I'm and AUNTIE... o tia si preferias

life in LA isnt quite like normal... well except being at the beach in winter thats about as normal and pumpkin pie on thanksgiving :) and I love it.

so my big sis had her first baby. a boy. i'm the youngest so i have never raised a child. babysitting yes but, this is way more involved. i actually loved someone before they were born, is that even possible? yes. and i get up at night with her most of the week, and i love it. if i don't hold him in my arms for a few days there is something missing.

so the responsibility of teaching him spanish falls on me. that works. its actually kind of selfish. this way if i always speak to him (already going to be bilingual, this will make him trilingual... and american, almost unheard of here... totally typical in europe though... jealous much...yes.) then i will also always have someone in the family to speak spanish with and i will never forget the language. its a two way street. so thats my brilliant plan with my ridiculously adorable sobrino (nephew). ps not even kidding. beyond normal baby attractiveness.

Making the Grade?

I have been tutoring, most recently math an English essay writing.

There is a serious problem

Tutoring keeps turning into therapy or parenting

Mind you A+ students are less likely to be using a tutor, these are students looking for help because they aren't making the grades. But in a one on one setting, on that supports them, geometry that never made sense or writing with figurative language clicks.
My qualm is I spend more of my class time not teaching the material but reassuring them that a bad grade doesn't mean they are worth less or that their writing isn't good, it just means their teachers are looking for something different. They lack academic confidence. It became easy for me to get an A as more and more people told me how smart I was. There was a shift. My expectations of myself changed as my grades went up and they never fell.

Maybe everything in my life turns into a therapy session (daughter of two psychologists) but maybe more young people need someone to address the various reasons they are not succeeding in school. One of my girls doesn't have a lot of friends at school, which means harder to find a study partner (I told her, just ask to study with the smartest person in the class, you will not only soon be beating her, but also probably become friends).

I could go on but the truth is I am so priviledged. My parents made time to help me with homework, wree involved in my education, had the educational background to be able to help me even as I advanced through the years. There are so many factors.

One of my 7th grade students has been in America for 4 years now and has learned English remarkable well. She struggled with using imagery in her writing. But instead of instructing her how to improve that, she was only told to do something about it. So I ask her about a scene she knows well, getting off the bus after school and the walk home in downtown LA. Her personal voice, her experience was overwhelming. She only needed to be asked what she felt like, what she heard, what it felt like before the image was thick in my mind. She is nervous and on edge when she passes an alley or when her heart rate spikes and she feels uncomfortable when men yell at her as they pass in their cars because she is two years older than the other girls in her grade she is friends with and her body shows it.

I only wish I was not told for the first time how important my voice and experiences are in my writing. That they are valid.

So that is what I tell my students. And with this realization, they become more confident in their work, their personal truths on paper, their vulnerability. And they begin to see the academic success they deserve for all the effort they put.

friends of convenience

Well let me preface this with I am back in Los Angeles. In Barcelona I avoided Starbucks at all costs, it is basically the American embassy of the city. And here I find myself having lunch in Culver City with a friend and she has no Internet at home and needed to do a sexual harassment online training course for work. So, here we are at Starbucks. First, I take issue with lunch costing almost 20 dollars these days in LA, with tip included, something I have gotten un-used to in Spain, it not being the culture. Second, I know Starbucks has (now let me pick the perfect word here… poor, bad, horrible, shitty, unfortunate coffee) sub par quality coffee considering they are a coffee shop, not a restaurant with fabulous food but not the best coffee, which is annoying but not ridiculous. I’ve gotten spoiled with delicious Spanish coffee even at the old man bars on the corner, nothing fancy just a good roast, hot when you order it not served in a paper cup, small, powerful and rich. So, I thought an espresso would be a safe bet here at Starbucks. I ordered it “for here”… what a concept. They guy comes back with my drink in a bowl made for a double latte like a good 16oz mug. And there at the bottom is my single shot of espresso. Like the sad left overs of a larger American sized coffee. The cold mug turned my sad shot into a luke warm mess. (This is besides the fact that the espresso just was not tasty. So I get it iced, he fills the bowl up to the brim with ice,

Maybe all this is silly and trivial

In fact it most definitely is, but I just find it absurd that they have become the most recognized coffee mark in the entire world and their coffee sucks. Yet it’s full in here and we had to wait for a table.

