Well, I’ve been quite lousy about updating this blog and as you notice I’ve completely turned my webpage into a page specifically about me! I will eventually get back to focusing it on linguistics and languages but at the moment I don’t even have any time! I’ve been so busy these past few months getting acclimated to Spanish culture and teaching and also studying for the GRE and preparing for grad school.  Last weekend (not this past weekend but the weekend before that) I went to Barcelona to take the GRE but I did worse than the first time and it was a huge embarrassment! I pray that G-d does let me somehow slip into a grad program (especially Hawai’i) despite my scores! I’ve been working since August on my statement of purpose and it has really changed a lot!  I’m finishing up the last few things to apply like my Statement of Purpose, my writing sample, and my department applications to have printed out and I’ll send them in the mail tomorrow so that they will make it at least by the first school’s deadline of January 6.

On Thursday I’m flying to Madrid with a friend and fellow assistant, Alyssa, from Chicago. We are going to be in Madrid for four days and then are heading over to Morocco for eight days! I won’t be taking my computer so I won’t be in contact with anyone over the holidays!

I wanted to wish everyone a חנוכה שמח  and a very Merry Christmas! I will be back on the 29th just in time for my mom’s 50th birthday!

This post is stored in the category of Made in Spain, Personal Post, Written in English and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: 50th Birthday, Barcelona, Channukah, Christmas, GRE, Hawai'i, Madrid

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This past Saturday I woke up pretty late and went on the “Auxiliars de les Illes Balears” group on Facebook and saw that one of the assistants from the US who is part of a “Castellers” group invited everyone to come watch him and the Palma team he is on perform with two other groups in the city of Manacor in the eastern part of the island. I sent some text messages around to see if anyone wanted to join me. Only Alyssa, from Chicago, responded that she would be interested in coming to watch with me. We headed to the Estació Intermodal (the main train, bus, metro station of Palma) and bought tickets to go to Manacor. We ended up going down to the platform 45 minutes earlier than we had to and since you can’t get back trough without making your ticket invalid we were stuck down there until the train arrived to take us to the other end of the line, to Manacor.

The train ride was nice and we arrived in Manacor after an hour and ten minutes of train. We made our way to the center of town as that is where the cathedral was located and where the directions told us to go. After asking a few people how to get there we made it to the Plaza where the “actualizacions” or performances were taking place. We saw the other auxiliar (assistant) Joel who was part of the Casteller team of Palma.

Click here or on the photo to see a larger version and description

Castell is the Catalan word for “Castle” and Casteller is the word for a person who takes part in forming ‘human castles’. This tradition of building human castles or towers started in the town of Valls near the end of the 18th century. The typical attire of a Casteller is white pants, a black sash called “faixa”, a colored shirt, and a bandana. The sash which is black, varies in length depending on where one is in the Castell. It wound tightly around the mid area to offer support to the back for those on the bottom and also as a place for climbers to grab onto as a handhold or a foothold as they climb up the tower. The bandanas are also used around the wrists of those on the bottom to offer support and tied around legs, chests, stomachs, and other parts of the body for foot and hand holds for the climbers.  The Casteller’s motto is “Força, equilibri, valor i seny”, which means Strength, balance, courage and reason.

There are different types of Castells and they are named by the number of people who make up each level and the number of levels. Some of the largest towers have been Tres de nou(three by nine) and Tres de deu (three by ten). Many of the Castells that we saw this weekend were Cinc de cinc (five by five) and Cinc de ses (five by six). The bottom level, which is just a large group of people supporting the Castell, is called the ‘Pinya’.  The top most Castellers are usually young children and they are called “enxaneta”.

It was really really cool to see this for the first time in real life. I’ve seen it on television and it was so much better in real life. I’d really like to see a huge actualizació in Barcelona sometime! There was this one group from Barcelona that did this one Castell where they built it from the bottom. The top two levels got up on the “Pinya” and then it was built from the bottom meaning that you saw the top levels rise up until there were 5 levels. Once all 5 levels were built the “enxaneta” raises his/her hand and they begin to dismantle the Castell. A Castell is not complete unless it is succesfully built and dismantled without it falling apart. Below is a video and some photos of different Castells that I saw this past weekend.

Click here or the photo to see a larger version with a caption

Click here or on the photo to see a larger version and a description

Click here to see a larger version and description

Click the photo below to watch a video I took!

