things I've noticed

In the elevator of my building there isn't a button to close the doors more rapidly. This represents either
a)the lack of hurry that is present in ALL of Spain, or
b)the lack of situations such as running away from a bad guy, escaping into the elevator and frantically pushing the ··CLOSE DOORS NOW·· buttton, hoping that the doors will close before he can get a well polished shoe in between them, thus forcing them open and leaving you trapped in the elevator with the man who wants to murder you. Or, if it's a spoof movie, propose to you or something equally as non-threatening.

I'd like to think it's the second option.

Second bit of crazy: I was skimming a newspaper yesterday and there was an article concerning plastic surgery. And I believe it said how Spain is now the leading country for these types of operations. This was not the shocking part (although a bit surprising). There was an insert with a picture of an Asian person. The caption next to the picture read "A popular request is ocular surgery to westernize eyes. It creates folds(I think) in the upper eye lid and the eyes aren't as separated from the nose" This, shocked me. But maybe, just maybe, it's because whenever people here have made reference to the fact that I am part Asian, they gesture to their eyes, using their fingers to pull them slightly downward. The same kind of thing that you see on elementary school playground before we learned what PC was. I don't know. I just don't know.

A third bit of frustration concerning the differences between English and Spanish: Spanish is full of justifications. And in trying to think of an example right now in my head, and comparing it to English, yes, there are justifications in English also. Or at least, it's more polite to use them. But to me, it sounds wimpy. We talked about the question of asking to borrow someone's car. There were two options on the board. One was "Hey, can I borrow the car?"The other was, "May I borrow your car? It's that mine broke down and I have to go to Barcelona this weekend and I promise to return it to you on Monday". Yes, this is acceptable. To me, it sounds like I'm talking to my mother. There are other examples that I can't think of. But as a rather assertive person, some may label it aggression, this passive way of talking just isn't the way I think.

In our language class I feel we are learning more about how to be cultured than actual grammer type stuff. But maybe this demonstrates the link between language and culture, or class. Class as in classy. Not socio-economic. aah. To my colloquial spanish class where we are discussing some sort of curse words. Should be a good time.

j

the beauty of fabric softener

I didn't realize it until I got here. And all the clothes are line-dried. Which is better for the environment and saves energy and yadda yadda. But it leaves my cotton shirts stiff and not as inviting. I guess I'll go ahead and put a "culture shock" label on this one.