Category: notes

..myself from starting any more blogs. Punto pelota.

Wandering off topic again (“topic” meaning living, working, culture, traveling in Spain etc), but I had a totally revolutionary past few days, rebooting completely and, who knows, someone might find this list useful one day. So…

Last week I was mentally, physically and inspirationally 100% burnt out. I couldn’t imagine ever managing to come up with another interesting blog post or podcast idea, and the mountain of life/paperwork/un-fun crap that needed sorting out seemed insurmountable. I was wound up as tight as I’d ever been in my life, moody, snappy, obsessive about all sorts of ridiculous things, complaining all day, and generally pissed off.

How did this happen? Well, if you really want to know, I would say it was a combination of: trying to keep on top of far too many projects and streams of information at once, never taking a proper break, and quite a bit of latent emotional stress and mental exhaustion related to the death of my mother earlier this year. (Sorry for the heavy stuff at the end there.)

Then I heard someone mention the word ‘burn out’ on a podcast, and I thought, ‘that’s what I’ve got!’ I googled the phrase just to make sure of course, and yup, all the symptoms fitted. If you’ve got this far and you’re thinking, hmmm, burn out, that sounds about right, then maybe this list might come in useful. This is what I did to reboot, and how around a week later I feel about 100 times better:

Ben’s top 10 12 ways to reboot after total burn out / stress collapse (in no particular order):

1. Take a 90 minute to 2 hour walk every day in the park or countryside with enlightening radio/podcasts in your mp3 player/iPod. I was recently led to/discovered the following podcasts, and they were great, enlightening, inspirational, interesting: Front Row Highlights from the BBC (good solid BBC cultural interviews), NPR’s All Songs Considered (lovely music podcast), WNYC’s Radio Lab (philosophical sciencey stuff). Important: walk very slowly, don’t rush, and for at least 10 minutes of the walk, turn off the iPod and just enjoy looking at those magnificent trees/hills/people/fields…

2. Have at least one long hot bath a day. Have two if you want 🙂

3. Stop living and working according to your conception of other people’s expectations of you. E.g. “I must write 5 blog posts a week, people expect it”… Who cares what people might expect of you, you’re burnt out! Take your own limitations into account for once! There are no rules about what you have to do. Do what you can for a while!

4. Take some exercise. (I didn’t get beyond the slow walks, but even that helped no end). Oh, and stop drinking for a while. You can’t reboot with a hangover, even a tiny one. You need to wake up in the morning feeling GOOD! (Eat lots of really nice, healthy food too!)

5. Remove as much information ‘noise’ as you can from your life. I realised that certain activities lead to that nervous knee-tapping thing that nervy people get on first dates. You know, where your knee starts involuntarily bouncing up and down? I realised that trying to read through the 40 or so RSS feeds I was subscribed to on Google Reader caused this as soon as I opened the page, so I wiped the lot and removed Google Reader from my browser bookmarks. I stopped checking Facebook 5 times a day (by removing that from my browser’s bookmarks too), and only checked email once or twice a day. If you notice a tell-tale sign that something makes you agitated, remove its ass!

6. Destroy your “to do” list! Looking at my to-do list (in a text file on my computer) led to instant melt down, so I wiped the lot. About 100 items deleted in one fell swoop. I’ll remember all the important stuff, the rest is gone, the world goes on, hurray!

7. Get up later whenever you can. Just for a while. You can get up super early again next week, when you feel better.

8. Go to the cinema. I saw the wonderful Death at a Funeral. Laughed so hard I cried!

9. Enjoy music and sofas, at the same time. Or your cat. Or garden. All immensely therapeutic stuff.

10. Work out what burnt you out and what you are going to do about it. Do that thing less or more efficiently. How are you going to make it fun again? Can’t? Make changes, no matter how impossible that might seem, or how big they might have to be. Can’t advise much on this one, only you’ll know what to do.

11. Get others to help out with things that need doing while you reboot. A million thanks to everyone who sent in posts on the worst of Spain last week to keep this blog going.

12. Take up the guitar! OK, that’s what I’m doing, but I bet there’s something you’ve always wanted to do, learn, start. Make time for it. It feels so good to be learning something different and new again, and something off-line! I’ve always wanted to do something musical and at last I am. What about you?

Well, that lot worked for me, I feel pretty energised again. (But cautious to keep applying the above for, well, forever would probably be a good idea…)

Any thoughts?

There have always been two reasons why I like the band Radiohead. Firstly, I love the music (and started loving it before I was 28 which, apparently, is when our music tastes freeze for all time). Secondly, I went to the same school as they did, Abingdon school, and knew Jonny, the guitarist. He was in my French A-level class. I bought one of their fist demo tapes (eventually sold for 600 pounds on ebay to pay for my Charity India motorbike trip), and my friends and I went to all their early Oxford gigs, some before they were even signed and were still known as On a Friday….

Now I have a third reason to like them. They have just completed their latest album, to be released on October 10th. So what? So, they are releasing it on their own, with no record label involved, via their website. And guess what? You decide what to pay for the album. If you go for the digital download option and click on ‘view basket’ you see empty boxes where a price should be. Clicking a question mark next to the empty price boxes elicits a new page saying ‘You decide’, and again, another question mark links to a page saying, ‘No, really. You decide’… and so it is, the fans decide how much they want to give the band for their new record. I paid 5 pounds to pre-order mine (which I reason is more than the band would normally get from their cut of a CD sale), and will get an email on or before the 10th with my download link.

