Before Social Media

I wonder how the babies of today would react when they're grown up and realise that their entire infancy has been documented and uploaded to the Internet.

Would they feel thankful for the head start given them on their social media footprint in life?

Or, after all that posing, would they consider it normal and not even question it? 

Would they, at school, struggle to comprehend why their own peers don't already have a few hundred photos posted of themselves?

Or would they feel embarrassed, self-conscious and demand that they be deleted?

All this, before they're even eligible for their own social media accounts. 

Three stop overs, one bus and one taxi later…

It took me 36 hours of travel, but welcome to my first post from Logrono, Spain.

I’ve been just over a week and I’ve spent everyday exploring some nook or cranny of this beautiful city. When travelling, keeping yourself busy is one of the best ways to avoid homesickness.

But with sore ankles permitting me from going out, I’ve finally been forced to sit down and reflect.

For starters, the weather here is the coldest I’ve ever experienced in my life – a big deal for people whose moods are predetermined by the weather. But I’m sucking it up.

I’ve also never felt so grown up in my life. Now I can say I’ve solidly lived out of home. Now I can say I’ve had a roommate, and had my patience tested by them. Now I can say I’ve done my own groceries and cooked my own food… and survived. Now I can say I’ve worried about money, I mean really worried about money; about whether or not I have enough to survive, as opposed to something superficial like being able to ‘afford’ a pair of high heels.

I realised that being able to afford something doesn’t mean having enough cash or money on your credit card to buy it. It’s about how much you don’t have to sacrifice in order to make that purchase.

I’m falling in love with this city, and am glad I chose it. Not Madrid. Not Barcelona. But the one most people have never heard of. It’s one thing to say you’ve been to all the top tourist destinations in the world, but all that shows is that you know how to read Lonely Planet. It’s another thing to go somewhere unpublished, to ask locals for directions and be told where to get the best pinchos. For me, that’s the difference between travelling and living in another country.

It’s a weird feeling when I consciously realise I’m speaking another language in a foreign country. That it all sprung from something as simple as a word in my head, an ‘ok’ to study International Studies at uni. People make small decisions in their head all the time without realising the power of where it can, or will eventually take them.

So here’s some things I’ve noticed about my town. There is a fuck load of dogs, yet the city retains its peaceful qualities because they don’t bark. My one dog at home makes more noise than all the dogs here combined, squared, and multiplied by a hundred. There are few gardens to keep them in, so there are about two or three dogs being walked down every street at any given time. I’ve only seen one cat, and it was wild.

Old people run this town. Unlike Australia where the elderly are mostly found in nursing homes, their Spanish compatriots wander around the town till past midnight. The women wear fur coats, walk down the street with linked arms, exchanging gossip and giggling – it’s like Sex and the City meets Meryl Streep meets Spain.

Classes started this week and I needed to buy a notebook. Only problem is their note books are what we call grid books, and grid books bring me bad memories. I used them for math class in high school, my most torturous subject ever. This was one thing I couldn’t suck up. Instead, I trolled dozens of discount stores before striking gold. What’s even more annoying is that similarly, grid books are impossible to find in Sydney.





Also, in bars and cafes people throw their rubbish on the ground below them. Literally. I guess it’s easier to sweep the serviettes up than pick them out from between dirty dishes.



I’ve met some pretty cool people while here. With a particular group of girls, it’s funny because we all speak English but have different accents. We then argue over the names of things are. Like, thong or g-string, hair tie or bobble, cell or mobile. It’s a bit of a struggle making friends with actual Spanish people because our classes are separate from theirs.

The architecture here is amazing, especially the old town with its cobblestone footpaths, sandstone buildings, and baroque churches.

I hope the rest of this year goes as quickly as my first week. And in between my classes for Spanish Language, Spanish Conversation, Spanish Cooking, History and Art of the Camino de Santiago, and doing culture assignments through correspondence for my uni back in Sydney – I’m going to do my best keeping you guys posted with my more interesting antics.

Actually, I’m going to a discoteca for the first time tonight.

Hasta luego, muchachos.

Love, Noeline
xox

Reality depresses me

We spend a lot of our lives growing into things that are at first too big. When I started high school, mum bought every item of my uniform about two sizes too big. "You'll grow into it," she'd say. Little did we know that was around the time I'd stop growing any taller.

For me, the world itself is a bit like that. When I was little the world was such a promising place. I couldn't wait to grow into it, to be a part of it and contribute to it in more tangible ways than a colouring book or a recount about my weekend. As much as I loved learning and going to school, I just wanted to get out there into the real world and do real things.

The city seemed full of important people bustling in and out of tall important buildings doing important work. I even looked up to the local grocer and the check-out people at my local supermarket. When you're barely a metre high yourself, everyone else seems to walk around with a sense of self-assuredness. In a big, complicated world they all seemed to know what they were doing, and in their own little ways they were organising it. I was fascinated.

But now I know what they mean when they say that ignorance is bliss. All those toy cash registers are nothing like real life cash registers. They crash a lot, and sometimes it doesn't feel like taking eftpos. So you get yelled at customers who blame it on the company rather than technology. Sometimes they take it out on you, personally. Like we're choosing not to make it work, because we're entertained by people screaming at us.

Those tall important buildings are actually full of people running around like headless chickens. It's full of people being given too much work by managers who do next to nothing, it's full of people working overtime to get them done and not being recognised for it.

It's full of women not earning enough as men because they're women, full of women not becoming managers because they're too emotional, it's full of women not getting promoted because they get pregnant - in other words, it's full of women being disrespected in fancy ways.

It's full of interns learning nothing, abused for their willingness to please, who spend the best part of their days on coffee runs and lunch runs.

It's full of people being "too young" or "too old" to be hired, discriminated by companies who prioritise budget before productivity and the skill of its employees.

Its full of people who can't get experience because there are more jobs that demand experience than offer training.

It's full of people trying to run businesses in the 21st century with computer systems designed in the 90's, but can't do anything about it because CEO's would rather sacrifice long term productivity than spend "too much" money on building faster, better, more streamlined programs - CEO's that claim the system works "just fine" but have never been on the shop floor and tried to use it them selves.

It's full of managers with double standards, who claim to have a "performance based roster" yet give more shifts to the staff they get along with and can flirt with, who enforce rules on other people but refuse to follow it them selves.

The only thing that amazes me now, is how, amidst all the chaos of workplace politics, the world I once admired for its functionality hasn't already completely fallen apart.

The more I learn about the world the more depressing it gets. I wish I could be more positive but am struggling for places to find hope. Maybe this next year abroad will do me some good, distract my disappointment in the experiences of travel and the goodness of people.

Love, Noeline
xox