The Land Before Time

Murphy's Law states that if anything can go wrong, it will. Being an optimist, I don't view the world this way. You make your own fate, some things may happen for a reason, to challenge you, to make you rise above the hardest obstacles that get thrown in your away in order to make it to the finish, the destination in your mind that you've been striving to get you. Life is good, very good. I've met a lot of people, Spanish and International, many who have the potential to become great friends. I've settled into my flat, and changed my mattress for the 3rd time and am now sleeping in comfort. I've found means to watch Celtic every week, and I've found my feet....although finding something to put on them in order to play football is more of a challenge. I actually got laughed at by the shop assistant when I asked him if he served any sports shoes in a size 47 (UK 12). I played my first football game yesterday on a hard surface concrete pitch, which seems to be the norm here, so my football boots were of no use. Since I left Glasgow on the 31st of July and returned to Gourock, before my move to Córdoba, I've gotten lazy, no use of the gym, so for the best part of 2 months, I've done very little exercise and drank silly amounts, so you could imagine that football at 6pm, under the sun in heat of upwards of 25 degrees took its toll! However, I'm planning to get the running shoes back on this week, loosen up my legs that now feel like 2 giant logs attached to my torso, and get fit again. With more football games on the cards, plus talk of an international tournament, I definitely need to get trainers designed for playing football here. However, you all know what they say about guys with feet as big as mine..............it's bloody hard to find a pair of shoes to fill them!

Back to Murphy's Law. University began last week, induction courses telling us how the university operated and Spanish culture and language classes. The real classes start tomorrow, 23/09/09, so the class registration was this week....

"If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something"

Last Monday was actually the first indication of how challenging this process would be. As our class coordinator Africa Verdejo pointed out, we are given a sheet with every single subject on it; we are to choose the subjects we want to study in order to make up our credits, bearing in mind we pick our classes where there are no clashes with others we want to study. Easy, right? Two words. Murphy's Law. The complications of that part of the matriculation shall be explained in fuller detail after I've told you about the rest of the process. Once our classes are picked out, we have to go the administration office and tell them what our classes are, when these are written down on pen and paper, they will type them into a computer and give you an official hand out with all your classes, but only if you have your passport with you. All done? Not quite. Next, you walk out of that room and to the secretary’s office. If you think it's already ridiculous, it gets worse. Having your passport here is not enough, you need a photocopy of that, a photocopy of your EU health insurance card, 2 passport sized pictures, which are needed to go on your student card form that you've spent an age filling out, and also for another form to state that you are a foreign student now living in Córdoba. Finally, the last document that is required here is your letter of acceptance from your home institution; the secretary cared so little about what this document said, I could have easily submitted a letter written by myself about how I believed I'd have less hassle trying to embark a plane to the USA at Halloween dressed as Osama Bin laden than I would trying to register and pick my classes at ETEA. With all my documents organised and completed, the only thing I lacked was passport size photographs of yours truly. As I've found out the hard way here, there are specific places to buy specific products- "No senor, we don't sell stamps for your postcards, credit for your phone, or have any photo booths in this giant shopping centre." Luckily for me, the secretary was kind enough to inform me of a photo shop where I could get these mug shots, less than 5 minutes away. My friend Nick was in the same predicament, so we went together to get our pictures taken, and found out that we were not entering a photo booth, but in fact getting a professional picture taken. With my hands on my knees, I struck a serious pose, hoping to get a respectable looking picture taken for my student card rather than the hungover effort that graces my Strathclyde card. I've got an unfortunate history with photo booths, money being swallowed, cameras being jammed at the lowest height after I've paid etc. so this was a welcome change to the usual horror show you have to endure in a photo booth, listening to an English bimbo tell you "Ok, sit back, relax, ok, nearly ready, almost there, wait for it, cheeeeeese!" Incidentally, I still have 5 of these masterpieces left over, so I'll happily distribute them, with a first ask, first get policy- Yes mum, of course I'll send you one! Back at ETEA, I’d handed my photos over to the secretary, who wanted one for herself, but at a price of 4.50€ for 8, I was having none of it! Job done? Almost. I was to head over to the international relations office next to hand in an insurance form with another picture, then after that, all that was left to do was to go to a Santander bank by the 28th of September to pay.....yes, to PAY 30€ to officially be added to the timetable! The cost of 5 70cl bottles of Negrita rum (which at a dirt cheap price, I'm loving!). I've yet to hand over this princely sum, but I can guarantee that the money will be getting wrestled from tight fists! After the trauma of registering, I decided that I should get my Erasmus forms signed and stamped so I could have them back at Strathclyde by the 30th September deadline. Erasmus is a European exchange organisation that fund students to live abroad for the year, so these are very important documents that will help pay for my accommodation and hopefully give me some money left over for a few more wild nights over the course of the year. I went to one of the women in the office who dismissed me saying she had nothing to do with it, then to our course coordinator, Africa Verdejo. For those who have seen 'Finding Nemo', the best way I can describe Africa is like Dory, the blue fish who has a 3 second memory and paddles about the sea without a clue of what's going on around her- disturbing for a woman who holds a position key to all Erasmus students. A former Strathclyde student who spent 2007/08 in Córdoba described her as someone who wouldn't know her arse from her elbow. Summed her up in a nutshell! On the first day, I was gutted to see Africa was anything but African, and in fact very European, with odd clothes that would suit a 17 year old girl having a 'hangover day', and hair like it had been brushed with a comb with metallic tips that had an extremely high voltage. Lovely as she may be, you'd expect to see this woman walking out of a reggae cafe in Amsterdam with a strange expression on her face wondering what the special ingredient in her morning muffin was, and why she felt light headed. No, you'd certainly not expect her to be the one in Spain running my year abroad (This is the same woman that I'd mentioned in earlier blogs who'd taken 3 months to confirm that my application form had been received). I could toy with her this year, something my brother Stephen would relish in. I'm very tempted tomorrow to ask her something general, like, what the first name of President Obama is. Funnily enough, I have met someone who struggled with this question herself during a game of articulate, but she shall remain anonymous (although for the record, she is actually very smart, and is in no way, shape, or form being compared to Africa Verdejo). When I finally got to Africa's desk, she sent me next door to another woman, who duly obliged to sign the Erasmus forms, although she didn't give me the crucial stamp to prove that it had been completed at ETEA. When she said the stamp was at Africa's desk and she would stamp it, that was fine, but the answer I got when I pointed out that she'd forgotten to fill in the date was unbelievable. Pen in her right hand, paper on her left, she said that she could not sign the date for me; Africa had to do that herself! The Spaniards and their relaxed attitudes to handling business have completely blown me away, but this will take some beating! I can really see the folks at the British council proof reading my Erasmus form, to make sure it hadn't been tampered with, and essentially, the date had been filled in with another colour of ink. Incredible!! Despite using this blog to utter my annoyance at the Spanish culture of doing everything at a snail’s pace, this way of life has also provided me with a great source of amusement. My flatmate Carlos has a habit of waiting at least 45 seconds to pick up his phone if it rings. It may be that he simply likes the ringtone, an excellent number by Moby, "Natural Blues" (yeah, go download it), but we've actually been sitting in our lounge area, when the phone has gone off, within arm’s reach, and he's gone and got himself a glass of water before picking it up. Speaking of the flat, as time goes by, I'm feeling very much at home here, and I've even managed to work out the roles of my flatmates. Without a doubt, Carlos is the dad, ok, he's nearly 30, but looks and acts a lot younger, although he's the guy to go to with computer problems, to set up the internet, to deal with the bills and who organised our contract being set up. I believe this year that he will be converted to the hoops, and become a fully fledged Celtic supporter. As a big football fan himself, he's taken to watching games with me (when he's not sleeping or hungover). I provided them all with a great source of amusement with my actions on Sunday as Glen Loovens fired a 93rd minute winner to propel Celtic to the SPL summit. Cue me jumping about like a madman and scraping my heel in the process. Laura's like the weird aunty of the family, the one that you always thought got high as youngster, and think she may even still have the odd joint. The girl is off her nut, so of course we get on really well. It took her 20minutes of knowing me to say I was cheeky and a wind up, so she is the one who is always wound up by Carlos and I. Anna, the German exchange student is coming out her shell every day. A bit shy at first, she's like the half cousin who lives in Germany and is over to visit for a while. She's a lovely girl and good fun, although her 'German-ness' amuses me. No words can describe it, just a German being German. Like my friend Kai, the nicest guy you could meet, but on a football pitch, a complete machine, with an emphatic will to win every challenge in a bounce game and screaming "YA!" every time he makes a tackle. The international scene here is fantastic, and has given me a great opportunity to learn not only about Spaniards, but other European nations and their antics. I've had a great laugh teaching the Dutch boys Nick and Davey our crude expressions and football songs like "We'll be coming" and Davey's personal favourite "Blame it on Eboué." Still though, stereotypes are there for a reason, and it cracks me up every time they're talking about someone being an "Assshh-hole."

