500 words. 500 words are all that separate me from the end of my tenure as a student blogger. 500 words, as it so happens, is 150 words longer than the longest paper that any student on the Tufts-Skidmore Spain program ever needs to write in the mandatory grammar class. Students write eight mini commentaries […]
IFG leaders Lucy, Eli and Génesis They say the best things in life are free, and I think they’re referring to things like love, sunshine, and Fridays. Generally, I agree with “them,” whoever they are with the power to write timeless maxims, but I would propose that they add one more item to the list: […]
Palacio de Hielo, Madrid Last week, I gave a presentation in Spanish. Or rather, my fellow blogger Madi and I gave a presentation in Spanish. We’re American, but the words weren’t. Still, I understood everything she said, and I’m fairly positive that our audience understood some of what I tried to say.This week, Madi and […]
Ross in the middle 🙂 I never know how to respond when a friend asks me what it’s like to study abroad. Is it cool? Is it different? Is it life-changing? I mean, often, yes, and maybe, but the question doesn’t include either my particular location or me. I can’t possibly speak to everywhere, to […]
Program trip to Granada A bazillion years ago, it seems, I was a sophomore at Tufts. I sat in lecture halls, ate in dining halls, slept in a residence hall, and spoke a lot of English. The sitting, eating, sleeping, and speaking all felt very natural, very normal, very nonresistant.And then, one day, the director […]
Ross & Marisa Whenever I talk with friends and family members in the States, they ask for pictures of my time abroad. Unfortunately, they’re asking the wrong person. “I’m sorry,” I say, “but you’ll have to wait until my friends post the pictures they took of us.” I do my best to assure them that […]
A typical building in Madrid called corrala. Blame the meditation session from which I just came, or blame the ruminative streak that pervades my dad’s whole family, or blame Erik Erikson’s famous theory of human psychological development that says that people my age are focused on forming intimate relationships. Blame my professors for not having […]
Baseball. Apple pie. Cowboys, and bowling. Bowling? Bowling. I hadn’t realized that I had been craving some sense of connection to the rugged heartland of America, but yesterday, when I strolled into the bowling alley above the Chamartín train station, I breathed a sigh of sweet relief. The best part was that when I subsequently […]
Women in Zafra Street, Granada My first thought when I arrived in the Plaza de Colón on Friday morning was that I wished I had a winter coat. I mean, I do have a winter coat, but the 3,000 miles separating me from it rendered it fairly useless in that chilly moment.My second thought when […]
All right, Mom and other dear readers of my blog, I’m going to tell you about the highly enjoyable and considerably meaningful internship that I’m serving this semester, but you’ll have to pardon my inability to reveal the particulars of my assignments in vivid detail. I’ll tell you everything I can, but I’m going to […]