November 2003 Archives

Here's the results of an interesting survey of medical studies related to the diets of other countries and their corresponding rates of heart attacks. I think it's got an interesting conclusion:

1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

Having nearly adjusted to the time change and acclimated to the temperature change, getting a bit frustrated by the lack of response from the schools I sent my C.V. to, I completed my first week in the U.S. by visiting several friends, including Amy, Liz, my former deNovis doc team, LeAnn & Scott, Nancy & Karl. It was hectic, but fun. On Saturday night I got a good night's sleep and then headed off to Buffalo for Thanksgiving with my parents on Sunday.

Now that I'm back in the U.S. and have caught up on some of my lost sleep, I've spent some time preparing a few of my photos from London! Take a look:

Here's Big Ben and Parliament:

I never did get my Spanish mobile (cell phone) to work. If you want to reach me, then call me on my old U.S. cell phone number if you have it. If you don't, drop me an e-mail and I'll send it to you or call.

Still nothing from those darn language schools I applied to last week.

On my last day in London I went to Buckingham Palace but changed my mind when the rain started coming down and I saw all of the protesters yelling about Bush arriving on Tuesday. Instead I turned around and headed up the road to Westminster Abbey to kill a few hours in a warmer, drier, and certainly quieter environment.

On Thursday, after two nights at The Regent Palace, a real flea bag hotel--one bathroom per 20 rooms, gross mattresses that must have been bought at a fire sale from a former French brothel, and a housecleaning staff whose idea of making up a room is rotating the sheets 90 degrees to hide the scuff marks from my shoes--I was glad to have the chance to visit my friend George in Eastbourne.

On Day 3 in London (my second full day), I spent most of the daylight hours in the British Museum. in which I could spend a month alone exploring. It?s really quite amazing. Here you can see more Egyptian, Roman, Greek, and Near and Far Eastern artifacts than most people can imagine.

Last night I spent some time in the Internet cafe in the basement of the Burger King in Picadilly Circus and did some job searching. I had time enough to do some adequate research on a few companies and the cities where they are based. The short of it is that I have submitted an application to a company in Poland who currently has positions open in Krakow and Warsaw. I'll keep you posted as to what happens. I still haven't heard back from the Universidad del Mar in Oxaca, Mexico to whom I submitted an application last week.

Today I went to the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. I also walked over to see Big Ben and Parliament, then on to, but didn't go up on the London Eye--the monster ferris wheel that overlooks the city across the Thames. This is a very pretty city, a bit cold, but it is November and I ain't in Spain anymore.

Early this morning I discovered that I have run out of credit on my mobile (cell phone). A conversation with the friendly, neighborhood Vodafone sales rep revealed that any calls I receive while traveling outside of Spain result in my being charged the international roaming rate of 60 cents (Euro) per minute. This is the same cost as if I were making the call myself. I was very disappointed to hear this and the nauseating d?j? vu about this info didn't help either as I vaguely seem to recall that while purchasing the phone the sales woman told me of this little money-sucking caveat.

So today I am leaving Barcelona. I have spent just over five weeks here, enjoyed most of it, but now it is time to relax a bit more and find a cheaper place to live while I look for work. The place to relax is England and the cheaper place to live, in my humble opinion, is the U.S. Therefore I am returning to the Boston area on November 17th.

Just a quick note about the recent lack of photos on my blog. I've run into a few technical snags, mostly a lack of availability of a PC on which to edit the photos I have taken down to a size that will load quickly on the web. My good friend James was kind enough to let me use his laptop PC last week, but after I got the photos to school I found that I had managed to copy the photos onto a now corrupted floppy disk. Not to worry, I still have the originals on CD, but they are over 1 megabyte in size each and therefore will take far too long for me to upload or for you to download.

Now that class is over, several people have asked what I am doing now. Most of my days consist of the grind of getting up, a shower, dressed, quick breakfast, getting out the door, and then going to either the school or the local internet cafe to work on the job search.

What do you know about Barcelona and the strange attraction it holds for anarchists, militants, and general political miscreants? Well, I haven't read much, but I do have a sense that with Franco long gone, the upheaval of the past will remain there and this is now a warm and welcoming city to both the citizens of Spain and foreigners alike. I offer this photo as evidence of their hospitality. My friend James took it today while he, Megs, and I were out for a bit of sightseeing near Parc Guell.

Did you notice that there are two police motorcycles in the photo as well? Curious.

Alright you bunch of smarty pant conspiracy nuts, if you think that I'm hiding in New Hampshire (which wouldn't be a bad thing), then how do you explain the following photos of me at Park Guell in Barcelona? No, I really don't want to hear your theories, just be quiet and take a look at some of the pretty pictures I took this weekend while visiting the park designed by Antoni Gaudi...it's a beautiful place. Some of them are a bit dark or the color is off, sorry I don't have access to Photoshop to clean them up. ;)

I got a "PASS" grade on my course. I'm not thrilled, a "PASS B" would have been better, but realistically I didn't do enough of my paperwork for lesson planning to warrant one, so I'm okay with it. I'm hoping that my professional experience will boost my job prospects.

For our last teaching practice class one of the teachers was planning a lesson for the upper intermediate students about telling jokes. The joke she was going to use was a tad on the questionable side because it had a scatalogical reference. J?em offered a quick edit to make it suitable for the class and she was all set.

Listening to the joke prompted the other members of the TP group to share their favorite jokes and then make a judgement on their appropriacy for class use. My jokes were just gross and wholey inappropriate. The best of the jokes, while still not appropriate but very funny in my humble opinion, came from someone who wishes to remain anonymous:

A man goes to his doctor and says, "Doctor, I've got a head of lettuce stuck up my bum!"

The doctor says, "Drop your pants and let me have a look."

Good news--I just heard from my brother that the prick of a property manager from my previous apartment has finally sent a check returning my security deposit, including interest!

...and there was much rejoicing in the kingdom. :)