Tag: Spain

“She used to run a night.”

News, Uncategorized

When I lived in London I was working full-time, commuting about 3 hours a day, and on top of that I would, like clockwork, do something to do with my creative practise. Increasingly, this felt like I was doing more and more admin (such as things to do with running my night, She Grrrowls) and less actual writing.

Some people may think that since I’ve quit my job and moved to Spain to teach English, that I’m no longer pursuing these creative endeavours. Hell, they may have thought it before, since I was working full-time before, and just changed location. The difference is, I guess, at least I was connected to the world of poetry before; in Córdoba this just won’t be the same, and any poetry is likely to be in Spanish.

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However, as Paula Varjack explores in her show, ‘Show Me The Money’, a lot of writers have other means of income. Even if they’re not honest about it. There are many different ways to be a writer and a performer. That said, I’m not planning to stop any of what I’ve been doing. I took a teach and travel break, and now I’m making a change.

Moving to Spain is not something I would have thought about doing seriously until my partner planted the idea of living abroad. I had always wanted to learn Spanish, and it seemed to be a good way to do it. So, after exploring South East Asia, I came here. I also thought that a change of scenery would also be good for my mental health, as well as encouraging me to be more independent.

I couldn’t believe it had been five years since I had been to university, which means five years of living with my parents. That’s why, when I heard the expression “perpetual adolescence”, I thought ‘that’s me!’ At the age of twenty-seven I am now living completely on my own. I’ve already set an oven glove on fire, and cut myself with both a knife, and a pair of scissors.

So, this year I am shifting my priorities. I have decided I want to make a real effort to learn Spanish; that’s my number one priority. However, I have a theory that this focus might help me write more, as it will be what I do with my spare time, for fun. Even my Netflix-time will be a form of studying, and being in South East Asia, I still wrote a lot – both blogs, articles for The Norwich Radical, and poetry.

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I’ve been in my new apartment for just over a week at the time of writing, and without WiFi (which may also be an influence) I have prepared lots of blog posts, written some poetry and completed one short story. I’ve been enjoying it a lot, and I’ve been more in tune with when I need to take breaks.

One of my problems is that I also set myself too many goals. This is why I’m trying to focus on learning Spanish as a focus. I see writing as something that will naturally happen, and beyond trying to schedule some time to do it, it’s not something I need to stress out about. However, I do want to keep some other things ticking along. I still want to write journalism, and I still want to keep She Grrrowls going, albeit in a different form.

I’m planning to start up an online zine, where I will feature poems in print, and hopefully videos, and essays, rants, pictures and so on. This way, I can hopefully keep people in the loop about re-launching the event on my return to the UK. I’m also thinking of taking the event to Edinburgh Fringe Festival, inspired by going the previous year, as well as fellow Kid Glove member, Joel Auterson, taking his and Jake Wildhall’s night ‘Boomerang Club’ there this year.

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I do have a show I want to write (and the idea was Highly Commended by Ideas Tap when I got to the interview stage for the £30,000 fund). But I’m not going to rush the process, especially as I found out from Jack Rooke (another inspiration, with his show ‘Good Grief’) that Soho Theatre have opened up their writing project up to 30-year-olds, and obviously I will be 28 by the time I’m back!

So, the point I’m trying to make, is that I’m not going anywhere (to those people who put thumbs down on my YouTube videos). Obviously, something I need to work on is the fact that I still care what people think…

Anyway, so the plan is to be able to write poems in Spanish… then back to London, where funnily enough, my partner may be moving after all these years of long-distance. Let’s hope he likes it and wants to stay. I will then have enough experience to get some income from teaching English as a foreign language, and run some workshops. I want to apply for funding for She Grrrowls, which I would have to do in June in order to make a swift return after the Fringe! Ideally I can then make my show with Soho Theatre, and generally do more writing, performing and freelance stuff!

So, there you have it. That’s the plan. Working full-time before meant my old five year plan hasn’t really worked out. But as you can probably tell, I’m itching to write a new one, and even more excited about enjoying the process a bit more, trying to be more present in the moment and generally continue living life to the full, through both tears and laughter!

