First of all, let me give you an update on the roommate situation. I´ve been here for a little while now so I´ve had a chance to feel them all out. David is the other American who lives with me. He´s from Atlanta, and he´s super cool. Kind of a dork, but a dork in that way that I oh so like and admire. I think he and I have a very similar dumb sense of humor, as we laugh at the same stupid things. In a lot of ways we are two peas in a pod. Although I greatly appreciate that due to the fact that most of my roommates are Spanish speaking so I am forced to speak Spanish all the time, I am also greatful that David is there, so that we can discuss things and I can whip out phrases like, ¨don´t bogart the cigarrette¨ or ¨you´re so money and you don´t even know it¨ and someone will know what I´m talking about. He even knows who Dave Sedaris is. Dave Sedaris is this author who has written all these really funny short stories, and this summer Mel and I along with some others listened to his books on tape a bunch of times. So when I say, ¨When life gets me down, I just say, ´fuck it!´ and eat myself some mother fuckin´ candy!¨ David knows what I´m referring to. David and I also have similar taste in Indie rock music, and I desperately need a copy of his Deltron 3030 album. Yesterday David and I made a ¨Cena Americana¨ for all the roommates. It was pretty fun. We made cheeseburgers, potato salad, and chocolate chip cookies. It was the most American food we could think of. It all went over pretty well, too. We´ll probably do it again sometime.

Nacho (yes, his name is Nacho) is one of the Spanish guys I live with. He too is cool. He is from Sevilla, which means that when he speaks Spanish he never says the ends of his words, and he speaks very, very fast. For example, instead of saying ¨buenos dias,¨ he says, ¨buenodia.¨ Or instead of saying ¨mas o menus,¨ he says, ¨mahomeho.¨ Needless to say, this can be quite confusing for a Spanish novice such as myself. Some days I think I´m learning to understand him pretty well, and then other days, not so much. But it´s getting better. He and David both have a fecal-centered sense of humor. Thanks to them, I am learning all sorts of Spanish vocabulary related to bodily functions and sexual intercourse. I could tell you at least three pseudonyms for taking a dump right now.

Ignasi is the other Spanish guy. He´s from Barcelona and he´s Catalan. Catalans speak a language which is kind of a mixture of Spanish and French, but he also speaks Spanish perfectly too. And he´s a lot easier to understand than Nacho. He always makes fun of me for being American. When some people do this, it´s really not funny at all, but somehow Ignasi gets away with it. Whenever he teases me about this or that, that I don´t know good olive oil because I´m American, or that I don´t hold my fork and knife correctly, I just point out that he´s Catalan so what does he know anyway. It works rather well.

Helena is the French lesbian. She´s pretty cool too. She always runs around with this group of French girls who live in the building, and they`re all pretty cool. Whenever I´m with them they try to speak Spanish, but inevitably it slips back into French at some point. But it´s still fun.
Paula is the Spanish girl I live with. She´s alright. She mostly sticks to herself, so I really don´t know her very well. I´m pretty much neutral about her. Not someone I would really go out of my way to hang out with if I didn´t live with her, but not a bad roommate either.

So the roommate situation is pretty cool. The apartment itself is a real shithole, but whatever. It´s in a good location because we can walk to Malasaña, Chueca, or Sol, which are three of the best places for night life. The one kind of lame thing about the roommates is that these days I usually get home around 7 or 8, and nobody else gets home until like 10. So I´m there alone for a few hours, which is kind of boring and depressing. However, I think this is going to be getting a bit better, and I´m starting to become more and more busy.

I´m teaching enough to survive now basically, but I still could be teaching more. I have the time, so why not? I´m making more money this year with less work, since the academy I work for pays me better than the one last year, and so do my private classes. I hate my class with the two six year olds. They are hyper, hyper, hyper. Often times I can´t even get them to sit in their chairs the whole time..they´re always up and around all over the place. Last week everything went to pot when Juan farted during class. But whatever. It´s only two hours of my life a week.

I´ve also started teaching my friend Silvia´s Argentine boyfriend. I finally got together with them last weekend. Silvia started out speaking English with me because that´s what we had always done in the past, but her boyfriend really can´t speak very well, so, I was like, ¨Bueno..podemos hablar en español si queráis...¨ And she was like, what?! Where did THAT come from..because she didn´t know I could speak Spanish. It was pretty funny; she was totally shocked. And her boyfriend wants to learn how to speak, so we´ve started having classes.

In some ways, I feel like things are really coming together this year. Everything seems so much easier. Teaching is easier because I´m more organized and I have more of an idea about what to do. Spanish is a lot easier because I already have a certain level, which makes everything, from watching TV to going to the grocery store, a lot more fun. And I already somewhat know my way around the city and how things work here. But still, it´s not easy. A lot of my good friends from last year aren´t here anymore. The only new friends I´ve made are the roommates. I really want to meet more people, but it´s not that easy for me. I don´t have a really good outlet for making friends. You can always talk to people in bars and stuff, but it´s always so freaking loud and so freaking crowded, I can barely hear anything, let alone anything in Spanish.

The whole Spanish thing is really coming along though. My class is going well. Now all I need is a Spanish boyfriend. Speaking of, I finally saw Gonzalo last week. We hung out for just a few hours, had a cup of coffee and stuff. It was good. Everything was basically exactly the same as it was before..whatever that means. Because I didn´t ever know what that meant before. Ugh. I just need to bite the bullet and tell him I have the hots for him. But I must wait for the perfect opportunity (i.e. when I´m totally drunk) when I can say something without being too nervous and fucking it up. Besides, if I´m drunk, I can always use the classic excuse, ¨I was druuuunk!!¨ The problem is that he is really, really really busy all the time. He works full time, he´s taking a post graduate class on Fridays and Saturdays, and right now he´s looking for an apartment to move into with a friend of his because he´s (finally!) moving out of his parents´ house. So..yea. When I did see him last week, I think he had to just like, barely squeeze our rendezvous in between ten other things that he had to do. So getting together with him is easier said that done. I think when I saw him that he said he planned to be moved out by the end of the month (that being the end of October) and when he was done he would call me. However, he was saying all this in fast Spanish, which is why I say I THINK that´s what he said. So..I´m kind of biding my time, trying to ¨play it cool.¨ Which of course, I´ve like, never been able to do in my life.