Favors

If you're a lawyer or a doctor, then I can relate to you.
How many times have you been at a dinner or a party and someone says "Oh! You're a doctor? Can you take a look at this puss-filled, rancid growth on my fat roll?".
Or if you're a lawyer, it goes "Oh! you're a lawyer? Well, I've got a question for you... you see, I'm going through a divorce and my wife kidnapped my kids and tried to poison me with anti-freeze. Who gets the lake house?"
Well, I can tell you from personal experience that this happens to English teachers, too.
At the same cocktail party with Mr. Anti-Freeze and Ms. Rancid Growth, we meet MEESTER I LIKE PRACTEES.
Not only does he spend 30 minutes trying to put together a pathetic sentence about his trip to New York in 1985...
But he also wants me to teach his kids English.
Let's not kid ourselves.
He really just wants you to be a babysitter and talk to his kids in English.
Because they just absorb it, right?
That's how it works, right?
Right?



Normally, in Spain, if you meet an Anglophone, it's a freelance teacher.
Student turnover is fast because people always manage to find a reason to stop having class.
So freelance teachers are always looking for more students.
Most English speakers stay in Spain for two years.
In the first year, you're having a blast.
In the second year, you start to miss home.
In the third year, people who wanted a little adventure go back home and those that stay are the ones with binding ties - such as spouses and thriving businesses.
I stayed - I've got a wife and a full-time job.

So that's what I tell MEESTER I LIKE PRACTEES.
"Look, man, I've got a job and I'm really not looking for any more work right now, but thanks."
"DO YOU.... YOU HAS FRIENDS THAT IS CAN?"

Remember the people that went back after two years?
That's my English-speaking friends.
Now, my friends here are mostly Spanish.

A similar thing happens to translators.
A friend calls you and says "hey, would you mind translating something for me?".
This means you're not going to get paid.
Let's minimize the damage.
"OK, I guess. How long is it?"
"Not long at all... like three pages or so. I'll send it to you tomorrow."
When you get the document, it's a 25 page engineering report in PDF.
Your "friend" has just dicked you out of a week of work and around 1000 bones.



So, no, I don't want to teach your snot-nosed, spoiled brat, hellraising rugrat kids.
And no, I don't want to translate your Bible-sized doctoral thesis for free.
Go find some other young, ambitious, Justin Beiber-looking American fresh of the boat to take advantage of.
Lesson learned.
This isn't this redneck's first rodeo.

IS O.K., WE CAN ESPIK INGLIS

Let's just start out with a rule of thumb: Spaniards don't get Southern American English. 
In most conversations, if a Spaniard doesn't understand just one word, it doesn't matter how incredible the rest of the sentence was, they ignore the rest. 
Things that Southerners say will make a Spaniard look like a deer in headlights. 
The same thing probably happens with South Africans, Australians, the Scottish, and the Irish, or basically anybody that doesn't talk like a BBC reporter on Xanax. 
One single word can throw them off the bull. 

Ex. Grunted "T"s and "Ds" (Glottal Stop, in the International Phonetic Alphabet)
- The Appalachian Mountains, prounounced "apal-LA-chen MAun-ns"
     - Also: fountain, Hillary Clinton, iron curtain, maintenance, 
- Manhattan. Pronounced "man-HA-n"
     - Also: certain, Britain, Latin
- Garden, pronounced "GAR-dn"
     - Also: Michael Jordan, Osama Bin Laden, pardon, Gordon Brown

Ex. Absent "T"s
- Internet, pronounced "INr-net"
     - Also: center, winter, gentlemen, twenty, mental, Santa Claus
     - Everybody knows that Americans pronounce "twenty" differently. 
          That rule applies to a lot of other words, too. 

If you're American and you "correct" your way of speaking by changing these sounds back to "T"s and "D"S, it's either because you're talking to a foreigner or because you're trying to sound intelligent because of your inferiority complex. 

If you're a Spaniard and you don't believe me, go on YouTube right now and listen to any American talk or just look up any of these words on Dictionary.com and click on the little audio symbol so that you can hear it pronounced. 

For people that grew up in the South, you know that you have to have two registers, two ways of talking. There's the way that you talk at home and then the way you learn to talk in school. 
At school, you conjugate. (He doesn't know me.) 
At home, you don't. (He don't know me.) 
At school, double negatives are bad. (No, mother, we don't have any more okra.) 
At home, double negatives are our friend. (Momma, we ain't got no mo' okra.) 


I get a kick out of how Spaniards pronounce the names of states: 
- South Carolina: "SAuz CArolain". Yes, it has an "A" at the end. 
- Tennessee. "TE-nesi" Actually, the stress goes on the last syllable
- Arkansas: "ar-KAN-sas". Here, the stress goes on the first syllable and the final "s" is 
          silent. 

