Howdy, ya’ll!!

I’m typing this up from my bedroom, wearing cozy sweatpants and an over-sized soft sweater with a hot cup of coffee and rain pouring down outside.

We have the day off today for the National Day of Spain.  When I asked my students why we had off today, the overwhelming answer was “i have no idea”, but in Spanish, because Gd forbid they answer me in English.  Haha.

Anyway, it’s been a nice morning so far.  I worked almost 10 straight hours yesterday and was out of the house for over 12 hours, so I was pooped at the end of the day.  My roommates went out for drinks since they could sleep in, but the only thing I wanted to drink was my Sleepytime Celestial Seasonings Tea on the couch while watching BOTCHED (Chapuzas Esteticas).  I slept in until about 10 am this morning and then jogged over to the gym!  SO…I joined a gym!

Everyone loves a good bathroom/ toilet selfie.

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you know I used to be a gym rat/ junkie.  I think I was slightly addicted, in both good and bad ways.  I loved going to the gym and got an extreme endorphin high, but also felt an insane amount of pressure to go, even when I was tired or busy or didn’t want to.  I felt panicky and irritable and like omg I was going to get super fat if I didn’t go.   I guess there are worse addictions and I truly did love the endorphins and I was strong and fast (ish), so there were good things.  And then- two summers ago- at the end of the summer, I got some sort of bug that made me feel extremely tired and I had no appetite.  I didn’t go to the gym for a month and then I moved to Spain and I kind of never went back.  I didn’t join a gym last year, but walked all over Madrid (seriously, all over!).  I average(d) about 9 miles of walking per day and I usually fit in 2 workouts per week.  Either running outside or some NTC in my house.  It worked for me and guess what?  I didn’t get fat!  And the guilt went away!  I actually lost a considerable amount of weight over the course of the year, most of which was due to the fact that when you don’t do high impact workouts for an hour each day, surprise- you don’t feel as hungry.  Or I didn’t.  This summer, I went home for six weeks and started going to the gym a little bit with my dad and when I saw my lack of muscle in the mirror, I was shocked!!  My muscles are gone!  So I decided to join the gym here and for only 25 Euros/ month, I can cancel at any time.  I still only go 2-3 days per week, but so far I am loving it.  I don’t feel pressured to go, but it’s a nice little endorphin kick when I do.The gym is nice and I don’t really have any complaints except two (major) things:  THERE IS NO WIFI!!!  (I understand if you go to a restaurant and there is no wifi, ok, talk to the people you’re with, but in a gym?!).  And the other thing is that the machines are low-ish quality which means that the treadmills take a long time to speed up and slow down so it’s really hard to do an intense interval workout.  I make it work, though 😉

Today, for example, I did 10 minutes of incline speed walking, 10 minutes of running intervals (1 minute at a sprint pace- increasing the speed by .2 every 10 seconds, and 30 seconds of a slow jog) and then one mile as fast as I could…which was 7 minutes and 30 seconds.  Haha.  Not very fast.  Then I did 30 minutes of NTC and was SO sweaty.  See first photo for reference.

Other than the gym, which I just told you alllllllllll about, things are going well!  During the summer, I was really, really excited to come back to Spain and do all the things!  Make new friends!  Be a fun teacher!  Teach private lessons (but not too many!)  Take Spanish lessons!  Travel!  Go out more often!  Go to cafes!  But then I came back and reality kind of smacked me in the face.  I am still doing/ will do all the things but it isn’t as easy as the picture I was imagining in my mind.  I work at school Monday-Thursday with this schedule:

Then travel home for 1.5 hours, eat lunch, and run right back out the door to my private lessons.  I like being busy and prefer being busy to having lots of down time, but my days are LONG.

I wake up to the sun barely coming up, get myself dressed, eat some breakfast, and go to school.  My classes are completely fine!  They’re even enjoyable.  But last week and on Monday of this week, I felt absolutely horrible all day.  I remember I used to get this feeling last year of “I think I was run over a train last night”.  It’s like pure exhaustion, to the point of feeling like a zombie – totally out of it and unable to focus on anything.  It’s a horrible feeling, especially when you know you have a long day of teaching AND private lessons in the afternoon.  And all week, I felt extreme hunger, which is odd for me.  Anyway, last week I felt a little bit down and like “how can I do this for another YEAR?  I am so, so tired, but I feel so spoiled for complaining.  My life is not hard!  Maybe everyone feels this way?”  Those feelings were really getting to me and making me feel like I can’t take on another year of this, but also worried about my health because being tired is one thing, but feeling like you can’t hold your head up is another and makes it difficult to do just about anything.  I was tired, a little bit hot, and completely nauseated off and on for multiple days last week.  I would be more alarmed, but this has happened my entire life at varying degrees.  Luis suggested trying a multivitamin, so I promptly went out and bought Multicentrum vitamins, which I take every morning.  My first day I took one, I was on cloud nine.  I felt great!

Hey, placebo effect.  But then Monday morning rolled around and, what do you know, I felt horrible.  No amount of coffee or water or food could bring me out of this haze, so I started to read online about waking up when you’re in deep sleep.  Apparently, it can f*ck up your whole day if you’re woken up in the middle of REM sleep.  I found an app that monitors your sleep and you choose a half hour window to have it wake you up and it will wake you up in your lightest sleep.  Maybe it’s more placebo effect and maybe it’s not, but I have been using it for two days and….so far so good!  Like I said, I worked 10 hours yesterday and felt great throughout!!  And that extreme hunger passed.  Today I feel good, as well, but I’m not at work 🙂  I’ll keep you posted on how it goes moving forward.

Hmmmm what else.  School is good.  Classes are good.  Teachers are nice.  Students are…students haha.  My private lessons are going well and I genuinely enjoy the classes, but I am having THE most difficult time organizing my schedule so that I can take Spanish classes and fit everyone in.  All of the parents want Monday and Wednesday classes, so I organized my Spanish classes on Tuesday and Thursday, but I also need to leave time to relax and have fun and do all the things like I mentioned above.  I don’t want to run around like a chicken with my head cut off.

Ah, I have written SO much!!!  I guess I had a lot to say.  I need to go hang laundry and return some way overdue library books and maybe take a nap.  All equally pressing matters.

Lastly, here is a picture from two weekends ago!  Such a fun night of hookah and dancing and smoke-filled lungs the next day 🙂

Thanks for reading…