Due to my feeling title creative and generous today, everyone who is now humming the sweet, sweet soul of Eartha Kitt gets a prize! Mind you, I have to be careful what I promise ever since those unfortunate Twitter court cases. You play with fire, you get burnt they said. Funny, there was me thinking you play with Ryan Giggs, you get a crick in your neck trying to gauge his facial expression.
As you may be able to tell I've taken an interest in current affairs, even moreso than usual and usual is the BBC and Guardian as permanent tabs on my Internet Explorer. Yes, I'm still flying the flag for IE; I tried Chrome but it's just not natural, letting Google get that serious. Next thing you know it wants you to cut your hair, quit smoking and wear a suit and tie and its mother is coming round for dinner on Friday so could I please be nice!! Anway, the point is I don't like it...
No! The really salient point is I'm beginning to get ever so slightly worried about my future. The title refers to the upcoming Holy Week and our mid term break. But also rather cleverly to the last wee while I had at home at Christmas and we all know what's happened in between. Well, you know bits and pieces, I leave out the really terrible things like the UAM workload and disorganisation and the mala suerte and the OH GOD! memory repression commencing...
Picture a Hawaiin themed bar in the heart of Huertas where all the best free mojitos and sangria be on a Friday night. This is not a Friday night. This is midweek and at first you think the stylised bamboo doors are locked, but not so! They're just closed agin the ruffians in the hot Madrid night and if you open them you are greeting with a long bar by one wall and an array of parrots and wee baby turtles. You know? Hawaii...
The Escape Song is playing in the background, and if the damn EU hadn't put its Health and Safety laws where they don't belong there would be a beautifully dramatic smoky atmosphere. For those of you who think you aren't familiar with The Escape Song, don't worry. The vision perched at the end of a bar on a high stool, lei round neck, brightly coloured paper umbrella in ear, sipping from a faux coconut is hiccuping and singing it melancholy...ily;
"If you like Pina Coladas...and getting caught in the rain<hic> If you're not into yoga, if you have half a brain<hichic>lalalala"
Joaquin is wearing an explosion of Crayola as an excuse for a shirt and is wiping down glasses. He is desperately trying to make a request.
"Ca'mon Miss Devlin; I like the other wan. You Put the Lime in the Coconut? Eet is always so cheerful, the Rey Juan Carlos, he laved it when he was here, why you no sing eet? You will feel better..."
"NO!" <slams down faux coconut only to create a tsunami of rum, pineapple juice and mystery mixers which she looks at in horror> "Joaquin, you know when I'm in the depths of depression you never bring up the Lime in the Coconut incident...besides, I don't feel like being cheerful. I feel like slipping laxitive into some sod's Mojito."
Joaquin decides to compromise and stick on some hula music which at least I can't warble along to and I decide its time to head home. The reason for this impromptu (and sort of made up, but there was a Hawaiian bar, and wee turtles and parrots and leis and novelty paper umbrellas...that's why I came to Spain incidentally...to drink fun coloured drinks with all novelty paper unbrellas in and we had a well good time) visit to Mauna Loa is the sultry presence of summer on the horizon and the dawning realisation I shall soon begin my final year at the University of Cambridge. And then I shall soon begin gainful employment. I say that as a certainity, it's like Nick Clegg talking about the next time the Lib Dems are in power with his fingers crossed behind his back out the way of the cameras. Have you had a look around, my son? Until Wilbur migrates south for the winter it ain't gonna happen.
It is for this reason that I have started to muse on possibilities. Because for a long, long while the entirety of the rest of our lives was a massive sheet of blank paper and now its covered in scribbles. Well, mine is, I suppose those of you who wanted to earn as much money as humanly poss...sorry, I mean contribute meaningfully to the economic wellbeing of the nation as an investment banker have a sheet that is as neat as Al Capone's tax return. You know, suspiciously so...
More specifically I am musing on the notion that it's not too late to do whatever you want. I will never be an astronaut, but a very nice idea is that I'd know exactly how to go about doing it. I'd have to go get my A-Level Biology and Chemistry, degree in engineering, doctorate in polymer science and engineering, all education part time funded by whatever job I could get, get some gym training and SCUBA scertificate (you need one), use FlyFighterJet to pick up some jet flying experience, arrange fake green card wedding, become US citizen, apply for NASA, succeed, become astronaut.
You see? It might take thirty years but I could be an astronaut, even now. This is a very silly little thought that manages to comfort me greatly. Of course there are holes in the theory, but that's what last minute half-assed plans are for! And those are my forte...
This line of thought may be precipitated by the knowledge that this will be my last blog before exam term, that after I come back to piso from a week happy amid the gentle rolling pastures of my homeland, running wild amoung my people I must face very important exams in Spanish. And my last attempt at Spanish, about three hours ago on the Metro was ask a genteel looking Spaniard "Los trenes, no corren?" Are the trains running? And his response was to grin like a bad comedian coming up to a dire punchline and proclaim "Si, they're training for the marathon."
Oy vay (this Yiddish exclamation is funnier if you were to look inside my mind and know that I almost wrote "gentile" instead of genteel") Anywho, I'm off. The whole of Spain is on strike today (read lazing in the sunshine) and that's mucked up my schedule like nobody's business. Have only just calmed down from a wrath as vengeful as the God of the Israelites when, on asking if the next train would be here soon because I have an important exam, was told to;
"Nena, por favor, las cosas así, que valen poco. Tranquilate!"
"Wee child, please, things like that aren't worth the fuss. Reeeelax!"
Fine Senor I-have-a-badge-supporting-labourers-thus-I-must-dispense-dimestore-socialism-philosophy; that's fine. No pasa nada. But if I fail this class because the Iberian Peninsula decided it wanted a day off so help me I'll personally devalue the Euro by flooding everywhere from Donegal to Cyprus with fakes notes. Don't ask me how, it involves the Lime in the Coconut incident.
Then again, maybe I'll just have a siesta.
xo
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