Typical Tuesday

Tuesday morning began with me not wanting Tuesday morning to begin. Anyone who knows me knows that I either wake up and I’m ready to seize the day or I’m Oscar the motherfuckin’ grouch and hate being alive.. lol. Normally I’m a ‘10AM sounds like a good time to wake up’ kind of person so with the full moon being last night and me waking up every hour and confused to if I was having dreams or fuckin’ psychic visions again - 7AM wasn’t for me this morning. But I got up because that’s what adults have to do and I went upstairs and my day was instantly brightened by Paula telling me how she overheard her brother and her cousin talk about how much they loved their English class the day before. Small joys. For their class, we practiced only two shapes - circles and triangles. Then we made a shark craft using circles and triangles. Something so basic and simple yet it was enjoyable enough for them to talk about it afterward and it gave me everything I needed to snap out of my annoyance with it being 7AM. When I first came to live with this family, Juan would constantly say “No soy Americano. Soy Español.” And he tried to convince his parents everyday that he doesn’t need to speak English because this is Spain and not America, which the irony is honestly so amusing to me. So for him to say he actually enjoyed his English lesson is so monumental for the both of us and I am so happy.

I’ll be teaching a set of twins starting this evening and this morning at 9AM, I met with their father so he could practice his conversational English. He asked me about payment and I always find it ridiculous to take money from people just to have a conversation with them so I told him that I don’t need to be paid for our conversations together. He gave me a tour of his house and his art studio and we chatted about all kinds of things. He’s published three books thus far in life and even showed me the original illustrations for his very first book, which were drawn on a manila type of paper that when unrolled, the paper was 13 feet long. Seriously spectacular. He also told me a story about how he worked with some Chinese guy for 8 years and this man taught him some lesson about how material things aren’t what matters most in life. I honestly was near tears at the end of his story, but I held them back because crying in front of people is something Jerrica does not do. But I recently gave away all of my belongings and literally only own what I can fit in a 40L backpack and a few days ago I became a little irritated that I didn’t have one of my favorite hoodies to wear on a chilly day. It took me years to get over the time someone stole all my shit and then it took me years to even buy new shit again and of course my life turned to shit as soon as I decided it was time to make a few new purchases and then inevitably, I gave all of these brand new purchases away for free. I know that life is much much more than material items but that doesn’t mean it isn’t difficult sometimes to not have what I bought for myself. But this story mannnnn… it was everything I needed today. Fuck your 80 shirts that you never wear and don’t even hang up or take care of and fuck everyone’s shot glass collection that they don’t ever even use. So shoutout to both Julio and his wise, old, very humble Chinese mentor. (and you know what? shoutout to me lol) I’m excited to continue conversations with Julio because he is quite entertaining. He wants to create art with me and is interested in reading some of my writing and knows some editor who works at Vogue so this is a solid networking connection I’m happy to be a part of. He will become more fluent in conversational English and I will become rich with artistic knowledge and well this, this is worth much more than making a few euros per hour. Again, I am feeling so so grateful. This encounter brought me back to this time in Korea where I met with some rich Korean moms who used to pay some British dude way too much money simply to have a conversation class. I told them that I’d talk to them for free and this is how I got an experience of a lifetime. They would take me to different historical places, or out for coffee, or introduce me to new types of Korean food and in exchange, I’d simply just talk with them.. and we all know I can talk endlessly anyways. I’m still in contact with these ladies today and one of the women, who funny enough is an artist, actually made me a bunch of earrings before I left Korea. These are the types of relationships and experiences that I value and it’s also great because it’s the best way to get a real cultural experience. I’m excited to continue meeting with Julio and I can only imagine who else will show up into my world next.

I met a kid named Mateo the other day, who is Alfonso’s nephew. Alfonso speaks the least amount of English in his family but his charades skills are on fleeeeek and him and I can carry a conversation easily using hand gestures. His nephew speaks the best English out of everyone I’ve met in the family thus far and likely it’s because he says he’d rather read books than be around people. Look, it’s Little J! I assume Mateo is exactly what Alfonso was like when he was younger and I really enjoyed being around this kid because his vocabulary blew me away and he used the word “obviously” a whole lot and it was hilarious. He told me he prefers to take photos of nature and finds people who post their meals on the Internet absolutely ridiculous. He mocked them by saying, “Wow look today I ate a hamburger!” And now my new best friend is a 12 year old boy named Mateo. He talked about how he finds it weird to see Chinese restaurants in Spain and compared it to seeing something cheap in a classy cheese shop. He introduced me to a new beverage, called Gazpacho, which is the best damn tomato juice I’ve ever had. It has tomatoes but also garlic, onions, and cucumbers, and likely other stuff but it tasted so light and fresh and exceeded my expectations for sure.

Here’s some new cultural differences that I’ve learned —

• The kids play “mini” as in “Mini Cooper” just like we play “punch buggy” in the States. Extra punches if you see a yellow one.
• A deck of cards here only has 40 cards. They skip number 8 and 9 and I’m still really confused to why. 
• You need a damn prescription for over the counter allergy medicine and this is obnoxiously ridiculous. Julio told me I would need a prescription and I didn’t believe him at all and when I left the pharmacy empty handed and annoyed at the rude ass lady at the counter, he whipped out some of his own allergy medicine and handed it over to me with a sly smile on his face. Ha.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Have a phenomenal day! 

XOXO, J