Block Plan Attitude

So recently, I've been mostly collecting sources on Marti, just getting my hands on as many as I can, as quickly as I can. I've located nearly everything on my initial 10 pg bibliography, which is a pretty exciting accomplishment. Most of it I could easily find at SLU or through Mobius, so I just highlighted those as "ignore for now," downloaded the ones I could easily get online (I've got a great big folder full of pdfs now!), requested a bunch of weird stuff through ILL (we'll see if they can find any of this stuff to send me), and have been focused on finding the ones I can't get at home. A lot of these not-in-the-USA texts are right here at the BNE, which is very lucky for me.

 Another day at the BNE

Recently I've been getting off at the Colon station, rather than the Serrano station - they're about equidistant to the library but this one provides a better view upon approach I think. :-)

 I'm glad that I finally feel very comfortable requesting books that I need to see through their crazy colored card system. It's easier to get and use books here than it used to seem, and they arrive for pickup SO much faster than I expect, so it's pretty nice. While it may seem like a bit of a pain, there are a few benefits to having to be AT the library to use books -
(1) I'm forced to change out of pajamas and leave the house (which is not always the case at home, causing my hermetic behavior in recent months),
(2) I don't have to haul books home or back and forth from the library, meaning my luggage can remain stored out of sight,
(3) having work time relegated to the library and relaxing time at home separated so physically helps keep me from feeling guilty about not working when I'm relaxing - brainstorming aside, I just can't be working while I'm relaxing if all the books are kept here!
Anyway, while it seemed annoying at first not to have borrowing privileges  it's actually been nice in these respects.

 

I've mostly got these request cards, or "fichas" figured out. I'm still confused by the forms used to reserve books for viewing the next day. But seeing that red light that means "your book is here!" come on at my desk is still super exciting to me. 

Woohoo! Research!

Also, I've finally figured out all the rules for photocopying and learned how to make copies, which are thankfully relatively inexpensive! I got a copy card and the librarian manning the copy room was super nice and showed me how the machines worked. (Everybody's so helpful and friendly at the BNE!) I'm officially a zealous convert to the longer European paper size. It is SO much easier to copy both pages of a book at once when you have that extra bit of length. You've won me over, A4.

YAY! Research I can take home with me!!!

Now that February is at an end, I'm switching gears. I spent the first few weeks here working on aspects of my prospectus and collecting Marti research for my dissertation, and I'm sure I'll come back to that again soon, but now I need to turn my attention to my conference paper for awhile. I'm slated to give a talk entitled "The Friars and the Three Faiths" on some aspect of medieval mendicant missionary history. The intimidating problem is that Robin Vose and Tom Burman, two scholars that have very much impacted my understanding of this history through their numerous erudite publications on missionizing matters, will be at this conference. I'm very concerned that anything I would have to say, as such a young scholar, will sound lame to them. I feel like so many of my "AHA!" moments and connections in this field would be "Duh, *Yawn..." moments for them. Because their works have been so informative in my coursework and research, I also have to be careful that I'm not just repeating concepts they've stated, because they'll be right there, thinking "yeah, I know, I said that already." It's all very intimidating, honestly.

So what can I possibly say that will be news to them? Maybe nothing, but if I just sit around worrying about it and not working, I'll never know for sure. So I read, and think, and brainstorm on paper, trying to find a conceptual niche. Damian wants me to present something broad, so it's unlikely that I'll be debuting some new discovery in the sources come April. But I'm hoping I can present at least a different way to think about this. Polemic can be so polarizing for professors, so it's unsurprising that there's a lot of radically different, religiously charged opinions on the issue. Spanish religious historiography is a crazy mess in many ways. There's always a need for examining/explaining the related issues more clearly or in a different light. I must remember it's only a 20 minute presentation, too. So I can't throw myself into research that would better lend itself to a book than to a talk.

So anyway, I'm reading and turning over different ideas in my mind right now. If nothing comes of it, I can always chat with Damian or meet with Dr. Garcia-Serrano here at SLU Madrid for some guidance. I am still a student after all.

