Animo Makes the World Go 'Round

This blog has been about my endeavors abroad, retelling amusing cultural differences, and sharing my personal perceptions and understanding of the places I go and how it relates to me and my life at home, in the US. In an average entry, there are just as many things I don't say as things I do. I'm going to be a bit more personal in this entry than normal, mainly just because there is more cultural misunderstandings and sarcastic humor that goes along with it.

My mom called me on Monday to tell me that my grandmother (her mom) died in the early morning. I don't want to get into too much detail on that here -- like I said, this is my blog, not my middle school xanga, and it feels too weird getting overly personal -- but I will say that a week ago, my grandmother was perfectly normal, perfectly fine. She had a bad fall and the damage was irreversible. It took less than a week for her to spiral downward, lose one ability after another, and finally die.

Life is fragile, and we forget that.

Ok, so now time to pull myself up from the sadness and turn this incident in my life into yet another cultural experiment. On Monday after I heard the news, I missed my first two classes, obviously. I'm too much of a goody-two-shoes to randomly skip class without telling the teachers why I wasn't there, especially in classes that are discussion based, so I sent both of my teachers -- both coincidentally named Antonio, how's that for cultural stereotyping for you -- an email. They both responded right away, then took me aside at the end of class to talk to me and make sure I was okay. They were great. Little Antonio, my favorite 70-year-old little white-fro anthro teacher even gave me two kisses which, in other circumstances, would've been enough to make me faint out of happiness.

Anyway, there's one thing I don't understand with my interaction with them and with other Spanish people (in the center, the few friends I have) that I've told. They all say "animo." Like, at the end of an email or a conversation, they'll say "un beso muy fuerte y animo!" In English, that literally translates to "animate." So, like, what, "I hope you feel better, and animate!" You an also say 'animo' in verb form, animarse, which I guess would mean 'animate yourself', more or less. I've been trying to figure it out because I understand contextually that 'animo' means hey, I hope you feel better, life is rough, keep your chin up, but all the literal translations that I come up with are totally different and do not fit with our cultural tendencies at all. The definitions are all along the lines of 'cheer up,' 'lighten up,' etc. If someone in the USA heard that their friends' grandmother had died and said "hey, don't worry, lighten up" they would probably get punched in the face. So there's one cultural difference for you. Animo. The word of mystery.

One thing that is universal, though, is how everyone automatically gives people who are grieving special treatment. People are super-polite, super-accommodating, and will go out of their way to make sure you are doing okay. It's interesting how western society trains us all to be that way. All you have to do is tell someone that someone close to you died, and you are free from all life obligations for an extended period of time. It's interesting. Now I understand why the grandma-dying excuse is a classic for turning in papers late, etc.

I'm going to cut myself off with the cynical death babbling now.

In other news, I now have all of my grades from last semester. I got an A in my center class, a 9.25 in Andalucian Local Development, a 9 in Anthro of Contemporary Societies, and a 7 in Anthro of America. Those are all really good grades and I'm very happy. I find it funny that I did phenomenally in 2 of my 3 university classes and the one where I just did pretty good was the one on America (as in, interactions with the US and Latin America). Shouldn't it have been the other way around? Theoretically, yes, but I think what got me was the viewpoints and understandings of concepts here about American Anthropology are really different than what I learned in the US. They also focus a lot more on the interaction between the US and Latin America which, sad as it is, we as US students don't really get taught. So an interesting class, definitely valuable to take, but harder.

I don't have time. It's running out. I don't mean that in a life/death kind of way, now that I've just talked about that (although that is an entirely different rant that we could easily get into a different time). I just mean this semester. Time is already slipping through my fingers. In some ways I feel like I made a conscious decision to be an American studying abroad than to try to fit in with the Spaniards. I'm finally making friends, classmates are giving me their numbers to do something, things are coming up on weekends that I'm invited to. But the majority of weekends, I'm not here. And therefore, my weeks are already packed and often times my schedule doesn't line up with other people's. I don't regret traveling at all -- I want to see places while I'm here and can do it for relatively cheaply -- but it is bittersweet knowing that I'm missing out on friendships and first-hand experiences with Spanish culture in the process. Certainly not all is lost, but still. It's definitely a side effect.

And on these happy notes, so ends the blog entry.