"Country": "CAun-tri". Spaniards take the rule for pronouncing "downtown" and apply it to "country" and "young". 


All picky little things aside, there are some social behaviors that I also find... curious. 

You're in a disco in Madrid. 
The music is loud. 
Everybody is hammered. 
Your friend that you came with introduces you to his friend, a Spaniard. 
Music: HEEEEYYYYY SEXY LADY
Friend: MEET MY FRIEND, JOSE, JOSE, ÉL ES RYAN, ES AMERICANO
Jose: IS OK, WE CAN ESPIK IN INGLIS. I LAIK TU PRACTIIIS MAI INGLIS IN THE DISCO

(Then, Jose spends thirty minutes shouting incomprehensible babble into your eardrum about the summers he spent in England with his Spanish friends.) 
Thanks, Jose, now I'm deaf and bored. 
You: I'm gonna go get another 15 euro Jack and Coke. 

Then, as if you're not in the room, Spaniards will tell you to your face that American English isn't "correct". 
Apart from the studies that I've read saying that British English has actually changed more than its colonial counterpart since the Revolution, that's rude. 
The funny thing is that most of the people that say that couldn't pick an American accent out of a lineup anyhow. 

Finally, you talk to someone that has half a clue about speaking the language, and they ask you: 

Are you from Texas?

After putting up with this crap for a good long time now, I've resorted to getting my own laughs out of people. 
Lots of people see me at work and want to use me to get a quick laugh. 
I resent this because, much like other human beings, I don't being singled out and made to feel different, freakish and ridiculous. 

Co-worker: "JE-lou JAU-ar-iu! ¡Mira que de puta madre hablo el inglis! ¿Eh? ¿A que       
                         piloto?"
Me:                "Hey! Zipptiy doo-dah, ass hat!" 
Co-worker: "¿Ein? Eh, ¡Venga! ¡'Ta luego!"

The Market is Wide Open Here

Curiously, in a country whose unemployment rate is 25% (sounds more like an after Christmas sale than the unemployment rate), it is still incredibly easy to find work in Spain as an English teacher. 

Is your native language English? 

It doesn't matter if you never finished college, or even high school. 

It doesn't matter if you don't have a teaching degree. 

It doesn't matter if you are barely literate. 

It doesn't matter if you're not really a native speaker. 

Because your students will never know the difference. 

Lots of language academies prefer that you don't have any training - that way they can assure that your only method is their method. 

And by the way, they'll pull the wool over your eyes and trick you into accepting 15 euros an hour, which will keep you on a steady diet of white rice and tap water for months until you get tired of the tapeworms. 

The financial crisis going on here makes people spend less on: 

- Clothes

- Hobbies

- Eating out

- Travel

But all the while they spend more on: 

- professional courses

- learning languages

-  gambling

- drinking

- prostitution

So if you're a card dealer, bartender or prostitute (and you speak Spanish), or if you give business seminars or teach languages, then come to Spain, because the market is wide open! 

The best part is the way language classes are understood in Spain. The older generation - people with enough money to pay for private classes - believe that you learn a language by sitting in a room with a native speaker and conversing while the native speaker corrects you. No homework - it's too much effort. No studying - you don't have the time. And two hours a week should be enough to see your level skyrocket in no time. You should be bilingual before the school year is over - speaking in that perfect London accent. All you have to do as a teacher is make sure the conversation is interesting, assure your student that he is improving, and you'll continue to get paid. Year after year. 

Even the people on Jersery Shore could pull this off. 

After all, all a language teacher has to do is talk, right? 

It's a matter of maximizing your payoff and minimizing your effort. 

That's why the more time an English teacher spends here, the more they specialize in: 

- General English classes and general business English (reuse your lesson plans, or just pluck an article out of your favorite online newspaper to chat about in class). 

- Adults (they can have a conversation. Kids generally need some help on grammar and vocab and that's a lot of work)

- Their neighborhood (why go other places when the demand is everywhere, including on your front doorstep?) 

- not working on Fridays (it's just a drag)

- Getting paid under the table

- Constantly changing students (they eventually run out of money, energy and dedication) 

OK, I'm all out of sarcasm for today. 

Bathroom Confessional

I had an interesting conversation with a Spaniard at the urinal the other day.
Before we get into that, let's back up and talk about the fact that Spanish men talk to each other at the urinal.



In 'Murica, there are four basic rules when using a urinal in the men's room.
1) No eye contact. I don't want to look at another dude while I'm holding myself.
2) No conversation. I don't want to talk to another dude while I'm holding myself.
3) If you shake it more than twice, you're playing with it.
4) It don't matter how much you shake or dance, a couple drops always fall on your pants.