I was talking about this with Casey and said "plus you only have one 'class,' much like the block schedule." I was so glad he put it that way, because I loved the idea of thinking about it it that way. I'm just focused on the paper right now, so it's SO MUCH like doing a block at Cornell - one course at a time! And if I learned anything at Cornell on the block plan, it's that I CAN DO ANYTHING IN 18 DAYS. That's exactly the attitude I need this month here. Let's do this OCCAT style. I've missed the block plan so much while juggling things in grad school and it makes me so happy to think of my time in Madrid as a return to that work style. :-)

Researching Recap (and a hilarious picture of Ramon Marti)

So this is now my third week here. Week one felt like a lot of adjustments, week two went much more smoothly and work finally began, week three makes me feel like I'm actually starting to get some stuff done. So I thought I'd take a moment to blog about work stuff for a little bit.

Recently I've been spending a lot of time at the Biblioteca Nacional.

It's a fabulous place to head to each day. When I arrive on the steps, greeted by Alfonso el Sabio and St. Isidore of Seville, I feel ready to read some Spanish.

I always find the weird wooden tunnel hallway to be oddly unfancy transition between the gorgeous entry, the formal information area, and the Sala de Lectura. 

I get in, show them that my plastic bag contains only licit items, get a seat assignment, retrieve the book I'd put on reserve from box 81, and settle down for an afternoon of library work. 

But first, I always stop to look around. Its nice to take a moment to appreciate what a beautiful space it is.

I love seeing the reactions of other scholars coming into the reading room of the National Library. The other day I saw a man snap a few pictures on his iphone, and a very old man get up from his work, stop in the middle of the room, and just look up and all around. It's nice to catch people in a moment of appreciation. I feel like a bit of a creep intruding on their private moment of enjoying the view. But it's also nice to think that it will always be lovely to work in such a space, and even old people aren't jaded about it. 

It's of course gorgeous flooded with light during the day, but I like it when it gets dark at night, too, because the skylight reflects all the desk lights and laptops below. 

Each day, I like to check out which famous Spanish author name I'm sitting under. Recently I've been assigned desks under St. Ramon de Penyafort, Averroes, Seneca, and St. Teresa of Avila! It always feels like good research luck to have their names watching over me.  

Because reading in Spanish is slow going for me, especially while taking notes and such, it took me a few visits to read through this little blue biography of Ramon Marti. But it was a really useful book to have. I'd never been able to get ahold of it at home (there are 5 copies of it in the US, but they're all on the east coast and ILL was never very cooperative in getting it shipped to the midwest), and there is one copy available through Amazon but it's like a hundred dollars, I was so thrilled to be able to sit and read it for free at my leisure here.

We're not supposed to take photos of the books, but I broke the rules, because I absolutely needed to show you this hilarious drawing of Ramon Marti. We have no idea what he looked like (there's one illuminated image of a friar in one of his manuscripts, which might be the only image of Marti) but I am going to picture him this way from now on because it makes me giggle. I think it's the teeth that make is so creepy looking? Or the horribly shaggy short beard? I especially enjoy the star emanating from his forehead. If you have an opinion or humorous thought about this, please do share. 

And actually, exciting story, the other day when I was googling the author of this biography hagiography (Marti is not a saint, but the author seems to think he ought to be), the I saw the text up as for sale on abe books! Since the only other copy I'd seen online was going for such a ridiculous price, I didn't think much of it. But as it turns out, since this book was published on a little Dominican press in Spain, it wasn't expensive to buy here - it was for sale for just a couple euros from a Madrid bookseller! HUZZAH! I couldn't believe it. I dropped what I was doing and snatched it up the only copy for sale right away. This was a perilous process because the internet at the BNE is very unreliable and I was afraid the transaction wouldn't go through. It would have cost a small fortune to ship it home to the USA, but for $2 I could have it shipped to the SLU Campus in Madrid. It'll be waiting for me there sometime next week! I'm over the moon about this purchase, which only cost me about the price of a Spanish lunch all said and done, because I've enjoyed looking through it at the BNE so much. Call it souvenir number 2 from this trip! 

