judit walking down rambla de catalunya

i moved schools twice when i was growing up, and both times i was expected to know stuff at my new school that my last school had yet to teach.  i remember showing up halfway during the year in 4th grade and my new class was having a multiplication bee (kind of like a spelling be) and i felt super stupid because my last school hadn’t started learning multiplication tables yet – so i’d just spout out some random number to get it over with then sit down acting like i tried.  the next subject to suffer because of another move was geography.  i never learned where stuff is.  my former school had yet to teach it, my new school had already taught it.  so i just never learned it.  is it the schools’ fault for having different teaching schedules?  course not, it’s MY fault for not having the initiative to learn it after the fact.  but, nevertheless and notwithstanding – i still never learned my geography, including that stupid song about the states and capitals that pierces my heart every time i hear it.  the way i learn geography is from the maps on airplane TVs.  my first time out west i had no idea where oregon was until i saw it on a map halfway across the states.  i learned where japan was when i saw it on the TV en route to tokyo.  “where is ireleand?” you ask?  well i could have told you right after i saw it on the airplane TV as we were leaving JFK.  i usually pay pretty close attention to the maps, but for this trip the plane was kind of gangster and didn’t have individual TVs in front of every seat, but had community TVs and the one closest to me wasn’t easy to look at – so i didn’t.  because of it i didn’t even really bother to see where barcelona was.  i really don’t mind not know where places are.  i kind of like the novelty of it all.  it’s like every trip is a little surprise.  as it turns out on the airplane TV map on the flight home, barcelona is in spain – and that’s underneath france.  has been for a long time.