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No Habla Español: English Woman Living in Spain #1

No Habla Español

Throughout my life I have felt the influence of my dad being half-Spanish. The food we ate at home was always more Mediterranean than typically British dishes – my parents make fun of me complaining in my late teens that we never ate traditional food, having discovered I loved cottage pie and other such dishes that I hadn’t had in my youth. The only reason we started having Sunday roasts was because of my demands, and even then it comes with a salad.

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Note the salad bowl.

My dad made me aware of our heritage, and told me about discrimination his dad faced in coming to England, as well as his own experiences at school, being called a “half-breed” and so on. We took regular holidays in Spain, but the language was something with which we all struggled. The problem was that my Spanish granddad, or abuelito, left the home when my dad was a child, and had never passed on the language. My Gran can speak Spanish, among many other languages, so it’s unfortunate as she too didn’t pass it on.

At school in London, obviously very multicultural, our varied backgrounds were something to be celebrated; I started writing poems about being Hispanic, and this part of my ancestry became a big part of my identity. My parents tried to complain when they put me on the “French side” of the school, and I wanted to learn Spanish so much that I actually cheated on a test so get put up a set, so that I could study both. I switched to Spanish at GCSE level, but I had an English French teacher, and was in a low-set with constant disruption, not to mention that I also got split up from my friend for talking too much, which was completely unlike my behaviour in other lessons.

I didn’t practise enough, and my confidence was low. I had the option to do the Higher paper, but I worried about the difficulty of the speaking exam, so instead I did the Foundation paper, where the most I could get was a C-grade, which I did. Looking back, I wish I’d taken the Higher paper, and gone on to study at A-level. Because when it comes to language learning, you have to put the effort in, and a language is such a good skill to have.

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Now I’m in Spain, and whilst part of me hoped that I could simply absorb the language, it hasn’t taken me long to realise that if I really want to speak Spanish, it’s going to be hard work. If that is the reason I came here, I need to make it the number one priority and it needs to be what I spend most of my spare time doing. I’ve been looking up online tips for language learning, and I’m going to put them into action, and I can’t wait to get the internet in my apartment as then I can watch lots of Spanish TV and films, or at least have Spanish subtitles on English-language programmes.

Coming to Córdoba without being able to speak the language. On a night out with some other teachers, I joked about how funny it was that I couldn’t speak Spanish, and how I butcher my own name by Anglicising it, exaggerating this. My name, “Carmina” is a derivative of “Carmen”, and you’re meant to roll the r, but obviously, we don’t do that in the UK. My surname, “Masoliver” is also Catalan, and though technically double-barrelled with “Marlow”, I’ve gone through most of my life thinking it was just the former name, which makes it feel really odd when people cut it off and address me as “Ms Marlow”. Being in Spain and not being able to speak Spanish, whilst having the name “Carmina Masoliver” is just frankly embarrassing, and it makes introducing myself pretty painful.

Being here has made me question this part of my identity. In the UK, I have had some experiencing of “Othering”, simply because of my name, but now it feels like maybe I am “Ms Marlow”, rather than “Ms Masoliver”. Like I should be named “Jo” instead of “Carmina” – the name I strangely wrote in some books as a child in the “This book belongs to…” section. Joanne Marlow. How would I feel about this part of my identity if it wasn’t for my name?

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Here, my dark curly hair means nothing. The people here kiss on both cheeks, and although something I have grown up with my paternal side of the family, nothing makes me feel so uncomfortable and foreign. I want so badly to be able to just try to speak, but most experiences start with “No habla Español”. And if they don’t speak English, I have only been able to muster words like “dos días” with hand gestures (I moved here two days ago), and “¿donde es… grande? and pointing at the bin (where is the large bin I put rubbish in?).

So, feeling this way, the only thing I can do is really try my best to learn this year, to immerse myself in the language in every way I can. My biggest obstacle will be my confidence. Even when I know what I’m saying, I speak too quietly and slowly to be understood. For example, I said “Tengo una bolsa” but the person didn’t hear, and instead of getting louder, I got quieter, until I retorted to English. I also live alone, so I will have to try extra hard than those with Spanish flatmates. That said, I’m sure my Gran won’t take much convincing to help me practise with her over Skype! If I can just learn to string a few sentences together beyond “hola” and “gracias”.