My first class tomorrow is at 10.10......I think! I say this as the timetable that we were given to pick our subjects from, the 3 separate packs of sheets have far more classes than required for some subjects, far less classes for others, and even no timetables listed for a couple of classes! All in all, no one has a clue about anything, teachers and students alike, so it's going to be an interesting few days to say the least! This stay has already taught me that you have to embrace life and just go out and live it, no matter how scary it seems. Go big or go home. There are admittedly times where it's tough, missing your friends, not being there to get your brother drunk at his 1st freshers week and help him settle into uni, even wishing to have someone from back home out here living it up with you and enjoying all these moments together. But all in all, it's been great so far. The challenges keep me on my toes, the adventures keep me excited, the drunken nights keep me laughing, and the internet keeps me in contact with those I love (no, I'm not just talking about being able to watch live Celtic games!). Murphy's Law just doesn't apply to life, fact. It's the most awful approach anyone can take to living it, and I can't say I agree with all aspects of it completely. To me, Murphy's Law only applies to certain scenarios where things go so badly that it's actually just funny, and you know you'll be laughing about it when the dust has settled e.g. getting anything done at ETEA, as it is the most backward, old fashion, complicated university system in the world. Strathclyde’s online saviour Pegasus has never looked so amazing! Bloody Murphy's Law!!!! Life however, it's bigger than Murphy's Law. I'll wrap this up with Morgan Freeman's classic from the Shawshank Redemption, "Get busy living or get busy dying." Simple as that, do what you have to do and just make the most of life. This Saturday I'm going to the beach in Malaga on our first Erasmus outing. I can't wait for it, and I'll be listening to "I'm on a boat" the entire bus journey, hopefully introducing it to everyone through the medium of my travel speakers that my sister got me at Christmas (coming in so handy, cheers Laura)- "cus I got my swim trunks, and my flippy floppies". The dream is to get a pedalo out with some of the guys, just so I can sing the song and mean it.....The weekend after that, hopefully it'll be Sevilla I'm in for the Old Firm. Busy times ahead. Thanks for reading, especially to my 9 loyal subscribers! Now here's hoping I find my classes tomorrow, as no, they are not published on the sheets......and I'm sure after reading this entry, this does not surprise you one bit!

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