Hey all!
Some time
has passed and a few of you have asked me what will happen with my blog now
that I’ve finished my studies. Well, the answer is I still need a place to rant
about this adult life I don’t
remember signing up for. Also, I hope something exciting and worth blogging
about will come my way because these past two months have been a bit of a mess.
Here I am to tell you why.
MOVING BACK IN WITH THE RENTS
As most of
you know, I spent August finishing my dissertation and sunbathing on the beach,
pushing all my troubles to the back of my mind. I went to Madrid for a few days
at the start of September to help Erin move in and explored the city on my own.
It was really nice and I also got to see Anastasia The Musical!
But.
Once I was
back home, I was back home. For the
past five years, I’ve been quite happy keeping myself busy and that hasn’t been
hard. I’d always had classes to study for, assignments to do, gym to go to,
rehearsals to attend, meals with friends and other engagements. A routine. Whenever
I had nothing to do, it was a break and not the norm. Now that I’ve finished
the masters however, it’s a little bit different. Don’t get me wrong, I knew I
would have to stay organised to keep myself busy. I wanted to do exercise and
meditation each day and I made a to-do list (love a good to-do list) with
things I wanted to accomplish over these few months. I knew I’d be at home
until after Christmas, so I wanted to make the most of this ‘down time’.
Well,
here’s what happened. First, five years make a hell of a difference. I’ve spent
five years living on my own, in foreign countries. Let’s just say I love
Tenerife and the good weather but I am finding living under my parent’s roof
again quite overwhelming. I like to be able to decide for myself, have a
routine, run my errands… All of which I
can’t really do without checking lunch times, who is driving where (we had just
one car back at the start of September and oh boy that was not great), shopping…
The fact that I’m pescatarian bordering on vegetarian now and trying to limit
my dairy intake also doesn’t help. For
some reason the concept of eating something different to the others when having
a meal together – that I can have veggies while the rest have steak – doesn’t
seem to be something feasible. I guess old habits die hard but it’s not that
much of a change: if you’re making chicken for lunch I’ll just double up on the
potatoes and side, no big deal… Still working on it. At least now that we have
two cars it’s much better, but I’m still craving independence. I can’t begin to
imagine what it must be for people who have had to and still live with their
parents, not such an uncommon situation in Spain…
Anyhow, I’m
now back home. Most of my ‘home’ friends of course now work and are busy or are
studying or working somewhere outside Tenerife. So there goes my old friendship
group. Time to find new friends to hang out with in the meantime. I’ve been
meeting up with those still in Tenerife of course, but everybody has been
sucked into their own lives (of course, to be fair. It’s me who is the stray at
the moment). At the start of the month I met up with a bunch of different
people to try to make a language tandem work. Most didn’t turn out, but one or
two did so that’s good. However, it’s such a massive change from Bath. For a
start, I don’t live in a student city so I’m pretty much commuting to La Laguna
every other day, but I also haven’t been able to find loads of activities that
aren’t super far away or that don’t start at 9pm. I have taken up a few though,
which I’ll discuss a little bit further on.
FIGURING OUT WHAT I WANT TO DO AND HOW TO DO IT
I was super
lost at one point towards the end of September. I’d began going through my
to-do list and either ticked off boxes really quickly, because I had nothing
else to do than speed through my Excel course, or simply ran directly into
walls.
September
and the start of October were quite bad mental-health-wise. I felt alone and
like I don’t really fit back into place at home, and I still do to a certain
extent. I know I’ve changed. I’ve changed so much during these past few years
and so have those at home, but sometimes I just feel like they don’t
understand. I’m still trying to talk things through and it helps but it’s a
slow process, I still find it hard. Moving back to Tenerife I already knew I
wanted to get out of here as soon as possible. This is just temporary, a sort
of limbo period until I find my next gig. Here’s what I’ve found.
- My next goal is the EU traineeships. I’m still applying for the Feb/March period so landing one of those would be a lovely plane ticket out of here. The process is slow and very frustrating. I’ve made it past the first selection round on three different occasions but have still been unsuccessful so far. Wish me luck.
- I need to work on my French. Let’s be honest, my French was real bad this year. Not just my active French but my understanding, particularly listening, needs quite a bit of work. Fixing that while in Tenerife is not easy, so since my French tandem friends have been a flop, I’ve taken on an hour of French conversation lessons a week. It’s made me realise how bad my French has become since final year… But I’m working at it, reading the French news and all that. If someone has good French podcast/TV series/film recommendations, please send them my way. Alternatively, for a split second after my latest existential crisis/breakdown a few weeks ago I toyed with the idea of going to France for a few weeks to a language academy, but it does feel like a waste of money given that I have a degree in French. I’ve decided that my plan B should the traineeships not work out, is to move to France and work there for a few months and improve the language just by being immersed in it. Hit me up with some recommendations as to what areas to start looking at.
