Spanish logic

People make rash decisions without thinking, that's just a fact.  But if something is done habitually, or with considerable forethought there is usually some form of thought process that went into the choice no matter how misguided the information was.  Sometimes logic is so terribly wrong that I just wish my face would melt off, this can happen if I am forced to babysit a whiney child, or listen to a Joe Liberman  interview (I admit, I sometimes listen to quotes of his just to make myself feel better).  But no matter what blather I'm hearing there is always some form of explination, like a child screaming for candy, or a man selling out his beliefs for a paycheck.  Sure it gets annoying, but in the end there is a desire or requirement behind the action.  But I'm coming to find that logic is not universal.  Spain operates on a different standard.  Sure they function on some of the same factors of desire and necessity as the United States, but there is another player in the decision making process here.  And I can only describe that player like this.  Meh.  The incomprable idea of laziness and/or impatience to make decisions is present in the United States but here it is a way of life.  Many prime examples of this exist in my day to day existence.

Walking down streets on the weekend presents a multitude of examples of Spanish logic.  There is, of course, men taking a whiz on the sidewalk aiming towards buildings, because the bathroom is just too darn inconvenient.  In addition to not having enough places to relieve themselves Spaniards need more places to drive their cars.  Just like revealing the one eyed trouser snake (Scientific name) in public is illegal so is double parking... well unless it's just going to take a minute.  Cars are routinely left in the center of one lane roads while the owner goes inside to a local store to grab a bite to eat or quick beer, because what's conducting a two ton automobile without a little fermented fun juice in your blood vessels?  The only people who can pass these impromptu road blocks are the ones on mopeds, and here they are everywhere.  Motorcycles and scooters provide a mobility and gas effciency that would make the logic of owning one brilliant, but again the Spanish can't wait even with those vehicals.  When roads get too crowded mopeds hop up onto the sidewalk and drive a couple hundred yards till they can return to the road, or reach their destination.  But no matter what vehical someone is driving, if they are in Spain, the red light is viewed as more a recommendation than an actual rule.  Because for a few seconds when the green light goes off for one lane everyone has a red light, so that means no one would be driving, so here they take advantage of that fact by continuing to drive.  I see no potential problems with that, unless of course people going different directions have the same logic.  I have only been in a car four times since arriving here, and for that I am glad.

After the weekend I'm waiting outside in forty degree (Farenheit) weather wearing shorts and a t-shirt.  If I had known I would be out in the cold for more than thirty seconds I might have worn a jacket, but I was going to school, so being outside for half an hour was not part of my itinerary.  I am, in fact, just outside the school's doors along with the entire rest of the shouting, crying, sleeping population of the student body.  Not everyone is locked out of the school, on the contrary, some people are locked in the school.  Students come to the doors looking like they have somehow gotten lost and spent the night in their cubby and now simply want to breath some fresh air.  But they can't.  Nope, in a great insight the school desided that not only would no students be allowed into the building before eight thirty, but if they some how do get inside, that is where they are going to stay.  So we wait for a pair of men who arrive at eight thirty to unlock the double door, but now that it's open it should stay open all day... at least it would according to logic.  Randomly throughout the day the doors are impassable.  Teachers probably just want a break from dealing with ungrateful adolecents all day, so once the annoying little explitives are outside the teachers want to keep them there.

On other days when dealing with students gets to be too much the teachers take a different course of action.  Rather than lock us out of the school, and out of their rooms, the professors decide that we can't annoy them if, they don't show up to work.  Sometimes all my  classmates and I are sitting in our classroom, waiting to start, for about twenty minutes, before we are informed that our teacher did not show up for that day and we have a free hour to do whatever we want.  No substitute no alternative class or assembly, we just chill or, better yet, leave.  Other days the teachers show up late which epitomizes Spanish logic, namely 'I'll get to it later.'  If something is supposed to start at 11:30, like my surf lessons (more on those later), then they will start anywere between 11:30 and 12:00.  Absolutly everything is run in a similar manner, except my host famliy.  They are half French and half Politician, and thus do not function fully under the system of Spanish logic.  They perfer events to start on time, and a regimented daily schdual, which is a shame, because I think I could really get used to Spanish logic.  I'd give some reasons why, but I think I'll just get to it later.