Last weekend, I went to the region of Galicia in Northern Spain. My boyfriend is from that area and I always enjoy going because it is such a drastic change from Madrid.  What do I mean?  Well Galicia is very green!  It is covered with trees and green grass covering huge mountains and valleys.  In short, words don’t do it justice. It is beautiful up there.  Madrid has a lot of parks for a large metropolitan city but no way does it compare with the lush greenery of the North.As you can tell, it’s gorgeous there.  The best part is the town is super small and everyone seems to know each other.  I like it a lot up there because it’s really relaxing and peaceful.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

This is great because I have lots of stuff to do this month including:

1- Working on my personal website (it’s coming along)

2- Learning more HTML and working with videos.

3- Starting to pack, send boxes home, give clothes to charity, etc.

4- Continue job searching, doing it from abroad is no easy feat!

What are your plans for the month of June?

We chatted about:

• ethical standards – whether they are upheld in different situations.
• which brands uphold the highest ethics
• blogger and journalist ethics
• what we can all do to improve ethical standards

It was an insightful conversation and I’m looking forward to this Monday’s chat topic, “Who owns social media?”

To learn more check out, Commschat.

Here are some of my additions to her list:

1. Sign up for Personal Defense classes. In addition to Samantha´s ideas, I would recommend taking a personal defense class, especially for young women in a new city.  During my last year at Temple, (which may have been a little late) I took a personal defense class that was given by a Temple police officer. For anyone that is familiar with North Philadelphia, it’s not a nice neighborhood outside of Temple’s campus. I learned about dangerous situations, how to escape an attacker, and how to constantly be alert. I still remember those tips today!

2. Take a Language class. My number one priority for coming to Spain was to learn Spanish.  I began taking Spanish classes shortly after coming and have attended them ever since. That was two years ago.  I encourage others to learn another language because globalization brings people from all over the world together.  Learning about different cultures and customs through the languages is a great way to broaden your perspectives not only about business but about life in general.

3. Get Fit. The benefits of exercise are a no-brainer for improving your overall health and well-being.  Joining a gym is a great way to meet people especially if you go at the same time everyday because you usually see the same people.  I suggest not only joining the gym but signing up for a specific interest club such as a running club, rock climbing club or yoga group. My roommate my first year in Spain was a fitness instructor.  I went to the gym regularly with her and formed a small group of friends at the gym.

4. Talk with co-workers. Share your desire to explore and meet new people in your city with your company. Perhaps they have transition programs for those that are new to a city.  Don’t underestimate who or what people know around you or the resources your company can offer.

5. Explore your neighborhood! With fun applications like Foursquare, people are now more connected in their cities and on the map than ever.  Become a “regular” somewhere!  Knowing the best places to eat and visit will certainly help when you have visitors! Check it out and get exploring in your new ´hood!

6. Research alumni groups. If you were part of a fraternity or sorority as an undergraduate, do some research to see if your chapter has a local alumni group near you.  Samantha recommended going to professional conferences.  What a great suggestion!  It’s a great way to learn about your industry and develop your network.  For other PR professionals, join your local PRSA too.

Without going into a venting session, I’m going to simply say that my frustrations stem from a simple lack of organization and communication.  Thus, I think this is a great opportunity to explain my view on a few basic components of an ideal working environment.

It is essential for management to convey job expectations to employees.  It is also important for staff to feel appreciated and respected. Granted maybe this is my Gen Y side coming out but c’mon, if you go above and beyond the call of duty and do an awesome job on a project. Wouldn’t a simple “thank you” be great to hear?  I don’t think that is too much to ask, do you!? In the end it boils down to good communication between the employer and the employee and a bit of organization too!

In the end, looking on the bright side (and ending on a happy note) living abroad has taught me to embrace the good, the bad and the ugly of other cultures. I have stretched and pushed myself further than I ever have before. I have learned diplomacy in situations, how to be flexible to quick change, superior listening skills and above all, patience.  Some communication breakdowns could be cultural and they are not going to change anytime soon. So you have to take a deep breath and realize not every situation turns out perfectly but our approach and attitude make all the difference. Tomorrow is another day.

How do you deal with frustrations at work? Do you find that your approach and attitude can change the situation?

