I’m trying desperately to find something interesting to relate about the past week. I’ve had two exams since last writing, which is why my life has basically become restricted to the acts of getting up, working, eating, going out for a drink break, watching several episodes of New Girl and going to bed again - where the things I most look forward to during the day are my bowl of cereal in the morning and watching New Girl in bed before going to sleep. It is a sad, sad, existence.
Teaching is going better every time - three out of five of my students are really excelling, and even the youngest two are making steady progress. My exams could have gone worse - especially as I have never felt so unprepared for an exam in my life as I did for my linguistics one on Monday. We had been so poorly informed that we turned up to the exam half an hour early with no idea of what room it would be in or even a vague impression of the content or format of the exam. The material I’d had to learn (over just one weekend, might I add, since we’d only just been told where to obtain the notes) had been over seventy pages of A4 print-outs. I’d managed to compress it to forty-seven hand-written ones, and might as well have painted the whole lot yellow for the amount of things I’d had to highlight.
When we got into the lecture hall, we were somehow the last there and had to be allocated seats by the professor. Then, a register was taken (horrendous pronunciation of my name, obviously) and we were each given a tiny slip of paper with four essay questions on it - all of which we had to answer. Of all the seventy pages I had revised, I have no idea how two of the four questions seemed to have no relevance to any of them.
Luckily I am now free until my next and final exam on Monday, Methodology of Translation. Typically, this is the one I’m least worried about and the one for which I have the most time to revise - not that I’m not enjoying the extra bit of breathing space. Not only that, but I have other things to organise in the meantime, not the least of which is arranging an internship position I’ve been deliberating over for more than two weeks now. It hasn’t got a mention before now in this blog as it has all seemed fairly unlikely to actually come off - but since my days are now punctuated with optimistic email checks, I think I should explain a bit about it.
I’d started sending out emails enquiring for possible internships several months ago, right after I’d secured the volunteering job in Peru. The unforeseen snag in my plan, of course, was that very few companies are willing to take on an intern who can only work up until the beginning of August. I’d almost given up the search when I had an email through from my university in Exeter, congratulating me on securing an internship with a global company specialising in renewable energy.
I was fairly confused by this email, to say the least - since I knew for certain that I hadn’t made any form of application or even sent an email to this company. It turned out they’d been looking for an intern and had a connection with my university - and had subsequently picked me out amongst all the competition. Obviously this is quite an honour, not to mention an amazing opportunity to boost my CV - however, it isn’t without its drawbacks. The internship is in Madrid, so I would have to arrange transport and accommodation in a short period of time. Not only that, but it’s unpaid - and I can’t imagine it’s all that cheap living in the capital. But, on the plus side, I would be working in the Marketing Department, assisting the bosses with big presentations, and they’ve left me free to pick out the dates that suit me. The long and short of it is that we’re still in negotiations.
Outside of the stress of exams and possible internships, we managed to have quite a nice weekend. Our night out on Thursday wasn’t up to its usual standards as it seems everyone in Murcia has locked themselves away with their revision notes and is refusing to come out. Nevertheless, we made up for it on Saturday by travelling to a place called the Fuensanta, a beautiful mountain setting topped by an immaculate white church, offering the best views in the entire city. It was a gorgeous day and we were able to picnic overlooking the bright and endless panorama.
One bizarre event which shouldn’t go unmentioned is what happened when I was revising in the park on Sunday. Now, getting approached by slightly weird and disturbing men is by no means a rarity in Spain, and I could fill this blog with little anecdotes about them - but this one really was something else. A guy, in his mid-thirties, I’d imagine, came up to me and started talking to me - so as usual I acted uninterested in the hope he would get the hint. After ascertaining that he could not pronounce my name (shocker) and saying that yes, I did have a boyfriend, he slowly drifted away. About an hour later, I noticed he was still suspiciously hanging around. The next minute, he was going up to some poor unsuspecting woman, pulling his jeans down and giving the whole park a spectacularly unpleasant view of everything God gave him. Then, the woman walked away and the people went about their business as though nothing had happened. Apparently, either they didn’t find this disturbing behaviour merited the police attention, or they just couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it.
The sad thing is that, apart from that, there’s nothing interesting to report. The new oven has finally arrived; it’s almost the same as the last one except for the fact that it has an extra hob ring and it’s all silver and shiny - and that it works, of course. It’s a sign you’re getting old when you get this excited about the arrival of a new kitchen appliance; we were actually stroking it and calling it our new baby. On the other hand, we were equally thrilled at discovering the copious amounts of bubble wrap in the packaging, just waiting to be popped - so maybe we’re not that mature after all.
Another slight variation in my otherwise quite honestly monotonous existence was meeting up with my language exchange, José, yesterday evening. He’d been really sweet since my unfortunate blacking out incident, texting me to check I was ok and asking to meet up again (despite me probably giving him the fright of his life the last time). We met at 7.30 and it actually went really well this time; we chatted for two hours before he dropped me back in his car (a rare and exciting luxury these days).
Today I went for my usual Wednesday run before getting stuck in to some more revision. Later on I’ll do some catching up on Skype before meeting up with another new language exchange, Beatriz. Of course, my friends and I will be meeting up for some drinks or a Smoöy this evening, before I tuck up in bed and starting the whole cycle again.
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