Summertime wrap-up . . .

Now that the Kielbasa is finished with its summertime hiatus--but I actually posted a few times!--I just want to lean back in the broken office chair and, in the immortal words of "The Boss", Bruce Springsteen:

"Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture
a little of the glory of, well time slips away
and leaves you with nothing mister but
boring stories of glory days."

Yes, I'm nostalgic for summer already, as educators all over the world are dragged kicking and screaming back to their classrooms. Well, those of us in the northern hemisphere, anyway. My apologies to those reading in Ecuador and Peru. I'm feeling the same pain you felt a few weeks ago.

The last 5 days in Spain were spent basking on the scorching white sands of coastal Valencia. Luiza and I did our best impersonations of your average Spanish slacker. Roll out of bed around 10, breakfast, back to bed, beach for 4 hours, taverna for cocktails, back to the hotel for the cost-cutting dinner of jamon, bread, olives and Sangria, then an evening wandering the city. It was a fitting end to 5 weeks in this gorgeous country. Here are a few pictures. Que bonita!

From there, it was a gauntlet run through airports, including a dead sprint across Heathrow,complete with an O.J. Simpson Hertz commercial juke move around a loud-mouth female liquor rep from Chicago. I only know this because she ended up on the same flight as me and proceeded to give me an earful when she arrived at the gate while I was being probed by the metal detector wand. If your out there somewhere lady, I'm not sorry for dropping some R-rated language as my sweat-drenched frame flew by. And while we're on the subject of airports, why is it that guy driving the huge cart usually flanked by a platoon of geriatrics won't give a guy with only 40 minutes between connections a ride to his gate? I ran by a couple of them that barely looked up from their Daily Telegraph, let alone asked me if I needed a faster mode of transport.

After 22 hours of travel, I reached the "Minnesota nice" confines of Lindbergh terminal (MSP) around midnight. Due to my scholarly pursuits in Madrid this summer, I was only afforded eight total days with the family. This included my cousin Mickey's graduation party where I was able to see a plethora of relatives in one location. It was like the Target Greatland of family visits (one stop shopping).

Just once, I'd like to schedule a family reunion in northern Minnesota where we all dress up in matching t-shirts and take a big group picture. And since when do people have weddings outside the summer months? I'm missing three cousins tying the knot in the next 6 months. No, the three of them aren't marrying each other. We're from Minnesota not Mississippi.

The remainder of the week included school shopping with Mom and Dad (as a teacher, you're never to old to have Mom take you shopping!), dinner at Grandma's house, an ill-fated fishing trip with my father (some nautical faux pas are better kept a secret, right Dad?), golf with my two brothers, and water-skiing at the cabin. We even found time to get everybody to smile for a family picture (no matching T's though).

I'm looking forward to the summer of 2010, when I will have finally concluded my schooling the real purpose for summer is realized. Eight days was not nearly enough time to hang out with the family and get all my visiting in, so some day I will take the better part of eight weeks to hang out in Minnesota and spend my days playing with my niece and nephew and shoveling goose crap off the beach at my brother's cabin. It's the simple things in life, ya know?

Back to work . . .

I just flew in to Warsaw yesterday and boy are my arms tired. All schlocky humor aside, it's my whole body that's tired. When you add that third flight to get back, I think it has a compounding effect on your level of jet lag. Usually it's a long flight into Chicago and then a short hop over to Minneapolis. Because of the time spent in Spain this summer, I needed to go from Madrid to London to Chicago to Minneapolis, and Minneapolis to Chicago to Frankfurt to Warsaw on the way back. Global aviation is the epitome of efficiency. My head is about to hit the keyboard right now but I look forward to the relief I will receive in a half hour.

The TBL (Teacher Basketball League) kicks off its season today. Every Tuesday, the manly men of AS-dub get together to recapture their youth by laying more bricks than Malbork Castle. They huff and puff their way up and down the court for an hour or so before convening at a local establishment for a few earned pints. I just hope none of the new guys on staff are expecting a recreation of White Men Can't Jump. If the TBL was a movie, it would be called Old Guys Can't Breathe. But at least we don't have problems with the IRS like Wesley Snipes.

