus´swan song - is that what that means? - typical Rankin, I digged it).

gathering resolve

"Captains of industry, great generals, artists of genius, even politicians are often just people who have discovered that alcohol can enable them to make economic, tactical, creative, or political decisions whose implications would paralyze a sober individual." Your assignment, Capricorn, is to find an alcohol-free way to make such a decision. It's time for you to summon visionary courage from your soul, not from a bottle, as you catalyze complex blessings that will ripple through your future for a long time.

-Owen's horoscope this week in NOW Magazine.

I saw this and thought it very apt. I´m really bad at making decisions and have probably been putting a lot of things off recently, sort of paralyzed by the magnitude of the small decisions we´ve all got to make, in spite of not being an entirely sober individual. I´m going to try and take the assignment head on, little by little, and I´m going to start with a cocktail.

Fuckin´ right.

Just finished:
Ian Rankin, The Black Book. (funny, that was the title of one of my short stories)
Gabriel García Marquez, Cien Años de Soledad (in Spanish!)

Gijon, Asturias. Raining

Hope it stops soon so I can check out the city a bit without getting soaked. I´ve been milking the free breakfast and newspaper at the hostel all morning, but I think I´ll have to leave soon. This evening, I´m catching the bus to Oviedo to stay with Amanda´s friend Agar, who is there studying the MIR (Civil Service Exam for Doctors). I´ll spend the weekend there, then head down to Madrid, where I´m meeting Amanda. I´d prefer to keep poking around in Asturias, but we have to be in Salamanca on the 1st to meet the Little Angels with whom we´ll be sharing 3 weeks of english camp in Pendueles...

Asturias is kind of like being in New Brunswick, except they´ve cut down most of the trees and scattered ancient, semi-abandoned villages of Spanish speakers all over the place. It´s really green, mountainous, full of cows and apple orchards, rains a lot. The landscape is a lot less hostile then central Spain, where you´d die of asphixiation if you were left out in the afternoon sun. Still, it´s got that kind of moping, heavy look that a lot of rural Spain has, with it´s fallen-in roofs and and stranded-looking villagers, who seem the same across the country (short, round, bald men with button-up sweaters, leaning on canes and standing around a lot), —except that here they wave at you eagerly from the side of the rode if you make eye contact from the bus.

The bus ride from Llanes to Gijon was amazing. The Picos de Europa on the left, the Cantabrian Sea on the right. It´s very rural, but I can´t help fixating on the network of transmission wires, tension towers, and telephone poles that cut-up the landscape. The people standing-out in their gardens are literally overwhelmed by cables. Even the "Rural Apartments" we pass at the side of the road seem like a joke, surrounded by more power cables then you see in most city neighbourhoods.

The sun is shining, sort of. Well, it´s stopped raining anyway, so I´m going to step outside and explore Gijon a bit.

Just finished:
Herman Scheer, The Solar Economy, lent to me by Amanda´s dad Fernando, and highly reccommended.

first week back in spain

O.K.

So here I am again in Spain, Canary Islands. I love this place. It´s warm. It´s more or less sunny all the time. From Amanda´s place—and nearly everywhere in the island that enjoys any elevation—you can see the city (Las Palmas) down in the distance, the mountains behind and to both sides with the little villages spotted across the valleys and peaks climbing up into the mist, the sea below... it´s Vancouver without 10 months of rain, or the Olympics.

Amanda must have read my mind because as we leave the airport and fly down the highway, I notice we´re headed South and not North, as we would do were we headed to her house in El Monte, as I´d expected. I point this out and she´s surprised that I´ve clued into this so quickly, but I remind her that she lives on an island the size of the GTA, and that from her house in the North to her apartment in the South is not even as far as Toronto-Hamilton. This is my third time here and I explain to her that I now know that if the sea is on my left, then I´m either headed South or I´m on the wrong side of the island.

Sweet! This means a weekend in San Agustin, lying on the beach, sipping cervezas on the balcony as I marvel at the deep blue of the sea below and the fact that I´m wearing a t-shirt.

The only hitch in the plan turned out to be the weather (horrible according to Amanda; "fucking alright!" according to me. What else do you call 23C, partly sunny?). Actually, that was fine, but on Saturday and Sunday, our second and third full days at the beach, it was really windy, so we had to return to her apartment and drink white wine and eat tapas (whooh...shitty). We´d planned to visit this secluded beach called Montaña Arena, which you can only reach by following a steep trail along the sea cliffs behind an encampment of Canarios, who spend their summers living beside the water in their trailors roasting in the sun, but we met a couple returning along the path who told us that the tide was so high there was barely anywhere to sit, and aside from staring at the newly arrived Kayak, still beached a day after bringing another load of West African refugees to Europe, there was nothing to do except freeze your ass off on the rocks. So we headed home.

