“El gran problema del hombre...

...es que puede soñar como un dios pero que está sujeto a los limites del tiempo y el espacio.” The Borges lecture I attended this week brought back that quote, which one of my Spanish profes would recite at least once each class period: “Man’s greatest problem is that he can dream like a god but is subject to the limits of time and space.”

That particular line speaks to me at the moment, as I’ve got roughly three weeks remaining in Madrid, a little more time and a bit more distance to cover before getting back to Michigan. I’ve still got plans here -- one more week of school, a tour of bodegas around Madrid, a few more days in Andalucía to make it to Córdoba and Granada -- but my Spanish aventuras are definitively winding down. I’ve done what I’ve wanted to, and there’s still more to see were I to come back (which I most likely will). I’m quite content and am now looking forward to what’s next.

For starters, I’ve got an interview when I get back for a job I really want. (No details here because I don’t want to jinx it.)

And as of this past week, I’ve begun a position as an associate editor for the website Watching America. The site translates news about the US from foreign sources so that Americans have access to global perspectives on US policy. My role is to ensure that the translations I review read smoothly in English. My first edit, “Obama Facing the Arab Spring,” from a French source, can be accessed here: http://watchingamerica.com/News/105729/obama-facing-the-arab-spring/. The position is unpaid, but will be great experience and practice.

Yesterday a friend and I climbed onto the mirador in the Palacio de Comunicaciones in Cibeles. The coolest thing about it? From the heart of Madrid, you can see where the sprawl of businesses and apartment buildings end and the fields begin and from there all the way out to the mountains. It’s a view of the city I never get as I make my way through Madrid’s streets or beneath them in the metro. I forgot my camera, which is fine, as I hate to live through a lens anyway, would rather keep the picture in my mind where it can remind me that there’s more out there, beyond Madrid, beyond my year here.

It’s almost time for that.

But not quite yet.