Batman

Last night, as I entered the blissful state known as REM sleep, I was abruptly awakened to the sound of my mother shrieking . . . "Mark! Get in here! There's a bat! The bat is here!" Before you can say, "Holy nocturnal flying mammal Batman!", I leaped out of bed and donned my sturdiest fang-proof hooded sweatshirt.

As I stealthfully crept down the hallway, I was met by my father, who had went outside for a breath of fresh smoke, errr, I mean, air, to help him get too sleep. He too had heard my mother's distressed call for help and had armed himself with a weapon that has proved to be the downfall of many a bat . . . the badminton racket. Dad, after assessing the situation, incorrectly assumed that I wanted to be the hero and handed me the racket.

Having preached to my students about the ecological importance of all creatures great and small, I implored the man of the house to open up all the doors and let the bat enter the way it came in. After all, why should we be the death knell for an animal known to consume thousands of mosquitoes each night? We need all the help we can get up here in northern Minnesota.

I had no time to convince him of this poor little guy's right to leave our abode alive, and my mother was growing more panicky by the moment. I opened up the door to her bedroom and saw this human-shaped lump quivering underneath the covers as Myotis lucifugus soared above head, probably as afraid as she was.

Seeing an opening he immediately veered toward me and out into the hallway. After a few half-hearted swipes with the racket, he must have sensed danger. Instead of latching onto my face and gnawing a hole in my cheek, he made a beeline for the basement. My father, chuckling the whole time, shouted directions like Marlin Perkins telling Jim how to wrestle a dangerous anaconda on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.

Cautiously tiptoeing down the stairs, I spied my prey lying on the carpet. As soon as I took that last step, he flew directly at me and with a few furious swings of the racket, it was over. With mixed emotion, I collected the brown furry corpse in a towel and deposited him outside. The house was safe and all could rest easy. It took me awhile to fall back asleep after my adrenaline induced "fight or flight" instinct kicked in. And I still felt a little sympathy for the bat.

Ed. note: My father wants to let everybody know that I was just as scared as everybody else.

Where has the summer gone . . .?

My time in Madrid is coming to a close. This is the last week for the graduate program in international education. I've been really fortunate to meet some great people from all over the world, not only in my class but from the other programs as well. It's really an eye opener to hear about the conditions in different countries and schools from Asia to South America.

In my cohort alone, there are teachers from Hong Kong, Tokyo, Hawaii, Cyprus, Uzbekistan, Morocco, and Barcelona. Nine teachers who are all on the path toward achieving the same goal, but coming from vastly different worlds. It is also female dominated as there is only one other male among the 9 students. This makes for a different atmosphere when we go for tapas and drinks after a long day of study. I'm usually the lone male since the other guy in the cohort is a self-professed workaholic. I take a more relaxed approach to learning as I try to get my academic goals accomplished while soaking up the culture and energy of Madrid.

Luiza has joined me for my last 2 weeks in this sun-drenched country. While I'm toiling away in the classroom, she heads to the public pool a couple metro stops away from the apartment I'm renting from a teacher at the American School of Madrid. When I haven't been writing papers or reflecting on what I've learned in class that day, we've taken in the sites in the city and the surrounding countryside.

Highlights so far have included a rather gruesome bull fight. You never get an "appreciation" for how barbaric the sport can be by watching some video clip on the Travel Channel or seeing some picture in a guidebook accompanied by a breathlessly romantic capsule describing the pageantry and elegance of the toreador as he skillfully dispatches his quarry. What they fail to show is that there is not just one but a whole platoon of bullfighters working on the unenviable task of disorienting and slaughtering these powerful beasts.

I will never be mistaken for an animal rights activist as I devour a juicy steak or reel in a tasty walleye. But I must say I felt pretty sorry for the bull as he was repeatedly stabbed between the shoulders by razor-barbed sticks. But the real gore is at the conclusion of the fight when the toreador plunges a three-foot long sword into the bull's back. It might require more than one bloodletting to bring the fight to an end. At this stage, the crowd was eerily silent. I think the bullfight we attended must have been predominantly tourists. To make a long story short, bull keels over and dies, carcass hooked up to a team of horses and then dragged out of the arena. Bring on the next bull . . .

The second weekend I was here, the girls and I decided to attend the Pride Parade. Yes, the Gay Pride Parade. Everybody was letting there freak flag fly, so to speak, as we saw everything from drag queens walking on impossibly tall heels to a convoy of mobile dance floors moving up Gran Via, the main avenue of Madrid. I would have to say that the truck that elicited the most hoots and hollers belonged to the "bears". This would be a tribe of gay men know for both their size and thick coat of fur.



