by Sara Carter
As our second full week living in Granada comes to an end, the initial novelty of being here seems to have worn off as local tendencies and places that initially seemed so fascinating and unusual have come to feel more like ordinary facets of our life here. Hanging clothes up to dry on our roof, which at first felt like such a charming and somewhat odd alternative to our clothes dryers in the United States, has ceased to feel at all unusual. I am no longer surprised to see families with small children sitting down for dinner at an outdoor café at 11 pm on a weeknight. The inconsistently-timed midday closings of certain retail establishments is something I have adjusted to accounting for, as well as the fact that the city barely exhibits signs of life before 8 am at absolute earliest! I have even grown more accustomed to living within the framework of the slower, more relaxed pace at which daily life here occurs relative to that in the U.S. though it is certainly a tremendous departure from that of life at home. Although this is indeed an oversimplification and certainly varies greatly by degree, it seems to me that in the U.S. there is a much greater pressure to do things in the least amount of time possible, particularly during the work week. This proclivity gives rise to a comparatively frenetic quality to life at home that I barely noticed until arriving here, where there doesn’t even appear to be any significant rush hour. Conversing with a few people here who have visited or spent a bit of time in the U.S. has confirmed this impression of a disparity between the pace of life here as compared with that at home and I have come to understand that this “frenzied” nature is a component of the perception of us that is often held outside of the U.S. Much as I must admit that I cannot envision this more laidback lifestyle being one that I could maintain in the long-term , it has certainly been valuable to experience life in an entirely different way than I have previously, rather than just observing it in the way that I likely would have if I only been visiting. I suppose it’s like trying on a different life for a few months. In addition to these other initial surprises that have now ceased to be noteworthy, the lack of internet access in our apartment is yet another substantial difference that we have gotten used to, as this is a fixture that seems unthinkable to be without in a living space at home (much as it shames me to say). Although it is not something that I tend to notice in the day-to-day, when I step back and consider how I already experience a sensation of familiarity upon returning to our apartment here, it is remarkable that such transition has taken place so quickly.
This is not to say, however, that my adaptation to life in Granada has been entirely flawless, as any new circumstances like this is effectively guaranteed to entail some degree of discomfort. I have found that the greatest challenge I have experienced in my time here has been the unanticipated hesitation I have encountered in speaking Spanish, particularly when in larger groups of people who are all engaged in conversation. Although I have for the most part quickly gotten used to the dialectical differences that characterize Andalusian Spanish and thus have little trouble understanding almost all of what is being said around me, I find myself at times powerless to produce much more than a flustered string of words when addressed. As someone who has always had great facility with articulating my opinions and sentiments, this anxiety and reluctance to express myself verbally has been immensely disorienting for me. I am admittedly a bit out of practice in the actual production of Spanish, given that the most recent classes I have taken in the subject at Penn State were in Spanish linguistics and therefore not especially conversation-oriented. It seems to me, however, that my trouble with speaking stems not so much from a lack of practice as from a rather pernicious strain of perfectionism I seem to possess that inclines to speak only when I am perfectly confident that I will be able convey my thoughts without error. The problem is that this usually results in silence. I have talked with the other PIRE students here about this concern and about how they have they been able to overcome such discomfort and they suggested to me that the best way to get past it is to ignore thoughts of making mistakes and just speak. I find that I am getting more comfortable in one-on-one interactions and hope that if I continue in this way I will be able to speak with greater ease.
The data collection phase of my project has finally gotten underway this week as I have begun to run participants on my experiment, which has given me a sense of efficacy in that I feel that I am concretely moving forward with my project. As Alvaro and I will be using the same group of L1 English participants and need some of the same behavioral tasks for our respective experiments, we have determined that the most efficient way to collect data will be to divide the tasks up such that we each run our own experiment along with a few behavioral tasks. We will therefore collaborate to run each participant such that Alvaro will conduct the first session and I will run the second one, which will consist of my self-paced reading task followed by 4 behavioral tasks on the computer. Although the lab space that Teresa Bajo, our faculty adviser here at the University of Granada, has access to is fairly limited even for the purposes of their own lab group, she has been extremely generous in providing us with a room exclusively for our use for the duration of our time here. At times we will even have access to 2 separate chambers, as there are currently 5 of us that are using the lab space and Amelia and Alvaro both require the chamber with the eye-tracking equipment to run their experiments. I am admittedly a bit discouraged that right now I am running fewer participants than Clair, Emily and Amelia who have had significantly less trouble recruiting participants and have thus been much more active in the collection of data than I have up until this point. I am sure that as we continue our recruitment efforts though we will be able to find more people to run, which will hopefully be further augmented by asking those that we do find if they know anyone else who fits our requirements and might be able to participate.
We also attended our first lab meeting for the members of Teresa Bajo’s lab this week, which was the first opportunity that I have had to see everyone in the group all at once, having met the group incrementally in a series of separate encounters. I found it to be quite similar in some regards to the weekly CLS meetings at Penn State, with one person presenting research they have been working on while the other members of the lab ask questions and provide feedback as to how they might improve or extend their work. In the same way that I often fail to understand absolutely all of what is being presented during the CLS talks due to my relative lack of experience with linguistics, there was quite a bit from the meeting that I failed to entirely grasp, especially because the presentation made frequent reference to statistical analysis. My less than perfect understanding may also have exacerbated ever so slight by the fact that the entire presentation was given in rapid Spanish… Regardless, I think that the experience of just sitting amongst the entire group and observing the dialogue that developed from the remarks and questions of different people was illuminating in itself. I suppose that I was not previously aware of the degree to which research can be such a collaborative endeavor, with this type of input from one’s colleagues serving to productively contribute to furthering one’s work. I’m looking forward to continuing to hear about the projects that other members of the lab group are working on as we continue to attend the weekly meetings.
Finally, (though this is perhaps not the MOST pertinent to research)this weekend marked my first acquaintance with the Southern coastline of Spain, which lies less than an hour’s car ride to the south of Granada. Although I am not typically one to be especially enthused by the act of laying in the direct sunlight for any extended period of time, this particular beach day proved an exception as it was our first “outing” of our time in Granada. As the work that we do for our research has started to develop, we have each increasingly been engaged in our own respective projects, so it was great to be able to spend an entire day with our whole PIRE group as well as a few friends from the lab. I will leave you with the attractive detail that I returned from said beach with a second degree sunburn, complete with extensive blistering, on both of my feet! Ciao!