Melissa's Travels

I slept through my alarm, found myself with not enough time to see all of the sights I had yet to see in the city and didn't check my email in time to realize the actual hour of my flight. I found myself in the Spain airport without money to buy a return ticket and a strange course of events led me to wind up in jail wrongly convicted of a crime. "I was in Spain for 3 months on my own," I thought, "Jail should be a breeze." But with the realization of the lack of privacy, the absence of food I enjoyed and no end in sight to the misery and fear I couldn't help but burst into tears...that ran down my cheeks and finally awoke me from this nightmare to realize that I'd slept until 1pm in the afternoon and was missing out on an unusually beautiful day in Seattle.

Bizarre and vivid dreams are only the beginning of the strangeness that I've been met with since returning to the states last Monday. First of all, everyone speaks English here. Not that I'm surprised, but you'd think maybe they'd throw in a little Spanish or maybe German to spice things up once in awhile. I'm tempted to get a pedicure just so that I can blissfully listen to the melodies of a language different from my own. With the added perk of returning home with freshly polished hot pink toes. Yesterday I went out to the Cheesecake factory with my family and it literally took me over 30 minutes to make my decision of what to order. Having become accustomed to one page menus where I chose whatever item contained a familiar word (typically anything involving pollo, jamon o queso was safe), the novel that constitutes the Cheesecake Factory menu was more than overwhelming. Pages upon pages of food clearly articulated in mouth watering language paralyzed my brain and it wasn't until I was pressured by the hungry eyes of my family members that I finally pointed to a menu item.

Even stranger is the fact that absolutely no one here is interested in talking in Spanish when they've been drinking. Not even a word here or there. And just as I'd suspected, when I suggest Spanish subtitles on a movie or TV show I am met with glaring eyes. It's even challenging to find a crowd interested in listening to my absolutely amazing CD of Spanish music purchased at the airport. I myself have had the CD on repeat since I stepped off the plane. It's these realizations that encouraged me to sign up for an online community similar to myspace but solely for the purpose of matching people with native speakers of the language they're interested in practicing. I think the purpose is to find a person who you can meet with once a week to practice your language, but all of my Spanish withdrawals left me so enthusiastic for an intercambio that I now have 3 different language exchange partners lined up. I only hope I can juggle it all with my work schedule that will commence next week.

I can't say I'm excited to return to work where the nights potentially last until the next morning and aggressive ADHD kids are easy to find but with bills arriving in the mail daily and gas prices soaring I realize the necessity of returning to the working world. I've never been someone who works solely for the money and my position on the psych unit is certainly no exception. I don't know how you can possibly have patience for non lingual autistic patients or compassion for suicidal teenagers when you're only doing it for the paycheck. However, after three months immersed in an entirely different kind of stress that did not involve breaking up fights between 12 year old boys or distracting eating disorder patients during a meal, I have to admit that my dire need for money is a motivating factor behind my interest in returning to work. Having grown accustomed to easy public transportation and daily adventures, it is heartbreaking to come back to the states and realize even if I possess the energy and time to devote my day to exploring the city, my current financial situation does not afford me the freedom to fill my gas tank. Even worse, my employer issued bus pass expires this weekend. My return to the hospital on Monday truly can't come soon enough.

Returning back home has in no way been entirely negative. It has been refreshing to converse with friends without having to always give background information. The ability to turn to people I can trust in a moment of despair, who have time and time again proven trustworthy, is priceless. It's been amazing to once again have easy access to a computer and internet, even if my abundance of free time does encourage a facebook/myspace addiction. I've been able to dive into a stack of books I left mid-read back in March and although I'm less than proud to admit it, I did spend an entire afternoon last week catching up on the episodes of Desperate Housewives I missed during my time abroad. I've been challenging my indecisiveness and working hard to be "game" for any opportunities that arise. That is, any opportunities that either are a) free or b) the person inviting offers to do the paying. Tonight I find myself wrapped up in a dilemma that requires me draw on both these areas:: There is a decision to make and whichever path I take will require me to be ready for an adventure. As I wrote a couple of months ago, I applied for a teaching position with the Ministry of Education in Spain, which is the government branch in charge of the public school system. I received a position to work 15 hours a week teaching English in a public school located in Madrid. However, the stipend you receive for 15 hours is not nearly enough to live on so locating under the table work (the only type the visa I'd have to get would "allow") would be a necessity. I've been stressing about how to come up with the money to fly down to San Fransisco to get my visa, not to mention wondering why I would return to Spain for an entire 8 months when I am itching to get into graduate school and get this whole path to a PhD started already. Then today, I opened my email box to find an email from my Spanish professor from the college I attended. Within his letter he invited me to serve as a teaching assistant for the very same university study abroad program I participated in 4 years ago. To be clear, I could be spending next Spring traveling around Spain, France and Germany with a group of college students embarking on the same life changing experience that opened my own eyes to the world, my heart to travel and introduced me to my soul. For someone aspiring to be a college professor one day, this is an experience I don't believe I can pass up. Not to mention that it's free. That's right free. Actually not only free, but I would also get a stipend. Although I haven't formally made a decision, the more I write and talk about it the more I can't help but think my 8 months in Madrid may be shortened to 12 days and I couldn't be happier.

It's 1:28 a.m. at this point and although part of me thinks I should be readjusting to a sleep schedule that would prepare me for my return to the "real world" next week, I think I'm going to take the advice I heard earlier this evening and enjoy my present lack of obligations. I have no reason to wake up at any particular time tomorrow so I think I'll stay up watching a favored TV show in Spanish and reading a bit (maybe even in English? How scandalous...). Thursday morning I'm going to don my red España t-shirt and head out to a local bar to drink Northwest beer and pretend I'm halfway around the world in a trash littered Madrid bar to cheer on Spain to victory against Russia in the Copa de Europa futbol match. The upcoming days are sure to greet me with many possibilities and I only hope that fate brings some free reflection-worthy, smile-inducing opportunities so that I find myself with more moments to practice being "game."