Well, this is all for now. I know that this entry has been sitting here waiting to be published and one of my more ardent readers has been requesting some new material, so here you go Auntie Lori! More to come soon . . . sorry for the delay, but hey, it is still summer after all.

This ain't no Slim Goodbody!

A couple nights ago, some of my fellow students and I attended an exhibition entitled, "Bodies". You may have read about this in your local newspaper or saw it featured on various news programs. It has traveled to cities around the world, receiving rave reviews where ever it has appeared.

The exhibit features actual corpses displayed in various states. I won't attempt to provide any description here since words fail to adequately depict the macabre nature of this anatomical extravaganza. Although most consider it gruesome to pose dead bodies simply for the entertainment of the living masses, as a teacher, I can see the educational potential.

The real question is where these cadavers came from. There are two competing exhibitions on the world-wide museum circuit and unfortunately, I went to the one that is allegedly display bodies harvested from Chinese prisons. I didn't find this out until after I went, but wonder if it would have stopped me from satisfying my curiosity by attending the event.

You can find out more by viewing this two part Youtube vid from the ABC news program, 20/20. This may not be suitable for those with sensitive stomachs. You have been warned.

Back to school . . .

When I thought about going back to school to receive my master's degree in education, I envisioned many a weekend spent corresponding with some faceless professor on the other side of the world about how to properly cite a magazine article with three authors in proper APA form. I was also sure that this would be a long, drawn-out process involving the analysis of didactic research intended to cause poignant self-reflection on how I could improve my pedagogy (one of my favorite educratic buzz words). What? Oh, sorry. It seems that I'm allowing the writing style required in graduate school to seep into my recreational journalism. I once again apologize for being so pedantic but I'm trying to be a bit more serious about my academics this time around.

Luckily for me, my conception of what graduate school would be like has been grossly exaggerated. As I write this, I am sitting on a terrace in sunny Madrid listening to the sounds rise up from the street below, and given how the program is structured, did not have to contend with any homework over the weekend. Life is good.
For the rest of July, I will be living in the Spanish capital, trying to knock off the rust caused by years of academic inactivity. Yes, I know that spending the summer months exploring the Lewis and Clark trail, wrestling a salmon, or touring Yellowstone are some creative ways in which I've earned continuing education credits in the past, but that experience pales in comparison to the rigor of finishing four classes in as many weeks.

The first week of class went off without too much difficulty. Well, I suppose I should mention that my instructor, a vibrant, spry man in his 70's, had a stroke on the fourth day and could not return to complete the instruction. I'm not a physician but I would guess strokes aren't treated like a vasectomy where you can slap a bag of frozen peas on it and the swelling subsides. We are all thankful that he benefited from the expertise of a gifted neurologist and is on the road to recovery. It certainly made for a memorable first week.

As for the city itself, I could certainly see myself taking a position at the American School of Madrid for a few years. The culture here is unlike any other place I've experienced in Europe. The two week beach holiday in southern Spain last summer did not really give me a full appreciation for the Spanish way of life. Being able to study in such a cosmopolitan city is truly fortuitous.


My three years of Spanish in high school is also really paying off. I was able to insult a shopkeeper in his native tongue after he tried to rip me off by not giving me back my correct change. After only a week, I think I have just as many complete Spanish sentences as Polish phrases in my linguistic arsenal. Mr. Hobbs would be proud of me. Luiza is probably not since I did pledge some time devoted to Polish this summer.

I have a couple more blog entries worth of material from this first week. But for now, it's time to go punish my gastrointestinal system with some more spicy food. Viva España! Adios! And of course, do widzenia and dziękuję to my Polish readers!

Back from the Baltics . . .

I've returned from a couple weeks of traveling around Eastern Europe with my friends Kyle, from Boise, and Joe, from way back in the kindergarten days at St. Leo's elementary. I had a wonderful time shirking the inevitable responsibilities that will come along with my enrollment in a graduate program this summer but am looking forward to my arrival in Madrid tomorrow. Until the Chronicle establishes communication from there, we hope you enjoy this video slideshow of our Baltic journey . . .