The “Miss” List

So you may be asking yourselves, “Jamie, you’ve been in Granada for over 2 weeks and have only talked about what happened 3 weeks ago in Morocco.  Where have you been!?!?”  Well friends and family, calm your horses….I am back and blogging about everyday life here in Granada.  What’s crazy is that I have 2 more weeks in Granada, less, actually.  The time has flown by so quickly, to the point where I really don’t believe it’s December.  That may be due to the fact that there isn’t snow/ice on the ground and there is no Christmas music on the radio.  We do however have these shimmery/light-up things all over the city, and I was actually surprised by how secular they were (not that there’s a need to be secular in this country, but it’s an interesting point to make).  We’ve got some orniments and a few christmas tree looking things, but the rest are gift boxes with bows or stars or other not-so religious objects.  Plus, the nativity scene is actually inside the Cathedral (I went there today for art history, hence my knowledge of this)….not sitting in the middle of town in the most prominent location.

But sadly, with holiday cheer every December comes academic depression, and this year is no different.  To put it simply, I should not have taken 3 of 4 academic classes in Spanish, for the sheer fact that researching and writing papers becomes a million times more difficult when they’re in a foreign language you’ve been studying for 5 semesters.  The stress levels of my program-mates and me  have skyrocketed to rediculous levels, where no one cares about what they’re writing in Spanish (or English for that matter), they just want to crank out pages and be done.  Kinda sad, no?  We’re all supposed to go home for lunch everyday, but I was only home for lunch 1 day this week because I’ve either had class, group meetings, or else absurd amounts of work to do during the lunch break.  I would post my schedule for the upcoming week and a half here, but it’s too depressing when I look at it, and you all don’t deserve that depression….

After endless hours of studying and attempting to gain a mastery of the Spanish langauge to conquer academic research papers, the last thing I want to do is pay attention in class.  And with back to back to back classes between 1230-615 (1230-210, 230-430, 445-615….see, I tried to spare you the depression), you hit a wall of being able to focus.  So I wrote out a list of the things that I really miss about home/America.  There are no people on this list…not because I don’t miss any of you (oh, i do, trust me), but because these things are all kind of random.  Most need no explanation….

The “Miss” List

1. Jewish Food (duh)
2. Lined paper (the Spanish say that lines are for elementary school kids- when you hit the age of 10 you get graph paper.  Graph paper was for Calculus, which I no longer no, care about, or understand.  To take notes, i need my lines….)
3. 24 hour libraries (Club-G!)
4. Pandora, Hulu, and other websites that make life easy and promote procrastination
5. American-style outlets (eff the 2 prongs and the need for converters)
6. Political Pundants
7. Yiddish phrases being considered common
8. Text messaging
9. Having a kitchen I am free to cook/bake in as I please
10. Central heating (don’t get me started- i almost developed hypothermia this weekend/early this week)
11. My hairdryer
12. Long showers where you don’t have to turn the water off ever 2 minutes
13. Sweet potatoes
14. The English Language and its intricacies (that I wish I knew how to use in Spanish but don’t)
15. Midwestern apples, esp. honey crisps and pink ladies
16. Printers, scanners, and photocopiers in a public location, open whenever I need to print/scan/copy something
17. Coffee to-go.
18. American style shopping…I swear I cannot find ANYTHING in this country. I really miss CVS because that’s just a one stop shop for awesomeness
19. Target and Costco
20. Salad dressing that is more than just olive oil
21. String Cheese
22. Family Guy in English (here, we get this funny dubbed over version that’s just depressing…)
23. Trader Joes, TJ shopping trips, cabinets filled with yummy TJ products, namely their chocolate chip merangues and their tofu
24. Dryers (the big, industrial ones that make my towels all nice and fluffy)
25. Professors who can communicate with students….
26. Professors who don’t have 5 minutes between classes that are at least a 20 minute walk from one another….and then force you to make up each 15 minute period they’ve missed in the month of november.  BOO
27. The weekly delivery of The Economist
28. Sunday coupons
29. Cupcakes and all their prettiness + Cupcakeries
30. An actual winter (there are still green leaves on the trees here)

Coming up next, the things I will miss about Granada….but I don’t think I’ll write that one until next week.

And now, mis amigos, I am off to Lisbon.  PORTUGAL.  How cool is that?!  I’ll be there Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and then I’ll be back very, very early Monday morning, only to turn around and begin the 10 day paper writing/studying/”last” marathon.

Hasta Pronto!

–J–

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