Graduation fun and Dancing all night

Groaning groggily and reaching blindly for my glasses, I sat up in bed and observed the clock; 14:12?!? How could I possibly have slept until just before lunch?! And then it all came back to me and, with a smile, I hopped out of bed. Well, dancing until 2:30 in the morning can do that to you, can’t it?!
But let me go back to the beginning: last night was the graduation ceremony for my class. Sadly, this ceremony does not include caps and gowns, but rather a ceremonial retrieval of the class photo by every senior, whether he or she is graduating or not. The one plus to all this: you get a sort of fashion show of all the dresses and suits! Of course, this can be extra interesting when you throw into the mix a rickety old set of metal stairs that bend under the weight of the lightest grad and don’t lend themselves too well to the abundance of stiletto heels in attendance and a light breeze that frequently caused the Marlilin Monroe effect on some of the poor, unsuspecting females. Oddly enough, most of the teens in attendance paid no attention to the ceremony –leaving that to their parents- and opting instead to chat with their friends at one end of the patio. This may seem disrespectful, but they just don’t seem to give as much importance to this event as we do in America. The ceremony was initiated by a few speeches –one from a teacher (“This is the last lecture you will receive from one of our teachers, but I promise you that I won’t quiz you on irregular English nouns! Instead, I would like to share a few words from John Lennon’s Imagine…”) and another from a student (“I know the teachers have been very patient with us, but we have been doubly patient with them!...”)- and brief musical numbers performed by the younger 7th – 10th grade students, including percussion, flutes, and voice, were interspersed here and there. The final number was, in fact, We Go Together, and made me nostalgic of our lovely good old days in Grease. The food tables opened up thereafter, and the hungry teens swooped down on the pizza with great zeal, fortunately leaving the Spanish omelet sandwiches all to me! They also had, of course, olives and cheese out, because it just isn’t a Spanish buffet without the olives!
Then came the social hour until a quarter to ten when we all took a bus, or hitched a ride with a professor as we smart students did, over to an Italian restaurant for dinner. There, we chatted, or rather shouted over the ruckus so as to be heard, and generally enjoyed ourselves for the hour or so before we ordered and ate. From the very beginning, pitchers of sangria (a fruity, lightly alcoholic beverage) and beer lined the tables, and were refilled every five minutes or so by busy waiters. (Remember, the legal drinking age in Spain is 18, so this was only illegal for a select few). A friend of mine was kind enough to ask a waiter to bring me water, and they kept the water coming all night long! My pesto pasta was delicious, and everybody else’s pizzas looked good too!
At midnight, teachers and all walked over to the club that was reserved especially for us, and we got checked off the list and stamped on the forearm. Inside, the music was loud, but usually had a good salsa beat that was fun to move to. There were a lot of us, and after a while they opened the club to the public, but it was never uncomfortably crowded. After getting over any embarrassment over dancing, since I haven’t ever danced at a club before, I fell in love all over again. I cannot express my passion for just moving my body and letting the rhythm move me. There was very little of that traditional partner dancing, which is better by far, but it was fun all the same and I got to meet some new people. Granted, by 2:00 in the morning the floor was fairly sticky due to the number of drinks that had been broken and spilt all over the place, but that didn’t really impede the dancing –nor the drinking. In the end, I had to leave before the place filled up as much as it probably did later in the night because my host dad kindly volunteered to pick me up and drive me home since the busses and the tram stop running long before the parties start. There is a night buss, but it doesn’t run out to where I live. The only thing I could think as we drove home, aside from how my feet were rather sore and eyes very droopy, was that I really want to go out dancing again. We’ll see if my wish comes true.

Well, that was Friday night and Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon included some hardcore lazing and an evening outing to Alicante to hang with another exchange student friend called Molly. We stopped by a little event on the street where booths from all sorts of volunteer and aid organizations distributed pamphlets and Moroccan goodies –such as cookies and tea- and sold T-shirts and books so that the proceeds could go towards eradicating poverty. Meanwhile, a little theatrical production went on for the kids and nearly drove Molly insane by the repetitive musical lyrics and, admittedly, not particularly trained voices. But, their jester outfits certainly captivated the attention of every child –and adult- on the street, and reminded me of a certain Garbeaus´ show and Hailee… :-) It is amazing the sheer amount of organizations that you can volunteer to here in Spain, and most of them work directly with the children in Africa or India. Molly told me about a friend of hers who appears materialistic and only into fashion and shopping who actually made a trip to Mexico to dig sewers in rural areas and now plans on going to India for do another service project there. Goes to show that you can’t judge a book by its cover, or a girl by her clothes. And all this reconfirmed a notion that has been making turns around my mind for the past few months: I think I need to go to Mexico, or another Latin American country, one of these upcoming summers to do a service project. After our stay at the booths, we, predictably, made our way to one of the many tea houses and sat down to chat until I had to make it back to the station to catch my last tram. Fortunately, unlike most other days, we did not get there late and miss it!

Sunday I went out climbing, but my climbing shoes have been forming holes in the toes, so I sent them off to be repaired this last week. I figured that if I wanted to do some serious climbing through Europe with my dad then I had better have some new rubber on those tips. However, the shoes did not make it back to me in time for this climbing trip, like I had thought they would, so I climbed barefoot. Now, this was ok for some of the routes, and only upped their difficulty a grade or two, and one heel hook move made me very proud, but other climbs were downright painful. Remind me to never climb barefoot on that kind of rock again, because some of it was like broken glass. Granted, I came away with minimal cuts, but I had to be practically hauled up the end of the last route because my feet were just too red and sad to do it anymore. If I climbed more regularly barefoot, then my feet would adapt and toughen up and I would probably climb better without shoes because my toes can curl better and my feet fit into smaller holes, but I’m just not willing to go through that kind of torture. All this brings back memories of that amazing pre-teen climber from Santa Cruz who did a double toe-hook on the ceiling in that open Women’s final at one Rocknasium competition a ways back. *sigh* Mad talent.

Well, skipping back to Thursday, I got a chance to do some volunteer work, like I´d been hopping. I spent the moring at the university with a couple other women manning a booth for the Association Against Cancer. It was fun because we traded people cigarettes for lollipops as a way to promote quitting smoking and promote awareness of different web sites and groups that can support you as you try to quit. There was none of that “This is what your lungs look like after 20 years of smoking. Death will befall you!” stuff. But we did have this cool little thing called a coxometer (or something to that effect) that measures the amount of carbon monoxide in your lungs and, essentially, how much negative influence smoking is having on your lungs. Some people got good news, and others got bad news. We gave the people with bad news extra lollipops.

Well, as always, thanks for tuning in to my wave length and checking up on the happenings of my life and mind. I always appreciate it and I relish your comments. Can’t wait to see you all again!

Love,

Jocelyn

PS Random Spanish fact: In Spain, you wear your wedding ring on your right hand.