It’s just like people there are those people who are just not good friends, or just overall low quality, yet they dress up, are in the right clubs, offer to let you use their wifi and are always around so they are convenient friends and you hang out with them, even though you don’t really like them.

Brilliant marketing but it scares me because what if in our lives we settle for convenient friends, or just add enough sugar to our coffee so you cant even taste what it really is like. How do we really know what we are getting ourselves into?

Everything I'm stoked I did in spain.com and that which remains on my list.

My new website idea. Everyone does crazy ass shit in Spain, I mean this is the home of San Fermines, the running of the bulls where people dress up and volunteer to be chased by bulls down a confined corridor that has a dead curve and people get trampled and then look forward to it again the next year. Shit. When I got sick this year and had to give up my bus ticket to Pamplona, I was bummed, I was ready for the calimoxo madness. Ps calimoxo is a typical Spanish drink, mostly drank by young people which is a mix of cheap red wine and coca cola. Aka sugar. Kind of like cherry coke with a kick… the kick is in the morning when you kick your self in the ass for your raging hangover from all the sugar. And generally speaking you can only drink it on the street or corner.

1. Ride on the back of a motorcycle, like a real one, with the bartender from Nasty Mondays.
2. Get a Spanish boyfriend
3. Go on vacation with said boyfriend
4. Climb a giant light post by Canaletas at the top of La Rambla after Barca won champions league, this included wearing a mini black dress and yelling in Catalan all night…. Ps I don’t speak Catalan
5. Play Capoeira on the walkway leading up to Arc de Triomf
6. Ride bikes all over the city
7. 2 six hour bike rides, first down to El Prat with a recently unemployed stranger and second up to Costa Brava with jace, my homeboy who is way hardcore in outdoor activities.
8. Disco bowling in Costa Brava on a Saturday night
9. bleaching my precious brown locks blonde as sunshine and dressing up as Pamela Anderson for Carnival then chasing Andre Aggasi and Rafa Nadal down the street in a red Speedo and Uggs in the middle of European winter outside one of the only bars in Granollers (a small city just north of BCN) trying to save them, because I was Pam in her Baywatch days.
10. Meeting Theirry Henry at the movies (Yes I was that girl.... I have a picture)
11. getting kicked out of OttoZutz…. Who doesn’t get kicked out of Ottozutz?… and subsequentially permanently banned (when I was blond, perhaps they wont recognize me as a brunette
12. Dominate karaoke at George Payne Irish Pub every Sunday including a Freddy Mercury performance of “Under Pressure” where I climbed the stairs took the cordless microphone and sang with one leg over the railing in a back bend
13. Win a date with a Spanish guy on a new international dating show called Loose Screws BCN.
14. Discover the one and only frozen yogurt place in the city.
15. Drink hella leche merengada during the summer
16. Meet the only Catalans in Granada
17. Get invited by Steve Aoki and the bloody beetroots to their show at Apolo and pre-game backstage with them and then onstage during their show… which has inspired me to not only buy acid washed jeans like Steve Aoki's but also like electro music. It was my first and only electro concert and I didn’t know how to dance to that type of music so I went with your basic Tae-bo moves like the punch it out and spastic up and down. Trust me, it worked.
18. 2 calcotadas (calcots are a vegetable that is a hybrid of a leek and an onion that you cook on the bbq, it is this huge bbq party and the sauce you dip them in is actually the best part.
19. Drink wine out of a porron without spilling all over my face (it’s a Spanish jar with a pointed tip to pour from and you pour from a long distance and it streams into your mouth, the closets mental image I can give unfortunately is like a pee stream.
20. Take a pool raft out into the ocean to do a buoy swim with Mallory and race back for unspoken fear of sharks
21. Get paid to be at both the Formula 1 and Moto Grand Prix in the Montmelo Circuit right outside Barcelona working for the Renault Alonso and then Yamaha Rossi teams (when Valentino Rossi won that race in the last seconds of the race and went on to win the title of World Champion for his winning season bt-dub)
22. Watched more sunrises than sunsets this year.