The first of course, being this colorful scarf that matched sweater and my "lector" sticker badge so brilliantly:

Just a few pics of days spent working at the BNE

The nice thing about working there, is that the day breaks up into lots of useable hours. I usually arrive around noon, work for a bit, have lunch, and then after lunch there's the whole rest of the day! I have been staying until after 8pm. A typical work day ends at 5 or so, but without dinner at that time, there's really no reason to call it quitting time. So I usually just stay until I should head home for Spanish dinner, around 9pm. And plenty of other people do too, so my days have lot of potential for good work.

Evening work at the BNE. 

I've also been doing a bit of work at the SLU Campus. It's a good place to be when I want to be doing more internet searching because the wifi there is solid and fast. The librarian there is quite helpful and sweet, although I can tell she's anxious for the library situation with the new building to be fixed.

On the SLU Madrid campus

The library is a very quiet sunny little room - perfect if I'm going to be spending hours working on end. The day this photo was taken, research was really really frustrating and intimidating, and the nice, sunny, peaceful atmosphere was the only thing keeping me working through it. 

A rare moment of peace and privacy in one of the usually very busy study rooms! Apparently Friday afternoon is a great time to get work done on the SLU Campus because all the students are busy planning their adventurous weekends!

Students often study outside, but even though it's sunny, the weather's only in the 50s, so idk how they do it. It's a nice place to sit and check my email, but not to work!

So in addition to reading through some sources at the BNE, I've been slowly compiling a big research bibliography for all the references to sources on Marti that I come across. And I retooled the problem statement to my prospectus in light of the sources I've found. I think it's in a good place now, and I've sent that, along with the bibliography, to Damian for some feedback, so we'll have to see what he says. No word yet, but hopefully he'll say it's looking good so far. I am hoping to get some feedback from Dr. Garcia-Serrano too when I meet with him on Tuesday. I'm currently combing through that bibliography, marking which sources I already have, or are easily accessible from SLU through ILL or Mobius, and focusing my energy solely on tracking down those harder to locate sources while I'm here.  

Although I'm mostly here to do research, this trip also offers me the opportunity to do some teaching abroad. Dr. Garcia-Serrano is going to let me guest lecture in one of his classes, YAY, and so last week I went into the faculty office to look through the textbook, syllabus, and primary source materials for his class. I like the themes emphasized and the amount of time set aside to cover the middle ages. He's been very relaxed about it, letting me pick whichever week I'd like! 

Hm. Which week should I pick? So many good topics... 

There was too little Islam for my tastes. 

I decided to choose the Early Middle Ages week - I have a soft spot for the dark ages. Plus, I'm hoping to add a little bit of the history of early Islam into that narrative for the students. It'd be a shame to hear the crusades lectures with no background of Islam. But, if the professor wants to keep it focused solely on Christian European culture, that'd be fine too, there's plenty of fun to be had there. :-) I can't wait to add "guest lecturer" to my CV. I love teaching so so much.

The dean of the school also suggested that I could give a talk to the students and/or faculty about my dissertation topic. I definitely love the idea, and any chance to talk about Dominicans, but I think I need to see where I'm at with research, guest lecturing, and the conference to organize and prepare for, before I commit to that as well. 

Some days I feel like all of this would just be easier to do at home from the SLU Campus in the US, and I worry about whether I can pull all of these things off while I'm here with how long it seems to take to learn how to do  and where to find the things I need. I'm hoping working at the Complutensian University library come the start of March (the librarian here cautions me that right now the campus and library will be crazy with exams) will be a bit easier - being a proper academic institution. Plus Patrick recommended a good open stacks library nearby - being able to see and touch books will be a refreshing change of pace as I prepare this paper, so I think I'll pay that place a visit very soon!

Muchas Celebraciones! (Many Celebrations!)

My week has been good - a nice mix of productive work, relaxing and getting comfortable in a routine here in Spain, getting a bit better at Spanish, and taking time to celebrate a lot of nice things! Because celebrating is the most fun/interesting to discuss, that's what this post will be about.

There's been much to celebrate - There was Valentine's Day, my host sister Elena's birthday, and now, another one of my good friends is engaged! <3

Happy Valentine's Day! 

I put on some pink (but had to layer cause it's still a little cold) to celebrate. 

I was at or near the SLU Campus all day. 