Several years ago, when I had just started my current job, I'm de-watering.
Keep in mind, there are four urinals in this bathroom and I'm at one of the middle ones.
Then, a Spanish coworker of mine comes and stands at the other middle urinal, all cozy.
We could've held hands and made eyes at each other.
He looks straight at me and says "What's up?"
I say "I'm taking a piss."
The conversation ended abruptly.
I was shocked that somebody would look at me and speak to me at the urinal, and he was offended that I didn't want to sword fight and chat at the same time.

So just before Christmas, the company had a cocktail, which I loathe. I'm the kind of guy that likes to go to work, do my part, clock out and get my check. If I socialize with coworkers, it's with a select few that I know aren't mind-numbingly boring. You know: the people that you see in the morning, and you say "how's it going?" and they say the have a stock answer for each day of the week. "Hump day!" on Wednesday, "Another day, another dollar" on Tuesday, "TGIF!" on Friday.
Where did I leave my cyanide pills?
I digress. Getting back to the cocktail, I like to go, have a beer, listen to the big fish make speeches about profits and motivation, and then skedaddle.
Other people finish up at the cocktail and then make plans to go on to a bar and see if they can end up with a searing hangover the next day.
So I went back to the office a little early to get my work done and go home to do things I really enjoy, like making voodoo dolls of the guy that sits near me and looks and talks just like Ned Flanders.
I clock out and go to the bathroom to prepare for my commute.
Once again, I'm standing at the urinal when another guy comes up beside me, and he's tanked from the free liquor at the cocktail.
Red eyes, messed up hair, shirt almost untucked, rosy cheeks - the classic signs of being ripped, but trying to play it off.
I know he speaks a little English and I know he's about to speak to me, so I try to control the conversation and limit it to small talk, but I failed miserably.

Me: "Hey, man"
Him: "HOW ARE YOU GOING?"
Me: "Where? To the bar? No, man, I'm going home."
Him: "NO! HOW ARE YOU GOING?"
Me: "No, dude, I'm not going to the bar."
Him: "NO! HOW ARE YOU GOING?"
Me: "Where?"
Him: "What?"
Me: "Do you mean 'How are you doing?'"
Him: "NO! HOW ARE YOU GOING?"
Me: "Good!, you?"
Him: "FINE, THANKS!"

What's a Crock Pot?

I decided I'd give myself a treat for Christmas - yet another appliance that will most likely end up collecting dust in my already cramped kitchen: a Crock Pot.
The great thing about it is that you can sling in a bunch of meat, spices and water at 8 AM on a Sunday, set it and forget it, then, at lunch time, you've got tender, flavorful meat that you can serve and eat immediately and leave simmering all day long. I love the idea of being able to walk away from something and the work continuing to get done.

I dreamed of making BBQ hash, ribs, chili, vegetable stew, cube steak... and maybe even venturing out and trying to find some wild game to spice things up... some rabbit, or fowl, or deer... or a Spanish favorite: boar.  And bull's tail (kinda like our ox tail stew, but with a little cinnamon).

In my case, I like to make a big batch of whatever, and spend all day Sunday reading and watching TV, and getting a little plate of what I've made every so often.

When I first had the idea, I realized that I didn't know how to say "Crock Pot" in Spanish. So I looked it up on http://www.WordReference.com, and it said "olla eléctrica" and "olla lenta". Armed with this information, I did a couple searches and found that El Corte Inglés and Media Markt had a few models... at least on their website. When I went in person, I was disappointed to find that most of what they had was a modified bread maker with a capacity of about 1/2 gallon. These dinky machines were no match for my American-sized meals.

I finally found a variation on a paella maker made by Paulsen. It's a rectangular pan about 4 inches deep, 10 inches wide and 20 inches long with a capacity of about 7 quarts (I'm guestimating all of this since I'm having to convert from metric to 'Merican). It's got a teflon non-stick surface and a glass lid.

There was another big difference - it doesn't have the typical controls of a Crock Pot ("Off", "Lo", "Hi"). It's got a thermostat where you dial in the temperature and it maintains it. So I had to find the right temperatures for different dishes through trial and error. I made one batch of chewy chicken curry and one batch of decent Coca-Cola BBQ ribs.

Finally, I found the magic number.
Falls apart in the spoon.

Ryan's SC BBQ Hash

4 pounds stew pork
two onions, chopped
1 cup chicken broth
secret herbs and spices
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

Sautee onions in vegetable oil at 120ºC until golden brown
Lower temp to 65ºC
Add remaining ingredients
Add water until it almost covers the pork, leaving the top exposed to the air
Cover and let cook for 4-8 hours, stirring occasionally
Scoop out, draining liquid
Break up into strips

Serve on a toasted hamburger bun with mustard-based BBQ sauce, cole slaw and a pickle

I'm still working on my homemade mustard-based BBQ sauce recipe... more on that to come...