San Agustin is where ¨the South¨of the island begins. Just beyond a small peninsula and bay begins Playa Inglés, where all the beer-guzzling Brits get dropped off for their holliers. It´s a beautiful, is somewhat strange, place. San Agustin has always been the beach for the locals, but it´s also home to an enclave of Swedes and Germans, who have built a comfortable community of 400 or so cottages, nestled in the green hills overlooking the sea. There´s a shopping centre by the beach with an odd combination of cheap dollar stores, Bars de Manolo, Swedish and German restaurants and casinos. It´s kinda like the low-key tourist resort, with a healthy dose of Canarios spread out anywhere they can, with their lawn chairs and folding tables, playing dominoes beneath their umbrellas and eating endless bags of chips, nuts and other high-fat/low culture foods. I like it. And the beach is marvelous. It´s not golden brown, or white like in Cuba, but coarse and grainy, with black volcanic streaks through it. The water is clear and cold, with a steady current. It´s 5 minutes walk down from Amanda´s apartment and extremely handy for those days when feel too lazy to drive to the more exotic beaches or the most famous stretch of sand here on the island: Maspalomas (Morepigeons?). Really though, I know it doesn´t sound tough, but getting into the burning hot car after a day at the beach is about as off-putting as things get here. You feel drained and energy-less and sun-baked. So, I´m happy enough ensconced at the local beach, just close enough to home to run up and get an ice-cold cerveza or have a nap in the shade.

Amanda seems glad to see me (this is good: that´s why I´m here, right?), but seems kinda stressed out between her new job, and living at home again (although this seems to weigh on her a lot more when I´m around), applying for grants, and generally not having a very clear idea of what the immediate future will look like. I´ve become pretty comfortable with uncertainty and indecision in the last few years, but when it is nearly constant it does begin to wear on you. For example, both of us have applied for grants to study abroad (well for me, abroad means here) in the summer. We applied in January and won´t know until May (at best) whether we´re getting the funding. The problem is, the Swedish school (Amanda is applying to study in Sweden in July) wants her to register and pay NOW. The Spaniards, on the other hand, at the school were I wish to study, thought I was extremely premature in calling about course calenders already. Afterall, they still don´t know themselves what´s on offer this summer. Bit of a culture clash. I´ve also applied for a grant as an English Language and Culture Assistant for October to May. In contrast, I find out exactly 2 weeks after the application deadline whether I have been accepted. I don´t know if they will give me a place in the Canary Islands, though, or in Valencia, or not at all, and I don´t know which place I would like them to give me a grant for either. Amanda has also applied for a really cool and wierd position on a National Geographic luxury cruise ship. If she gets the position, she´ll be off around the world for 2 months at a time, with 1 month break. At the moment she´s working at a Shipping Agency that handles foreign ships´paperwork and other problems, and that´s how she was pointed in the direction of the job. How will that change things if she gets the job? I dunno. Aside from all those considerations, basically we need to decide whether to stay here in September or go to Valencia.

So, everything is a little up in the air at the moment. Just trying to maintain as many options open as I can and chill out a little bit everyday along the way. I´m trying to find work here in the Canaries and will approach life here as if this is where I´m going to be living, just to give it a fair shot and keep myself sane in the meantime. I´ve dropped-off some resumes at some English academies and I´m going to put up some signs in the neigbourhood for private classes. There are lots of rich kids around who need english tutors, so that shouldn´t be a problem.

We´ve managed to get ourself a place already, only one week in. I have to admit, I was a bit surprised when Amanda first told me about some apartments for rent in her neighbourhood that were available NOW. I had thought we´d be at her place for a few weeks at least, but we´ve decided to move in together and avoid the imposition and slight discomfort implicit in showing up at your girlfriend´s house for 3 months, minimum.

Amanda´s (parents) house is in a neighbourhood called El Monte (The Mountain), which is located in Tafira, a suburb of the city of Las Palmas. Technically, she´s on the very edge of the furthest municipal district of the city, but she´s actually closer to the village of Santa Brigida, a 5min drive up the crazy winding road. Our new place is in the epicentre of El Monte: the main street, which consists of 2 or 3 restaurants, a bar (yes!) a pizza place, SPAR, a hairdressers´s, post office, gas station, bus stop, a lot of traffic and, right below our window, the taxi stand! We´ve rented in a place called El Monte Inn, a sort of short-term residence for husbands temporarily estranged from their wives, young couples, students and other rogues. We have a little terrace and free access to a washing machine. All that for 500€/month aint bad, considering it´s furnished and we don´t need to commit to any longer than 3 months. Not the cheapest thing around, or the largest, but considering the circumstances, I´m quite content. And since it´s located where it is, I should be able to host any potential clients at home!