I won't lie, it was difficult to be so far away from Casey on Valentine's day. I tried to still make it a special day for us. I hid candy and a romantic card for him in our apartment before I left for Spain, and on Valentine's Day I sent him a video message via skype telling him where to find his little surprise. I love Skype video messages. It's fun to leave him an update during my day, even though he's sleeping at the time! Because there's no telling how long it would take to get a card to me across the ocean in Spanish mail, Casey wrote me a long and very romantic email for me to read, in place of a love letter, and it made my day. <3 The one benefit of being apart like this is that it has shown us how important we are in each other's lives, and will help us not take each other for granted. I don't know if absence makes the heart grow fonder, but it does certainly make it more appreciative. Homesickness has been bittersweet that way.

Today Casey and I are going to talk about his visit during Santa Semana at the end of March - make some plans, look at some hotels, etc. I can't wait for him to visit! It'll be like revisiting our honeymoon in Spain two years ago. Luna de Miel, parte dos! We haven't decided if we want to stay in Madrid, and then take day trips to places nearby, like Toledo, El Escorial, Segovia, etc. or if we want to start in Madrid but then stay the latter part of the week someplace different, like Barcelona. Any thoughts/suggestions for us? We want to see some neat things, but overall don't want to be wildly busy, because we are mostly looking forward to having long lunches and dinners with lots of wine and ham and conversation, as the Spanish are wont to do.

Anyway, Valentine's Day alone was an interesting experience. Although Casey, however far away, was my Valentine on Thursday, I decided to be my own Valentine as well. This trip is about research and my academic opportunities, but in a way it is also an important exploration of my own independence. I've never done anything so much on my own before, (and since I'm married, I likely won't again), and as hard as it is to be away from my husband and my friends, it's interesting to learn about myself, on my own. I took a "Treat Yo Self" attitude to the day, with delicious coffee, chocolate, wine, and even a bit of shopping!

MMMMmmm I wanted to make this cup of coffee my Valentine. 

I stopped in a little boutique near the SLU campus, and it turned out to be just the kind of place I was looking for. I was really out shopping for a little present for Elena, my host sister, whose 23rd birthday was on Thursday too, but because it was Valentine's Day, it was easy to justify buying myself a colorful scarf that caught my eye. It's sale season right now, so it's a good time of year to pick up souvenirs from the time I went by myself to live and research in Spain. 

Such a cute little place to shop! 

I didn't really know what to get Elena, since I don't really know what her personal style is yet, but I figured it's hard to go wrong with fun accessories. So I just looked for something simple, but pretty, and tried to use my own taste as a guide. I got her the orange and blue necklace in this display. She liked it and has worn it already out to lunch today. :-)

Shopping success!

And here's a few pictures of the scarf I bought myself. <3 I love all the colors. I think, because I have such a limited wardrobe, changing up accessories like this will be a fun way to make it feel like I'm not just wearing the same thing every day. 

On Friday, we celebrated Elena's birthday. She had 14 friends over from her pharmacy program, plus her boyfriend Carlos. She told me to speak with him in English, because he's taking a big English proficiency exam soon, and needs to practice. He was really shy about using English at first but he is really good, so he didn't need to be. I like him very much and it seems like he and Elena make a nice couple. I was a bit of a wallflower at this party, since aside from one other girl, most people seemed more interested in just relaxing and enjoying the party than taking the effort to engage in a Spanglish conversation with the foreign exchange student. But Carlos hung back and talked with me a lot, which I really appreciated. It's funny, I didn't really say much at this party, but everyone was still really welcoming, if not very talkative, so I didn't feel out of place. It was a very new experience for me to be more of a wallflower, and I kind of liked just observing for once. I'm pretty outgoing so this is not usually how I am at parties at all. They all talk SO FAST that I didn't really know what was going on, but it was fun to just see how Spanish parties unfold. 