My only two unaccomplished goals were getting to ride or party on someone's boat (which I was invited so I got close), and riding on the back of a police motorcycle but not being in trouble with the law as the reason for being on it... a lofty goal.


WHAT RANDOMLY SATISFYING ADVENTURES HAVE YOU ALL DONE?... spare no details

BIGGEST pet peeve in the world.... Wait for it.... People who are flaky

I have been blessed with an amazing family who I love so much. Yet somehow, we all suffer the same fate, flaky people in our lives.

I hate flakiness more than people's feet on my pillow (washable), touching the metro hand rails (disinfectable), people who cough or sneeze into their hands and then try to shake my hand or touch me in some way (obviously it has come to my knowledge that I am borderline germaphobe)...

The point is it is a constant battle with friends, best friends, boyfriends...

Who taught people it was ok to say you will be somewhere or do something and either just not do it, or let you know when they are already supposed to be there.... that they are not coming?

For example, in my spanish class our teacher was explaining that when making plans, using the future tense, means low probabilility of something happening. Let me highlight this example. We will see each other there at 8pm (Nos veremos alli a las 8). Sounds pretty solid as a plan, no? NOPE, use of the verb "to see" in the future means, maybe I will be there. If they say however, I see you at 4 (te veo a las 4) in present tense, which sounds really weird and is improper as far as English goes, it means they will most likely be there.

All I am saying in a lot of words is, just say I am not sure if I will be there, or I will try but it is not guaranteed, or you are not my top priority in the moment so whatever works best for me at the time.....

let's get real.... then I won't have my hopes up and feel let down. Then I can adjust my expectations.

So I ask that of... well everyone I know.

Let us all show our friends and family or whomever your loved ones are, that we respect them and that our word is worth something.

ballers, shot callers

Passeig de Gracia.

A man races past me on his bike, in a beautifully tailored navy suit. Being a business man isn't all business. When he past me I saw he had

PEGS! off his back wheel.

life lesson, can't take yourself too seriously... and lesson number two, ride bikes around the city. They don't polute, you get exercise, and you can avoid all traffic. (on the 405 in LA at 6pm I could probably rollerblade between the westside and the valley faster than a car could go.)

Tday part deuce

The Catalans already have Bon Nadal, Christmas decorations up by mid-november but I am still thinking about Thanksgiving.

In my high school French class I used to make a calendar at the beginning of every school year to mark down the days to thanksgiving and each day in french class I would tick away a day. Fat kid at heart much?

Anyway, holiday joy brings holiday stress, especially in los angeles. I'm not talking about family, my family rocks, I love holidays with them, I'm talking about gluttony. So every year on thanksgiving I go on a run or a swim in the morning. As if an hour work out makes up for eating a weeks worth of food in one night,

or does it?

So I went on my run this morning, but it's very different running around Barcelona. Living in Europe is such a stereotype of living in Europe sometimes. I just you know, pass by Sagrada Familia, the most famous Gaudi church on my way down the street, see little kids dressed up (no idea why, but I was loving it and in total approval) as a princess and Peter Pan playing over a steam drain in the street (no idea what those are actually called, the ones that you walk over and they blow up warm air) and they were loving the Marylin Monroe dress flying up effect, there are a bazillion old people, cute couples and best friends dressed to the 9s for Saturday stroll, bright red lipstick on, pearls, or with their farmers market rolly carts. There are stores that sell only candles or only light bulbs or only statuettes or only pajamas... see everything is specialty, the super market concept that one place has everything is not nearly as appetizing to them.

Like who really makes a living off a light bulbs only store? (This was a recent topic of conversation... stimulating really)

I live for all this, the super European, life on the street strolling, passing monuments, living in history kind of life. So Although I miss my American Thanksgiving tradition of Aunt Maita's stuffing and my deal with my sister not to eat pumpkin pie for the two months before Thanksgiving, what this holiday has come to mean (obviously its origins are not so beautiful or glorious... rather hideously hateful, and bloody... and stemming from the Spanish monarchy)... so what this holiday now has come to mean is being thankful. Taking time to celebrate with loved ones.

So cheers and happy Thanksgiving from Barcelona, Spain to my friends and family who are all over the world right now. I love you all.