So, not every band has the clout to make this work, but this is obviously a revolutionary move, and just how the music business ought to work: ditch the greedy labels, and make the fans happy to pay you for your work. No matter what happens/what people pay (and I’m sure Radiohead will come out very happy from this new way of selling their music), they will still make a fortune on the concerts that will follow and the admiration this will inspire. So it’s win win for them, and win win for us!

What do you think?

South of Watford has a great map and explanation of three incredible treks through the Picos de Europa

Our latest open forum question asks: What’s your Spanish learning program?

Show Me… Spain on Spanish dress sense: “Suit & tie – conservative, suit sans tie – socialist, no suit – communist.”

BBC: Spain police seize Basque leaders

Our Notes in Spanish – Phrase of the Day Facebook app has over 11,000 users! Have you added it yet?

The New York Times has a good run down on Bilbao

Andalucid is Chumbo hunting!

Abadia Retuerta (from our winery podcast) wants you to win their salt!

Mojacar-based Lenox writes at the Spanish Shilling: “There are, broadly speaking, three different types of Britons coming to Spain – if you consider this part of the Iberian peninsular as being ‘Spain’ since most towns around here now have more foreigners than they do locals.”

And finally… our latest advanced Spanish podcast on the Spanish education system mentions a subject I have always found quite amazing – that it seems quite common for kids to cheat in exams in Spanish schools. This usually involves the typical scribbled notes on the hem of a skirt, the palm of a hand, even etched onto the side of a biro with a pin! And what are these secret cheat-notes called? Una chuleta, yup, the same word as ‘meat chop’!

Mostly our Notes in Spanish podcasts get pretty nice comments, but every few months we get a classic piece of feedback in the mail:

Author : anonymous
Comment:
i hate these podcasts, acutally i dont hate them, i just hate the idea of them, because i have to do a summer assignment for school based off of these stupid shits.

i’m sorry i’m sure you’re nice people and all, but i’m sick of these, and i’m sick of looking at the transcripts and having to translate half of this stuff online and its like one in the morning and i’m tired as hell and i wish you had never made these.

Every now and again we like to invite any questions you might have about living, traveling or working in Spain, and we promise to answer them as best we can! While I usually ask for questions to be put in the comments below, today I really encourage you to come and join in at our forum.

The depth of knowledge in there is amazing, everyone is very friendly, and between us we can answer just about anything related to Spain and learning Spanish! So, if you have got any question you’d really like answered about Spain, register in our forums and ask away, we’d really love to help! Access our forums here!

Just a quick bit of news from our sister site Notes in Spanish. After a long break over the summer our Advanced Spanish podcasts are back!

Listen to the latest episode here, or read the full news bulletin in the forum.

Have a good weekend 🙂

Yesterday marked the 9 year anniversary of my arrival in Spain. Moving here was the best decision I ever made. I remember that on the day I left my friend Jono took me to the station in Waterloo to take the train to Paris, from where I would take another to Madrid. He told me that I was incredibly brave, which I thought sounded ridiculous. It didn’t feel brave, it felt completely insane! Anyway, the photo on the left is me at the Jerez sherry fiesta in May this year, in my element, en mi salsa, feeling pretty damn good about having made that move. If you are thinking about doing something similarly insane, just do it! Things can only go horribly wrong, but chances are they will go horribly right.

Oh, and I’m 35 today, and still feeling about 28, thanks, no doubt, to the good life in Spain 🙂

Spain’s state-owned Parador hotel chain is supposed to offer a selection of the finest hotels the country has to offer, often in beautifully restored historic buildings. There is usually a restaurant of varying quality within, and rooms tend to be spacious and clean (especially the bathrooms, where hygiene labels are slapped on everything – see above!)

But Paradors are increasing in price, and are not the bargain they used to be. Typical summer rates hover around the 130 Euros mark, and the big guns like Granada and Santiago de Compostella can charge over 300 for a room. Yes, you can sign up for the “under 30” or “5 night card” special deals, but only if you can work out the mind-boggling chart that supposedly explains when to make the most of these. So the question remains, are Paradores worth it?

Well, what makes a Parador worth paying for? It’s either the location or the building, and preferably both. Staying in an old castle, for example, is cool, especially when it has exceptional views over endless dry plains. With this in mind, below are two lists, including all the Paradors we have stayed in, explaining why we think these Paradors are either worth the cash, or worth avoiding. Hopefully you can help expand to the lists in the comments.

Paradors worth the money

• Malaga Gibralfaro – Stunning location, amazing views of city and sea, great pool
• Jarandilla de la Vera – Beautiful old castle in a quiet town
• Carmona – Stunning views of the Andaluz plains, peaceful Andaluz town
• Santiago de Compostella – … if you can afford one of the good rooms…
• Gredos – Lost in the sierra north-west of Madrid, real escapism – not for all tastes!
• Trujillo – Peace and quiet in an old convent in a pleasant Extramaduran town

Paradors worth skipping

• Cadiz – Overpriced modern monstrosity
• Argómaniz – Boredom in the Basque country
• Siguenza – Lovely old castle, nearly makes the mark, but the town is a little dull
• Arcos de la Frontera – Again, so nearly makes it, with amazing views and a picture-perfect white washed town, but finding a cockroach crawling over my bed at 4 a.m. tips this one off this list

To locate all of these check out the Parador list and map at the Parador website. Can you help to expand on these lists from your own experiences?