Various Things

I realize that my last post was rather negative. I stand by all those things I said, but many of the people I've met here are actually pretty cool. I'm just not stupid enough to delude myself into seeing things in others that aren't there. I really don't even have that much in common with a lot of these fuckers. I can't imagine us being friends outside of this context. But, hey, it's not about that, it's about having people to have fun with while we're in a big unfamiliar city. So anyway...

I was walking home from buying some groceries at the huge supermarket chain that is going to ruin the economy but it's always completely packed and people wish another one was built in their neighborhood. Poor Mom and Pop. What will they do after their loyal geriatric customers die off? Oh well, it's just capitalism replacing older, more inefficent forms of itself. Mom and Pop will be supported by son and daughter who do statistical analysis at SuperGiantFood co. I think people underestimate the Information Age. Just like at the beginning of the Industrial Age, most people probably scoffed at predictions that only 5% of the workforce would be in agriculture. "Pff! Yeah right! What will they eat, machines?!" Let us leave this topic while comfortably forgetting that a large portion of the world is too busy plowing fields to worry about computers.

So I was walking from SuperGiantFood Co. It was pretty cold out so I decided to take the bus. 10 minutes pass and bring no buses. Fuck the bus, I would have gotten home by then if I just would have kept walking, so I continue on my way. Of course, because I did so, the bus I was waiting for passes me not 30 seconds after I left the stop. This reinforces my recently developed belief that reality is subjective and malicious.

This event also sparked instant irrational rage. There was no way I was going to let that fucking bus beat me to my stop. I imagine I looked somewhat ridiculous, running like a maniac, all bundled up with a scarf wrapped around my head and plastic grocery bags swinging wildly at my sides. I didn't care at all at the time.

Now this is an excellent opportunity for some pathetic comedy. I could have tripped on my perpetually untied laces and fallen onto some dog shit, my groceries could have ripped out of their bags and into traffic/open sewer, I could have plowed into the cute girl that lives in my building, or some other hilarious clusterfuck.

I also didn't think of those things at the time, though it would have been prudent. None of those things happened. The odds were with me; there was plenty of christmas maggot traffic and the run home was short enough to do in a long reckless sprint.

Yes, that's right, I got there before the bus. Snot glistening on my scarf, my lips raw and my breathing ragged, but I got there. There's nothing quite like acting on your primal emotions and having it pay off. It's like throwing the nintendo controller into the floor and winning the game, instead of looking like a retard. Fuck you, bus! In your face, universe!

So. What else? Oh yeah, I was going to write about how I miss spicy food. There's not too much to that. Spaniards don't like spicy food. I can't find anything exceding what I would call "zesty". By American standards, I don't even like spicy foods that much, either. But seriously, I've heard people here call ONIONS spicy. They just have a completely different frame of reference. I have learned not to mention this, though. I think I offended my uncle once as he suffered through a plate of mushrooms that I didn't even REALIZE was supposed to be spicy.

Tomorrow morning Alex and I are going to the airport to pickup my parents and sisters. They'll be here all xmas break. It'll be good to see my mami and daddy, and of course the other hatchlings. It's been especially long since I've seen Elena. We're all (as in, my whole extended family) going to Toledo and having a huge xmas eve dinner at my uncle's house. Should be good times, but I don't know if I'll have much occation to post here until Jan 7th or so. MARY EKSMUS & A HAPIE NU JIR!

Here's to Real Friends

Happy xmas break! I hope finals went okay. I have yet to take any tests at all. Most courses here are a year long, and besides, the academic year is shifted a month later than at UMR.

Anyway, here's a warmfuzzy for you all: A few days ago we had a party at the Italian's apartment. After the landlord kicked us all out we called it a night. Antonio (the guy from Sevilla) and I take the same bus and on the way home we engaged in the great male bonding ritual of a drunken heart-to-heart. Well, to tell you the truth, it was a bit one-sided because he'd had a lot more to drink than I.

Among other things, he told me that he's already dreading leaving Madrid, and that he is glad that isn't taking for granted the time we have left of this year. He said that he's already made friends here that he would like to keep for the rest of his life, and that he's sad knowing that after this year many of us will never see eachother again.

I didn't tell him this, but frankly, he's either full of shit or he doesn't know what real friends are. Seriously, if he and I were talking about the same people, I don't understand what he sees as so great. Of course, it's possible to have excellent life-changing relationships with people that "aren't so great" but from what I've seen, the friendships we've got going here are mostly out of necessity and superficial. I guess that's how most relationships start, but very few make it past this stage. Has Antonio never had such a relationship? Is he just so shallow that being in the same class, making small talk and drinking is for him the basis for a profound friendship?