I remember the feeling of anxiety after graduation and how easy it was to succumb to the vicious cycle of comparing yourself to others. Things like Mary just got a job at XYZ company and Sally Sue is moving to NYC on Tuesday! I would think, what is going on with me? Whew, it’s good to not have those feelings anymore. (Photo from thoughtquestions.com)

I still think about the “what ifs” sometimes like what if I had gotten an entry level job right after college? Would I have been promoted by now? Where would I be living? Would I be happy? The website, Thoughtquestions.com posts daily questions that really get you thinking. This one got my brain going, If you had the chance to go back in time and change one thing, would you do it? My answer is no. I really believe “everything happens for a reason.”

I have been living in Madrid for two years now and I love the effect that the Spanish lifestyle has had on my attitude and outlook on life. I have to say I’m extremely proud and happy with my decision to come to Spain and what I have accomplished. Instead of stressing out and comparing myself to my peers, worrying about competition and the future, I embrace it and try to live in the now. I still work hard to be the best I can be but I know that coming to Spain was an alternative path that not everyone is able to take.

My time here sure has been FULL of life and learning experiences that I know set me apart from my peers. Now, two years later, I speak Spanish, know more people from all over the world, and have gained a global perspective on work and life.

As I prepare my resume and write cover letters in preparation to come home, I am confident that coming to Spain wasn’t a bad decision at all but a positive one because I now am focused on what I want and my capabilities. I don’t regret coming here at all!

Happy Friday everyone and congrats to all the recent graduates! May you also make hard decisions that you won’t regret in 2, 5, or 10 years down the road!

We spent the afternoon eating lunch and catching up.  Later she introduced me to a bunch of new music from the States.  I realized how much new music I haven´t heard over here!  I gave an English class and she tagged along with me to my Spanish class and brushed up on her Spanish.  Later, we went out for tapas and cañas with an Italian girl from class and her boyfriend.  It was a fun night of a mix of Italian, English, Spanish and Portuguese.  We both felt extremely cultured by the end of the night.

Next day, Julie was exhausted and I didn´t have the heart to wake her up early, so I let her sleep off the jetlag until noon.  We put on our running clothes and jogged to a nearby park with a track.  It was great running with her because she recently ran the Broad Street Run in Philly.  The BSR is 10 miles from North Philly down to the Navy shipyard in South Philly.  I ran a breast cancer awareness race the same day but it was only just under 4 miles.

After that we ate lunch and got ready, I had an hour-long tutor session to prepare me for the DELE exam (one of my goals for my time in Spain).  Later, we did some shopping, got a snack at Cien Montaditos, a really cute restaurant where you can order small sandwiches for 1 euro each. We came home and prepared to go out.

We started out at an American friend’s house for some tapas and wine.  She´s studying here in Madrid a second Bachelor´s degree and is about to graduate!  I met one of her friends from Philly and discovered that he is going home the same day as me and we´re on the same flight!  I´m excited to have a travel buddy.  Later we went to Sol to visit some of my Brazilian friends from last year.  I realized how long it has been since I´ve been out on the town.  Next stop was a discoteca on La Castellana, one of the famous boulevards of Madrid.  I saw some friends I hadn’t seen in a long time and we danced the night away.   We ended up coming home at 7am!  It was a good night to say the least.

Saturday we went to the Reina Sofia museum.  It´s confusing  to navigate in there! Julie met Alberto and his roomies.   It was a pretty tranquil evening, hanging out and chatting at some local pubs.  The next day she left my place to spend a few days with her friend from Zaragoza, who lives in the North of Madrid. Hopefully, we´re getting together tonight for a late dinner before she flies back to the States.

All in all it was a great weekend and I feel rejuvenated by Julie´s drive and ambition.  Only 6 weeks left until I´m back in the States to begin my job search and catch up with family and friends.  Looking forward to it!

How was your weekend? Hope you had a good one.

The picture to the left is an example of one of the posters for the publicity campaign.  The boy is holding a sign that says “Yes, We Want”  and it looks and sounds a bit odd, right?  That’s because it’s grammatically incorrect English.

I believe the main point was to try to copy Obama’s “Yes, We Can” presidential campaign slogan and play with that to promote bilingual education.

This article by leading Spanish newspaper, ElPais,  titled, “How to Announce Bilingual Schools: with Bad English” talks about how the grammar used throughout the campaign is incorrect.  The even better part is below the newspaper headline reads, “The Ministry of Education says This is the Best Slogan in Recent Years.”

Did anyone think of running this by a native speaker?  The United Kingdom and Ireland are two countries full of native speakers and moreover they are located less than a two-hour plane ride away!  Not only that, but with the number of expats living in Madrid, there is no excuse (in my opinion) for such a huge error.