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Alyssa and I had planned to go back to Palma and cook dinner and make our way to Bluesville, a cafe where a live band plays. We ended up going over to another assistant’s house to have pizza with other assistants. We finally made our way out to Bluesville and by the time we got our drinks the band had stopped playing. I’ve decided that I hate crowded bars and clubs and I enjoy hanging out and talking, than going to a place where I can’t even hear myself speak.

This post is stored in the category of Contains Images, Contains Video(s), Made in Spain, Personal Post, Written in Catalan and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Auxiliars de les Illes Balears, Bluesville, Castell, Casteller, enxaneta, faixa, Made in Spain, Mallorca, Manacor, Palma, Pinya, Valls

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So I’ve officially ended my very first week of school this week. The only thing I can say is that I’m tired! I forgot how much 12 hours of work can do to a person! HAHAHA!  Monday was a national holiday so nothing was open and it was like another Sunday. On Tuesday I headed down on the bus early in the morning to S’Alqueria Blanca. I must say that it was not as bad this time and I actually enjoyed myself a little even though at some points I felt very bored watching them color or play with “plasticine”, which is what they call “playdo” (actually the British call it this).

In my last class yesterday at the elementary school there were two German girls. One had lived here for 8 years and spoke perfect Castilian, Catalan, and German. She spoke pretty good English as well. The other girl had only been here 3 months and couldn’t say a lick of anything in any language except German. It is crazy that parents would leave their country when their child is a this age and when the child doesn’t speak the language. I think that it will seriously hinder the girl as she is about 9 or 10 years old.

On Wednesday, I got up and went and opened a bank account. My bank here in Spain is called Santander. I was under the impression that I didn’t have to put any money in to open the account but I ended up having to put in about 30€. I gave my account number to my school today so that they will be able to pay me at the end of the month. On Tuesday night I went to a Basque Cafe/Bar to eat tapas and celebrate the Canadian, Molly’s, birthday. It was fun and I met two really cool people, Kate, and Lucas. After eating our share of tapas we went to get ice cream and then sit by the Parc de la Mar just below the Cathedral. It looks amazing at night and it was my photo of the day for Tuesday.

Today was my first full 6 hour day at the high school. On Fridays, the German teacher, Gloria, doesn’t come in until nine so I had to find a ride with other people. The head of the English dept. Maria, found two teachers who work at eight on Fridays and they live very very close to me. So I got a ride with them this morning. Classes were fun today. I spent most of my time introducing myself and answering their crazy questions. In one of my classes, I was with a teacher who is 24 years old and quite good looking. In this particular class the students were aroudn 12-13 years old. She asked them to ask me questions and they were non-stop. At one point this mischievous boy who was sitting with two other boys in the back asked if I had a girlfriend after he had asked me my age. After answering to him, that no I did not, he asked the teacher how old she was. She told them to guess and didn’t tell her age, but they never really guessed right and just kept saying she was very young. Then they turned to me and the boy asked me if I thought the teacher was sexy. He started to smile and started raising his eyebrows up and down and tried to get an answer from me and the teacher and I were both laughing and trying to change the subject. It was very awkward and embarrassing and for the rest of the class the boys would look at me and do the eyebrow thing while nodding towards my female co-worker!

The last class of the day I taught the oldest students. I was given the task of teaching them the phonetics of English, which proved to be very very difficult under the circumstances. The consonants were fine as they are the same in British and American English. The vowels were more difficult and I found myself trying to imitate the British vowels, which is completely difficult. I ended up giving up and telling them the differences between British vowels and American ones.

Last weekend I put up the following ad on the loquo.com website, which is like craigslist here in Spain, to offer English tutoring sessions.

CLASES DE INGLÉS! Nativo, Titulado en Lingüística (Palma de Mallorca)

-Profesor Nativo

-Con experiencia docente

-Titulado en lingüística (entonces conzco mucho sobre la fonetica y de los dialectos y acentos)

-Para particulares y de grupos (al mismo nivel) de máximo 4.

-Para todos los niveles, todas edades

-Preparación de exámenes oficiales (IELTS, TOEFL, TOEIC)

- Precio: A convenir (la primera clase es de 10€ para determinar el nivel y otras cosas)

-Zona: preferentemente cerca de Plaza de España

-Para solicitar más información o pedir una cita: derron.s.borders@gmail.com

(I’m not going to translate it) I got one hit from a guy who is applying to do a Master’s of Journalism and I’m going to be tutoring him four days a week for the next two weeks in order to prepare him for an entry English exam for the program.  I’m going to repost my ad so as to find more tutoring jobs so that I can make more money to supplement my having to travel to S’Alqueria Blanca.