- Finding a job is extremely hard. Also, you’d think studying abroad and having language knowledge would help, but it turns out the Spanish system is very, very flawed in this sense. This is why:
THE TRUTH ABOUT STUDYING ABROAD
It’s a trap
and that’s the real tea. If you think studying abroad will be an amazing
opportunity and that you’ll have a great education to bring back to Spain and
put to good use, I’ll say it loud and clear, DON’T. I absolutely loved studying in the UK and
would 100% recommend it, I think this blog is a testament to that. But if you
go abroad, stay abroad. It’s actually quite ironic that the government would
talk about brain drain and then make it so hard for those wanting to return and
become employed tax-paying citizens.
- There are no jobs. Surprise. Obviously not. Landing a job is very hard anywhere, but even if you have actually studied in Spain, finding a graduate job in your field is pretty much an illusion and that’s the cold and hard truth. Now, if you’ve studied abroad, this is just going to be a whole lot harder.
- Before the eyes of the Spanish institutions, I have no higher studies whatsoever. ‘What the h**ck are you on about, Zoe?’, you may ask. Well, if you studied abroad, no matter where, you need to request an equivalence of your studies for the Spanish government to say ‘yup, she’s done a degree, let her work in her field and access the resources for graduates’. I graduated in July 2018. I compiled all documents, paid all fees and submitted my file in December 2018. To this day, no information on that whatsoever. It’s been almost a year and there is no way for me to check at what stage of the process my file is. I have asked a million people and nobody is able to help. While I was in Madrid I even enquired in person and they said I shoudl send a message to ‘general queries’ on the Ministry’s website. That was two whole months ago and still nobody has got back to me. Of course, I can still have the degree on my CV and work with private companies, but I want to be a translator and interpreter. Guess what you need to attempt the official translator exams? You guessed it, a degree equivalence. No exam for Zoe in the near future. No access to useful government grants either. And that’s just my degree; I haven’t even attempted any paperwork to do with my MA yet...
- Oh, another issue? I signed up to the unemployment office to see if I could do some courses in the meantime. Well, guess what? They can’t put my degree on my profile because I have no equivalence, so I have no access to level 2 courses (for graduates) which would be the ones actually somewhat related to what I do. Oh the joys of returning to Spain. You’d think with the UK and Spain both being in the EU (at least for now lol) and the Bologna Plan this would be easier, wouldn’t you?
(Can you
tell I’m frustrated with this? Literally. Brain drain. And those who want to
come back they won’t let.)
FINDING SOMETHING TO DO IN THE MEANTIME
So, without
any institutional recognition whatsoever, I’ve resorted to the old ways. I’ve
sent my CV to pretty much all retail shops with no success and I’ve gone around
wrapping notice boards in the different faculties and around La Laguna to offer
translation services and English lessons. Results? I have one single student
and she didn’t even contact me because of the ads. Nothing else has come out of
those.
What else
do I fill my time with? I’ve been doing volunteer translations for different
organisations to try and build my portfolio. I’ve also scored a few contacts
for paid ones through networking, but nothing major. It still leaves me with
lots of free time.
After
checking off a few more boxes from my to-do list, I decided that since I wasn’t
realistically going to get a job anytime soon, I wanted to still have some sort
of routine. Cue in the volunteering. I signed up to Spanish Red Cross and have
been volunteering three times a week for the past month. A lot of commuting on
the bus and learning on the job, which hasn’t been easy, but it keeps me busy a
few hours a week. I’ve been assigned the Information desk in La Laguna so I
help the other clerk in dealing with the public, registering people, directing
to the different projects and campaigns. It’s…interesting…and stressful. I’ve
also done some food bank work, bucket collecting and even French interpreting!
That last one was great because it gave me a chance to actually use my skills.
I’m also interested in the environment, so along with another volunteer we’re
trying to kick-start the environment unit in La Laguna which will depend on
volunteer interes. So far, I’m ok with it. It’s all quite disorganised but I do
feel like I’m making better use of my time.
Finally, I
also tried to find some leisure activities to sign up for. Running started to
get a bit samey and I’m not one to go to the gym without a plan or coach, so I
looked for theatre or musical theatre schools or groups. No musical theatre.
Theatre school deadlines had already passed. Same for dance schools. So, I
joined a pole dancing class. I’ve been going for three weeks and, let me tell
you, it’s so much fun but also so painful. My legs have been bruised since day
1 and the nasty black marks don’t seem to be going anytime soon, but I enjoy
it. I need to work on my strength, but it’s great to have something to work
towards. Climbing up the pole, having enough strength to hold myself up,
mastering the cool spins and tricks. I like fitness when it’s fun and
challenging and pole is my solution to that right now. It’s also another social
thing to do; the girls in class are nice and I really get along with another
beginner, so it’s great to have a laugh when we both fail to pull ourselves up
the bar!
MY GOALS FOR THE NEXT TWO MONTHS
What next?
Well, my weeks now revolve around Red Cross work, my English student, pole
lessons and working on my translation and interpreting skills and portfolio.
I’m doing courses on different software, working on volunteer translations and
trying to revive my very neglected interpreting skills while I wait to hear
back about next year. My birthday is in two weeks although I’m not really
planning anything and I’ll be going back to Bath at the beginning of December
for graduation and probably blog that trip too, so keep your eyes peeled! I’m
looking forward to seeing everybody again J That’s pretty much my life until
January, but I’ll keep you posted!
Until next
time, remember you can also follow me on IG @zoeamz
Zoe xxx