Patience and Dealing with Uncertainty*

Other, Uncategorized

When I attended CBT, one of the biggest revelations that emerged was that I have great difficulty dealing with uncertainty. This makes me incredibly impatient with myself, and other people. This is exacerbated when there’s a problem. Anxiety affects people differently – some people put things off, but, for me, I feel that I can get rid of that anxious feeling if I can deal with it as soon as possible. To the extent that, even if it is not possible, I will try to make it possible. The same goes for when things don’t go as planned; it’s like forcing a jigsaw piece into the wrong place, and it never does work.

Dealing with uncertainty means you have to accept that something is out of your control. I’m currently undergoing a learning process as to how to actually do this. Accepting we can’t control something does not mean stewing and constantly thinking about whatever it is, and doing things surrounding the matter. What I think it means, is taking a step back, and occupying yourself with something different.

As I write this I’m currently waiting for a number of balls to get rolling. Or rather, dominos, as they are all linked together. My patience is being tested since moving to Spain. The first test was finding a place to live. In my head, I had about a week, had booked a hostel, and imagined having viewings every day, and simply selecting which one I liked best. I remember it being quite simple at university in Norwich. However, the reality didn’t quite match up to my expectations, which is one of the main points about uncertainty – your mind tries to manage the uncertainty by creating these imaginary scenarios, none of which are really helpful.

I managed to arrange one viewing, but I didn’t know what to say to the agent when I came out. What I learnt from this was how important aesthetics are to my wellbeing, and I tended to much prefer the more modern spaces, with light rooms and bright colours. After finding out that the next day was a public holiday and I couldn’t go to any viewings, I spent the rest of the evening trying to arrange them for the next day.

¿Habla usted inglés? This was not Norwich, it was Córdoba. I couldn’t speak Spanish, and after a negative answer, I translated a few key sentences through Google for the next attempt. The person on the other end of the phone understood me… but I didn’t understand their answers. Both conversations resulted in them hanging up on me. After just one successful conversation with someone needing to call back because they were driving, I gave up, and they didn’t call back.

I spent the next morning continuing my search online, and then walked around the city with one of the other new teachers. The day after I had the idea of texting instead of calling, as well as getting some help from my place of work. In the end, I managed to find the perfect place through the agent I’d first met. However, when I was unable to get enough money out for that evening’s contract signing, I was upset and frustrated. I wanted to do it immediately, but it was impossible. I was up late that night on the phone to Barclays to try to retrieve the PIN for a card I didn’t usually use, to make sure I would have the whole amount needed the next day. This was a waste of time, as I then easily got my mum to find it for me at home.

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So I was able to get the money the next morning and moved in that afternoon. Having a base now is helping with the next set of challenges. I still have to wait for an NIE number, which I need to be able to open a bank account, which I need to be able to set up the Internet. I also need to wait for my timetable before I can really start looking at course books or planning any lessons. I have no choice but to wait. Obviously, my impatience isn’t solved overnight. However, I’m trying to make the most of the free time I will be wishing I had in a week’s time, especially currently being without the distraction of Wi-Fi.

I have done a lot of walking, and a lot of shopping for things I needed in my flat, as well as a lengthy exploration of supermarket shelves. But I have also written a short story, a poem, and a couple of articles. I have played Adventure Time Card Wars, and completed puzzles in a puzzle book. I have been reading books, magazines, and my Spanish phrase book. I have even meditated. I tried watching TV, but my Spanish isn’t up to that level. And lastly, I’ve been cooking again, which I haven’t done on a regular basis since university (and I graduated in 2011).

So far, I’ve been distracting myself from thinking about my fear of everything I’m uncertain about, and it’s been working. It also helps to reflect back on what I learnt from the previous few months travelling and working in Vietnam. I’ll being working mornings and evenings, with a big break in the afternoon. In Vietnam, like many language schools, it was similar deal. What I learnt was actually how adaptable I am, so knowing this about myself now has challenged preconceived notions of myself, and also means I can reassure myself that I will find my routine, but that there is no rush to do so. Meanwhile, I’ll try to enjoy a slower pace, and ease myself into what is a big change in terms of both job and country.

*Note: I wrote this when I came to Spain in September and wanted to try to get it published elsewhere, but it’s been so long now and it’s out of date, so here it is!