It starts, as all parties do, with food. It started around 9pm, Spanish dinnertime. Elena and her mother prepared a lot of food, and everyone just grabbed a plate and made an appetizers dinner snacking throughout the night. After that was done, everyone grabbed a dish and helped clear, and they moved on to dessert. Her friends had made her a "tarta" which translates to cake, but it wasn't really a cake. It tasted like it was supposed to be a chocolate cake, but there wasn't quite enough flour or sugar. So it was very dense and chocolatey, but not very sweet. I liked it though! Her friends had used fondant to decorate it with a pharmacy theme, which was SO cute. I snapped a few photos. I thought that might be weird, but everyone was taking pictures all night long, and they included me in quite a few of them, which was nice, so I decided not to worry about it. 

Elena (dressed in red) taking a picture of her cute little cake.

Spanish birthday party :-)

Around midnight, 3 hours into the party, Casey got off work and called, so I took a break from observing and trying to understand bits of Spanish conversations to talk to him for a long while. I decided after that to call it a night and retired to my room, which was just as well because they were all getting ready to go to take the party out to a pub for the night. They invited me, of course, which was so nice, but honestly, by 1am I was so tired! I bid them all good night. I was glad too, because apparently they were out until 5am!!! Spanish parties start late, and go really really late. I may only be 27, but I'm way too much of an old person to stay up that late!

Elena had gotten silly bow clips at the party, so the whole next day Trufa was wearing a little bow. 

SO CUTE! "Ay, que guapa, Trufa!"

There was another party, a smaller dinner party, with another group of friends last night, so at 9pm again I joined Elena and her friends to celebrate. It had been a busy day, so by then I was ready to just sit back and enjoy the entertaining company of friendly strangers in a foreign land. This was just a group of 8 of us, so everyone fit around the dinner table. 

Dinner party! We drank Spanish wine that Carlos's family distributes. Yum!

This party was for Elena and Carlos's group of mutual friends from school, before she joined the pharmacy program. There was Carlos, his sister and her boyfriend, a guy with red hair and his girlfriend, and another girl. The ginger guy and I bonded over us both being so pale. This group was more intimate, and although the party  the other night was interesting, at this one I really enjoyed myself. Carlos's sister speaks perfect English, and some of the other people spoke pretty good English, and they had a chance to practice talking with me, so I was was able to participate so much more in the conversations at this party. They were so nice to make sure I was involved, and as they talked in Spanish together every once in awhile someone would give me an update on the conversation topics. 

What I'm studying, the fact that I am married, what my husband is like, and my engagement ring have been popular topics when meeting people. It seems that in Spain young people marry around 30, so the fact that I got married at 24 is always this huge shock to them and they exclaim how young I am to already be married already, even now at 27. Also, the engagement ring tradition is catching on but not universally popular in Spain, so they were asking about that. They also said that our style of proposals is not really the tradition in Spain either - you kind of just have a conversation at some point and decide when to get married. They love the romantic surprise thing though. It seems as though most Spanish young people stay living with their families throughout much of their twenties. Perhaps that's just this economy though? I'm not sure. They say it's going to be very hard to find jobs when they graduate in a year, so they expect that they'll have to go to England or some other country to find work. Apparently that's not a big deal to them - no more than needing to move to another state to find work in the US. 

After dinner around 1am they were headed out to the discoteca, and while I appreciated the invitation to join them, I again declined, though this time the offer was a little harder to refuse. They insisted that I need to join them some night to see Spanish nightlife, and I agreed. Sometime before I go maybe! (Though I'm not much of a nightlife person even at home!) It had already been such a good day already though that I just wanted to talk with Casey, take a hot shower, watch an episode of Friends, and get some rest. They stayed out until 4am. Ay dios mio!

And then there was another small celebration today, and I joined Elena and her parents for lunch. Her dad seems really nice and we talked about history. He seemed pleased that I was aware of the conflict between Americo Castro and Claudio Sanchez Albornoz. Crazy Spanish historiography, ftw!  :-) Lunch was very yummy and pleasant. I think my Spanish is getting a little better too. Of course that could have just been the fact that we had wine with lunch. It seems wine is perfectly acceptable to have mid-day here, and I'm fine with that.

While I'm on the theme of celebrations, my friend Sammi is engaged!!!!!
HUZZAH! What wonderful news to get on this quiet Sunday! I'm so happy for her and Marc! <3 Another lovely friend wedding to look forward to! :-)