Verano 2026: Grandes noticias
¡Hola mis lectoras y lectores leales!
Before getting into it, I have to say what a week it has been. Truly an emotional rollercoaster, to the point that there are now three versions of this blog, each with different stories, lessons, and points of view from the past week. But while things have not gone as planned this week, it’s a lesson that sometimes, instead of one lesson, life can give you them all at once: success, failure, anxiety, and excitement, all in one. Now I’m not going to bury the lead here: the big news is that I’m going to Spain again… with a fully paid internship!
I was pretty sure I was going to Spain this summer after an application that would have been hard to turn down, given what I thought was pretty unmatched experience. Without going into all the details, after the interview, I thought I had it in the bag. Every night I was looking for flights, every warm breeze was an imagined Spanish sun on my skin as I stared out the window of a train, every bad meal at the dining hall (they’ve been trying to get into Spanish food) was a reminder, and every buenos días was a rehearsal for an encore performance from last summer. The announcement of heading back played through my head every night. This blog was something I had dreamed about to the point that I knew exactly what it was going to say.
To quote the second draft of this blog, “We would’ve continued into the specifics about how the plane tickets were bought and how great the interview went, how supportive my family was of all of this, and the pure joy of telling everyone I knew I was headed to Spain again. But then they didn’t give me the internship, and suddenly the warm breeze felt cold, the dining hall food got that much worse, and it seemed like the photos on my wall hurt that much more.”
That was from last Thursday. A sentence I wrote on the verge of tears after an email of rejection, which placed me on the waitlist. It continued…
“I’m here with no plans, no prospects, and no Spain in my future, and I can’t help but mourn the fantasy, the what-could-have-been, while rapidly trying to figure it all out. Because I know the minute I hit the call button, I’ll break my heart again, and at the same time, my parents will give the lecture about eggs in baskets and what I should’ve done. They’re going to want the next steps.”
And that was my weekend. To be candid, there were some tears, some “why was I so stupid,” and a lot of reflection. It wasn’t about the job; it was about the fantasy, escaping the monotony of everyday life and going back to a place that brings back memories of excitement, awe, and overall happiness. And I just knew I had to go back.
Which brought us to today. I did all the grieving and was ready to find “bigger and better things,” as my mom said on the phone with me at 9:30 pm on Friday, when I finally worked up the nerve to call her. So today, I scoured the internet for all things Spain, considered studying abroad again in Bilbao or San Sebastián (I sent the applications), submitted a proposal to the Lewis Center for the Arts on a photographic series redefining the “global citizen,” and prepared to message every person I knew about what the heck I was supposed to be doing with my life this summer.
And at 3:00pm, as I had just gotten back to my dorm room after a long, boring social theory class and plopped down on my bed, I got the email. Congratulations! At first, I thought it was spam. After all, in my brain, waitlist = rejected. But nope, it was legit. And now I’m heading to Spain… well, Barcelona.
Funny how a day originally scheduled for applying for new jobs turned into writing a blog.
New for this upcoming season of Delia goes to Spain:
-A Residencia! Aka dorm living abroad. Not my choice of housing while abroad, but housing is provided for us, so it’s good enough for me.
-Cooking! No host family = no food. Hopefully, my cooking Spanish food practice will pay off. I might have to enroll in a cooking class this time around.
-A Job! No classes for me this summer. I will be working for PEMB – Pla Estrategic Metropolita de Barcelona (Barcelona Metropolitan Strategic Plan). If this sounds familiar to the research project I did last summer, evaluating the ayuntamiento’s programming and partnerships surrounding art and women’s participation in these programs, that’s what I thought.
-El norte! Looking over my map from this past summer, I realized I never had the chance to explore the northern part of the country. I might have to consult an expert on where to head this time around, but I’m thinking places like San Sebastián, Pamplona, Zaragoza, Segovia, Burgos, Leon, and Logroño. How I’m getting to these places from Barcelona, idk, tdb.
-Not getting lost!
What’s staying the same:
-The weekly blog!
-The photos: They really were helpful in so many ways this year, from photo contests to jobs.
-Counting Mercadonas: because why not? It’s kind of fun.
-Café con leche
-Postcards!
-El español. Pues, quizás un poco más español.
In other good news, I’m excited to share that I have been offered another job here at Princeton working as a photographer for the department of African American Studies, a job I applied to back in August. I had to go in today and get my “press pass”.
I’m also very excited to share that this Friday, I will be presenting my research on inclusive language for the first time at Princeton Research Day (think fun research posters + jargon). No idea if I’m actually ready for this (probably not, it was a spur-of-the-moment choice a day before the deadline last week, after some pressure from my research seminar prof). Anyway, it will be good practice and perhaps a great way to put some sort of a cap on all this work from the past few months. Let’s just hope that all the linguists and the Spanish department don’t come and ask questions!
So, what’s the lesson in all this: that life likes to play cruel jokes on us, it’s surprising, constantly in flux, and sometimes works out in the end, also never get cocky about a job until you have it, even when you are 99 percent sure you’re the candidate for the job.
Now, I have to get going on finding these plane tickets again, updating LinkedIn, and texting every person I know, so I’ll leave you here. Fear not, a more comprehensive blog of the month will be out in a few days, but for now, I just had to share the news!
Con gratitud,