I just smiled and nodded, when really I wanted to say "Wow. You're really deluding yourself. You haven't found 'friends for life', you just went another city, found a bunch of exchange students that don't know anyone (cornered friends) and are playing a down-to-Earth charismatic asshat with them. It's fun, but that's all." He probably would have played it cool and just say that I'm way off base or pretend that I'm the only one that doesn't feel like he does. People who are full of shit will deny it until it squirts from their seams because they don't realize it themselves.

ANYWAY.
The point: His melodramatic speech made me realize how lucky I am to have real friends. When I go out tonight I'm making that fucker toast to Goat House, even if he doesn't even know how to pronounce it.

Pandora

Check this out: Pandora music thingy. It's a free streaming music service. You give it the title of a song or the name of a band you like and it finds other songs/bands you might like and plays them. You can refine its selections by telling it if you like or dislike the song that is currently playing. I think it's more useful for "discovering" music than it is for actually listening to it. It works pretty well but it's having one heck of time finding other artists like "Mr. Bungle". Oh well.

I just saw an ad that told me to "Click Here for a Free Trip to Space!". Is that a threat?

Woo Party

Last night I went out with the seneca (exchange students from within Spain) and erasmus (students from Europe). It was a good time, but we skipped the usual "botellon" phase and went right to a discotec. I think most of the other students fake enjoying conversation in the same way I fake enjoying goofing off in a dark, loud, crowded and smokey room (it's okay, though. If you fake it and drink enough, you will end up having fun).

Or maybe they prefer that because it levels the social playingfield. The subtlies of conversation are lost in deafening eurodance. Difficult accents are also drowned out, so foreigners don't have worry about their enunciation and Spaniards don't have to worry about understanding them. Just smile and nod.

At least, that's what I imagine is the motivation for inflicting this experience week after week. It can't be for meeting girls. Sure, the guys make a lot of talk before we go out. But once we're there, we rarely break out of our own little social circle which includes, on a good night, 2 girls.*

I had to go hit on a couple of Canadian girls all alone because I couldn't convince Julio to come with me. I don't know how the fuck they meet girls in Extremadura, but "wingman" isn't in their vocabulary (it only recently entered mine). The Canadians brushed me off. Of course they did. I was breaking protocol. Don't give me that look. I don't make the rules, I just learn them.

Jose took a pictures of some of our past outings but I just now got my hands on them, so for today just pictures of last night. Complete with reckless commentary. Fuck them if they read this, I guess?:


Left to right, excluding myself:
-Bruno, the only genuinely friendly French person I've met. Stereotypical, yes, but if the shoe fits.
-Jose, one of the guys from Extremadura. Very considerate and intelligent.
-Antonio, from Sevilla. Kind of an asshole. Normally, this isn't a problem. Some of my best friends are assholes. But he's a different kind. He's like the horny jock stereotype, except he's smart enough to be a social opportunist, on top of that.


-Raquel, I forget from where in Spain she's from. She seems nice enough. Everyone likes her a lot. They don't know what you and I do, though. I detect a lot of falseness in her. Smiles too much.
-Jose again. Poor guy must've had taken 15 pictures of himself with Raquel. A symptom of nerd-herding? (see aside below).


-Guile (I dont know how to spell his name) is a dude from Belgium. I dont know him that well because his Spanish is pretty bad, but he's seems to be a fun and positive person.
-Julio is the other guy from Extremadura. He doesn't drink, but that's because he would probably kill off the last of his remaining neurons. He's actually a pretty cool, aside from being retarded.


You can't really see his face, but that's Anton (An Italian. I think that's his name?) screaming into Raquel's ear. She obviously has no clue what he's saying.


That's the other girl that was with out with us last night. Her name is Cindy, and she's Guile's girlfriend. I don't really know much about her because her Spanish is even worse than Guile's.


Just another photo. There are lots more, but they're pretty much all the same. Fun times.

*An aside:
UMR, by the way, is not the only place on Earth with a bad "ratio". A computer science department in an engineering university is not going to have many female students. This is especially true here in Spain where each department is somewhat isolated from the rest. Ours is OUTSIDE the city.

So this fear the guys have of dividing their attention from the few girls they know may be similar to the Rolla nerd-herd mindset. Each girl's got her own stock of nerds, and the nerds are afraid of straying from the flock. It's not like they've got a shadow of a chance with the shepard, but at least they get some female attention. Can't risk losing that, right?