I think Amanda´s folks are a bit dissappointed we´re leaving, and Amanda also seems quite content here and not-at-all-anxious to go, but it was really her initiative with the apartment: I think she´s afraid I will feel uncomfortable living in her parents´place for 3 months (probably correct) and that this will give us more freedom. I think it´s also the more "adult" thing to do, take a bit of responsibility, pay the rent, buy groceries, etc. We have to go by the apartment tommorrow and sign the contract and hand over a grand. Then we move in this weekend. Naturally, we´ll have to have a little celebration.

That´s it for now.
Take it easy, take it all.
Owen.

Wow, that's the first time I've ever been fired.

Actually, I was "let go", part of the "restructuring" of the Spanish Centre, according to Javier, the director of the centre, who so obligingly explained the situation to me.

Unfortunately for me, I've only been working here for two months, and so am not even eligible to be given notice. Nope. Instead, a little after arriving and— immediately—being sent upstairs to collate textbooks in the closet for the second day in a row, my manager Victoria gave a soft little knock on the door and informed me that today was my last day. "uh, you know. As you can see we're not very busy. uh, you're going to Spain, and uh, so we'll no longer be needing you."

Right. And, uh, what the fuck am I supposed to do for the next five weeks? I am aware that employers are not obliged to give notice to employees who have been working for less than 3 months, however, two weeks notice would have been the least of common courtesy, and the very same I would have given them had I been given the chance. In fact, it was for precisely this reason that I hadn't officially notified them about my imminent departure to Spain: because I suspected I may be premeturely let go.

Still waiting to see if they'll pay me for Family Day, or if I'm the latest casualty of Dalton McGuinty's ill-fated statutory holiday.

gray days; lonely nights

I had intended to stay at home until the end of June or July working and saving some ‘start-up funds’ with which to move back to Spain. But I found myself in bed—so to speak—after another fruitful, but solitary, day reading and studying some Spanish, thinking: why am I here? I’m just working a ‘Joe’ job to throw some cash together, so it’s definitely not for my career. Especially since the dickheads over at the Spanish centre recently cut my Friday shift, so unless it keeps snowing like it has, and aside from the few days a month that I organize John’s billing, I’m now working only two evenings a week: hardly a lucrative situation, even if I’m not paying rent. I don’t go out much and only rarely get together with friends. The weather sucks. Shoveling snow is terrible, back-breaking work—it’s only fun when a) you don’t have to drive the truck and can get drunk in the passenger seat and b) there are fewer than 10cm of snow (then you can just push it out of the way). Last but not least: Amanda’s in Las Palmas, not here: so what the hell am I doing? This is stupid.

So, I bought a plane ticket to the Canaries for April 5. Screw putting my life on hold, even if it is only for a few months. Because that’s what I feel like I’m doing. Sure, there have been some concrete advantages to returning home, but I think I’ve exhausted those and it’s time to get the show on the road.

Amanda and I have talked about it a bit, and I think we’ve both come to the conclusion that we might of ‘shit it’ in terms of our planning this year. We really didn’t accomplish quite as much as we’d thought by uprooting ourselves from Valencia and going off traveling without a specific timeframe or any concrete plan to go back to afterwards, so that, I’ve found myself back in Toronto thinking, gee, I could have gone to Cuba in August and traveled in Canada in September, and have returned to Valencia by October and been teaching for the last five months. Hindsight is, as they say, 20/20.

On the plus side, I’ve gotten some things done during my time at home, like get my eyes checked (nearly 20/20) as well as a new prescription so I can put those new glasses on my dad’s insurance before they finally figure out I’m not twelve years old. I've gone to the dentist, got new orthotics (you don’t know how excited I am about this: tendonitis sucks, ill-fitting and ugly orthopedic shoes may be worse), I’ve re-read the first four books of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, and plowed through a pile of others, I think I’m back in shape again: shoveling snow and playing hockey four times a week will do that for you, and I’ve found myself mentally prepared to get on with it. Also, if it takes a few months and a few wasted trips to figure out: “oh, I may have had a good thing going there,” it may just be worth it.

I was at Niall’s place last night. In a bit of a similar situation himself, having squandered/invested his time and money moving back and forth between Toronto, Spain, and Vancouver, he finds himself back in the city in a (really nice) new apartment and determined to get a bit of stability and continuity back into his life. Moving around can be disruptive, we agreed. It costs a lot. You don’t put down roots in the same way you would if you'd just stayed in one place. It can be difficult to feel fully invested in the place and the moment your in, knowing you're about to move across the country or to a different continent. There’s also the continual pressure of starting-out: making new friends and reviving old contacts; figuring-out where to buy your meat, your cheese and your Sunday breakfast; buying a new toaster, finding a suitable couch, that starts to wear you down.