More importantly, how does a campaign like this make the educational level seem like in bilingual schools?  If the people organizing the campaign aren’t capable of writing correctly in English, how much confidence would a parent have in sending their child to a school to receive a bilingual education?

For me, after two years of working in a bilingual school outside of Madrid, I truly thing that bilingual education is working.  I see the difference even in some of my 6th graders who have only been part of the bilingual program for one year and my first graders who only know a bilingual education.  Although they may not always respond to me in English without a prompt, they understand about 75% of what I say gestures and facial expressions included.

It’s a shame that to announce the openings of more schools and try to market bilingual schools to increase enrollment is done so poorly.  I hope that in the leiu of economic hardships right now in Spain that funding for my program continues because I truly believe it makes a difference.

I really shouldn’t be surprised though because the Spanish president, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, doesn’t speak English either. He goes to conferences and needs to ask for a translator.  He held up “Foro Davos” conference for it least ten minutes back in January because he was the only attendee who didn’t speak English at the roundtable discussion.

On the other hand, Alberto brought up a good point.  Perhaps this campaign was done on purpose. Perhaps the Ministry of Education wanted to demonstrate the need for Spanish children to be educated in English.  Perhaps they wanted to show the low level of English here in Spain and demonstrate the need through the slogan. Mind you, I write all of this in a half-kidding way but ya know what? he could be right.  After all, the campaign has cause quite a stir on expat blogs and news outlets and received a lot of free publicity.

What do you think?

Some links in English:

Web of Language – post by Dennis Baron in English points out that the on further inspection of the posters read “Yes, we want estudiar en ingles (to study in English)” which is a technically correct sentence but in a mix of the two languages. ( I did the same thing above with the word mucho)

La Vida Loca – This post points out that the ad posters also feature the letter ñ!

bebesymas.com & Europress.es – Posts in Spanish

My picture is of my Dad and I in Toledo in March of last year.  Toledo is a touristy, country town about 45 minutes outside of Madrid.  It’s famous for it’s cathedral and for medieval sword making and armor.  I remember having a nice lunch and spending time with my Dad.

Below is the WITWW concept explained by Classy in Philly:

The idea of WITWW is to post a picture of you in someplace in the world…it doesn’t have to be somewhere foreign or tropical. Just a picture of you somewhere that you consider traveling. It might even be somewhere in your own hometown! Feel free to get creative and post where you WISH you could travel, old scanned pictures of vacations from years ago or even feel free to repeat a destination with different photos! Get creative.

If you decide to participate, make sure to post it and then post your link in the comments so I and everyone else can check yours out! This is a great way to bring the 20sb community even closer, so be sure to click the links of other participants to find great new blogs to read. Also, please take the button the fabulous Feris made to use in your post!

She explains the concept:

The idea of WITWW is to post a picture of you in someplace in the world…it doesn’t have to be somewhere foreign or tropical. Just a picture of you somewhere that you consider traveling. It might even be somewhere in your own hometown! Feel free to get creative and post where you WISH you could travel, old scanned pictures of vacations from years ago or even feel free to repeat a destination with different photos! Get creative.

If you decide to participate, make sure to post it and then post your link in the comments so I and everyone else can check yours out! This is a great way to bring the 20sb community even closer, so be sure to click the links of other participants to find great new blogs to read. Also, please take the button the fabulous Feris made to use in your post!

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This is my first time participating  in WITWW and I have decided to share a picture of my 4th grade class during “Semana Cultural”.  Before Easter vacation, the school  had a week long celebration of the Aztecs (this year’s theme) for Cultural Week.

I took this picture in the morning of some of the kids in their costumes.  Some children decided to make their Aztec outfits and others chose to wear ponchos and sombreros. Although I don’t really see the connection since the theme was Aztecs and not Mexico or Mexican culture in general.  I have noticed that there are some cultural norms in Spain that are not politically correct at all in the United States. But that’s a whole different topic and blog post… I digress.

Last year the theme was planets which was neat but I think this year’s Cultural Week was more successful because the children were able to dress up. They also played games, did crafts, and watched some videos about the Aztecs.  They also learned about the ancient calendar system and different types of agriculture. In the end, I think the kids had a great time.

This week, we did a one day celebration of “English Day” since the school is bilingual.  More updates on that and my thoughts on the bilingual system here in Madrid!