física o química... some sort of strange obsession

Among the many things I've been up to lately (going to Aguilas, Barcelona, and London in the last three weekends being among the chiefly notable "things"), I have found myself becoming more and more confident and natural in my own práctica del idioma (loosely, "usage of the language"). In the past few weeks I've had many moments of fluid and coherent conversation in Spanish.  I don't find it a matter of vergüenza (shame) to admit that these moments come in between others that are not as great or as glamorous, for instance one in which I found myself studdering just trying to ask a Spanish couple if they'd been waiting long at a London Italian restaurant we were in last Friday night, but it's all a part of this happy progress. Granted that like my fellow bloggers I came to Spain with a bit of prior experience living in a Spanish-speaking environment, and thus I'm a bit more used to this process. Two steps forward with a step back de vez en cuando (once in a while), entendés? As I like to describe it, it's like starting up a car in the cold: the car moves regardless the temperature, of course, but it usually takes a little time for it to warm up.

One thing that I've added to supplement my understanding and immersion in the language this time around has been spending a little time in front of the television at least once a week. I say "supplement" because I do not think that television is the best way to straight up learn a language; for that you need context, conversation, and the ability to ask questions and check understanding in an interactive environment. It is certainly a fun way to test one's understanding, or at the very least, test one's comprehension of vocabulary.

Discussion of television's didactic uses and advantages or disavantages aside, watching television is something that at home in the states I never really did with too much regularity, and when there was a show that I did want to watch, it was usually in the comedic, cartoonish, or historical vein (Quite the spread there, huh?). True to form, I do find myself watching comedy shows and the occasional Garfield and Friends rerun on Saturday mornings. Plus I have been known to watch whole movies some Saturday and Sunday afternoons and all programs, and movies for that matter, that were written and produced in English are dubbed entirely in Spanish.

But the show that I've quickly grown addicted to is Física o Química (literal translation Physical or Chemical, as it pertains to relationships). It's a weekly drama about students and professors at an instituto (high school) in Madrid. It's the kind of thing Fox would run (or maybe the WB if it thought to be a bit more daring in its on-screen explict amorous behavior), complete with beautiful people, overly exaggerated situations, giving way to exaggerated problems, allowing for exaggerated acting-- you know, the sort of situations that could be so easily laid to rest with just a little bit of honesty-- but then, that's what makes a show like this so successful. And of course it's the show that all the pibes, chavales, and cool tíos y tías (slang for kids, teens, and cool and other assorted people) watch when they should be doing their homework on a Monday night. It's quite a bit of the pop-cultural tortilla española. hehe.

What's more, it's become something of a weekly tradition with my flatmate Mario and me: at 10:15 we sit down and watch the end of El Hormiguero, a comedy variety / current events show hosted conveniently just before FoQ (the popular abbreviation for Física o Química, and also the name of a fan-magazine about said show) on a rival channel so it can also grab some good pre-main event ratings, Mario with his computer and university classwork in front of him, me with usually just a bottle of water of my dinner if I haven't already eaten by then, and usually a bag of sunflower seeds between us.

The show starts at 10:30 and ends a little after midnight, as do other popular "prime time" television series. It's not actually much longer than an hour, but the commercial breaks add on extra time of course, each break's length is actually predetermined and told to the viewer as it is about to start, promising to take no more tha "30 seconds" or "one minute" or sometimes "5 minutes" (the imagination races to think what would happen to the channel's ratings should they go even a split second over this strict time limit...).

It's good fun, and I haven't missed an episode since beginning watching in mid-October. It recently finished up its second season, so naturally I had to ask a few questions about previous episodes, but it's pretty straightforward: girls like boys. boys like girls. some boys like multiple girls. some girls like multiple boys. sometimes professors like students... etc, etc. Sometimes someone comes down with some unfortunate disease, is found to be participating in some unsavory extracirricular activity, but it's all in a day's work for these characters.

Check it out for yourself, if you'd like. It's worth a gander.

Have a good week! Chau for now,

-Nick

links:

Official Homepage of the show

Física o Química on the Antena 3 webpage, the network that broadcasts the show.

El Hormiguero, for good measure (kind of a Jay Leno meets Conan O'Brien meets the Muppets type of show)

* note: all linked pages are in Spanish

Física o Química, Monday nights at 22:30 Spanish local time. check satellite listings (maybe?)