I also just received an e-mail not too long ago, today, that my flight to Barcelona has been moved from 6:30pm to 11:00pm on the night before I take my GRE so I’m going to have to really be prepared so I can be ready and well rested. I’m going to try and find a hotel or hostel really close to the place where I need to take it so I can just sleep enough and get up and walk over there and take it.

Well, it’s 9:33 pm and I need to prepare dinner. I don’t think I’m going out this weekend as I have a lot of GRE preparation and study to do as well as work on Grad school stuff! I need to save my money anyway and tell myself that so that I don’t feel like a big loser! I’m tired anyway and it is actually getting colder here in Mallorca. It barely got above 70 this week and the past few days have been mid to lower 60s. With the wind it makes it worse and at night it gets down to lower 50s. I’ve been sweat pantsing it here at the apartment for the past week.

This post is stored in the category of Made in Spain, Personal Post, Written in English, Written in Spanish and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Bank, German, Grad School, GRE, Loquo.com, S'Alqueria Blanca, Tutor

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One of the best videos I’ve seen in a very very long time…so beautiful….and you could see in the audience and judges’ faces that what she was depicting was very special to them as a culture…

Click on the image below to watch the video!

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This post is stored in the category of Contains Video(s), Made in Spain, Personal Post and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Kseniya Simonova, Russia, Sand Animation, Youtube

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Click on photo to see the full size and description!

This post is stored in the category of Made in Spain, Pic of the day and was written by Derron Borders



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So I woke up at a pretty reasonable time today around 8:00am so I could get ready and make my way to Plaça d’Epanya so I could take the TIB Bus to S’Alqueria Blanca. As usual I got on and immediately passed out and then was woken up in Campos to get off so I could wait for another bus. I waited for about five minutes and the next bus came and I got on and this time didn’t find it as easy to fall asleep. The bus driver took his good ol time and at one point just stopped at a bus stop to talk to another bus driver. It is like the schedule here doesn’t matter. I had to be at school at 10:30 but the bus doesn’t get to S’Alqueria until 10:35 and at this point it was well past 10:40. Anyway, once I arrived in S’Alqueria and walked the measly 1km to my school (this town is really small) I got to do what I did last week, and that is sit around. I read the directions for the students to do some coloring and some other activity, which was translated by the teacher into Mallorquín and then I sat there and watched them color. I think the concept of teaching another subject in a foreign language is a great idea, but I don’t think the execution of it here is that great and they use this stupid book that is WAY over the heads of these children. I would think it would be more important to teach them in Mallorquín different types of art and let them test out Egpytian hieroglyphics or other such things.

Today in my third year they had to look at two pictures which were optical illusions. The directions called them a “trompe l’oeil”, which means “trick the eye” in French. These kids had NO idea what the hell I was saying to them and it was just a big waste of time. It is a huge waste of my time to go to this school and also a huge waste of my money when I could be conversing with older students at the high school who can form complete and competent sentences!

Anyway, enough of my bitching. I’m hungry and I need to eat my late lunch (it’s 6:03pm here!). I also need to take inventory of what else I need to do to finish my college applications. I’ve complete both Utah’s and Hawai’i’s applications and have sent my OSU transcripts to Utah. I need to do the same for Hawai’i. Texas’ website was being funky and they along with UBC require that my Statement of Purpose be finished before I can complete those applications. I completely edited and spiffied up my writing sample about “Ditching” and I’m continuously revising my SoP. I now need to cut it down to three hundred words for the applications that only require that much.

Not only do I have to worry about applications to the Graduate Schools but I need to get my stuff done for the individual departments and also work on scholarship stuff AS WELL AS continue studying for the GRE! I found out my scores were actually average and not totally terrible. I’m still embarrassed by them and thought that I would do better.

Tonight I’m going out for tapas for dinner at a Basque café to celebrate the Canadian, Molly’s birthday!

This post is stored in the category of Made in Spain, Personal Post and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Campos, French, Graduate School, GRE, Mallorquín, Optical Illusion, OSU, Plaça d'Espanya, S'Alqueria Blanca, TIB, U of Hawai'i, U of Utah, UBC, UofT at Austin

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The Virgina Flag next to the "Ikurriña" (Basque Flag) that says Gora Euskadi, which means "Long Live the Basque Country". This photo was taken in the apartment of another assistant who lives with a Basque guy.

This post is stored in the category of Made in Spain, Pic of the day and was written by Derron Borders



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