So, off I go again to Spain, and I’m going for at least a few years. Amanda and I have agreed to think things through a little better in the future (although I don’t think we’ve done too badly, really!). Our next big decision will be: do we stay in the Canaries or move back to Valencia in September? Amanda’s got a job at a shipping agency and has a contract until June, so I’m going to see how it goes finding work in Las Palmas during the next three months. We’ll see how it compares with living together in Valencia and take it from there. For my part, I’m tempted to return to Valencia because I really liked my job at Casa Americana, it’s on the mainland, we’d already somewhat established ourselves there, have some friends, know some good restaurants…on the other hand, Grand Canary is really nice and Amanda’s friends are there—though I’m not sure if she’s sure that that’s a good thing. One thing I’m sure of though, I’m spending my first week there at the beach!

scratch that

OK! It's 8:30, the boss has left, and it's time to blog!

How's the job going, anyway?...Need you ask?

It's week three, they've paid me—one of those cheques that reads "casual labour" in the re: line, which means no nasty deductions (or Canada Pension savings contributions), and my first salsa class begins tommorrrow: so far so good.

Uh, on another note, I just read my last posting for the first time, and it's really insulting! So, sorry Jer, Andrew and assorted company. If you read the post it sounds like I'm completely disowning you, in fact, I just had a few too many beers and got carried away picking apart dinner formalities. Well, hopefully nobody's actually read it (the most likely scenario) and I can do a little re-write. But, judging by the vehemence of a recent email from Jer, I don't think that's the case.

17/01/08

Nothing much to report here: still plugging away... Christmas fairly-well flew by, as did New Years. In fact, I can happily say that I had more fun this New Year's than I ever have, which is not saying particularly anything. For me, New Year's is a notoriously big let down. I usually end up at some terrible, boring party with people I don't like, or wandering the streets freezing my ass off in search of a drink and a warm place, and, since my financial resources have not as yet caught up with my taste in champagne, I'm stuck drinking things like Irish Car Bombs and Labatt's.

*OK, this is where I went off on a rant about dinner etiquette when I originally posted this, unfairly taking a jab at my best friends and basically being a jerk.

So, what I meant to say was that this year somebody (Andrew, I think?) had the brilliant idea of just getting together for a meal, drinking a bunch, and bringing-in the new year the old-fashioned way: no grandiose expectations, no big let-downs, no cheezy bars or cougars, simple, cheap, intimate. Cool! Great idea!

It was nice to be all together again with my buddies from high school (minus Chris, who's off in Scotland studying) and get completely canned in the basement. My friends are a quiet bunch, on the whole, but I'm used to that, and as far as I can remember we had a bashing good time, mostly singing a lot and spilling beer on Jer's carpet. We had a few good conversations too, stepping out occassionally into the still, snowy night to smoke a joint or knock back another Irish Car Bomb.

Why the vicious-sounding rant I posted earlier? I guess I just found it a bit strange my friends had already started dinner without me—along with a few other friends I rather uncharitably tagged as "people we like to describe as 'acquaintances' (ie. people we know of but don't really like enough to become real friends with)." I suppose that description still holds though. I don't want to completely censor myself. Besides, I think it's kinda funny.

Also, call me old-fashioned and stubborn, but in my experience, dinner is served after the guests arrive (hence the cocktail, which conveniently fills the before dinner gap). I'm not sure why I insisted on mentioning this, and didn't mean for the criticism to be insulting, although I can see how it is. (I was late, after all). I guess I just couldn't help connecting it to something else I'd read recently in The Rebel Sell, about "a noticable decline in civility" in our society, and I probably just read too much into an insignifant event not worthy of commenting on. Why would I do that? I suppose I agree with that assessment and...I read too much into insignificant events not worth commenting on. Like I said, we had a great time.

Highlights of the night:
80's Karaoke
Guitar Hero
Irish Car Bombs
Christian's dad's tortellini

Let's see, what else has happened to me lately...not much: still shovelling snow, which I did both on New Year's Eve and hungover on New Year's Day, still playing hockey three times a week, and still thinking of heading back to Spain while I huddle inside away from the cold.

I guess that's good. I'm still alive and looking forward to another year, unlike John O'Keefe, who was shot dead after leaving the very bar in which Jeremy, Andrew and I were celebrating my birthday.

That's the kind of thing that just makes you despair, it would also turn you fascist pretty quickly, if you didn't resist the temptation. I'm referring here to what I'll tentatively call the "send 'em back to Jamaica" complex—even though in this case, and in many others, these were not blacks—as well as such eternally appealing measures as mass sterilization and forced labour camps. I'm sorry, but that's what comes to mind when two losers kill an innocent man on his way home to his girlfriend and son after a Friday pint with friends and as I open the Toronto Star website and read that another innocent victim has been shot again on our city streets.