tomorrow is november and i'm late at designing a calendar
also things that happen when you live abroad and your language isn't in the top 20 most spoken ones
hello!!
Remember the calendar ideas I had a few weeks back? I’ve been working little by little on one of them and hoping to finish soon because tomorrow is November, and I wouldn’t want to finish it too late.
Last year I designed a calendar too (it got one sale on Etsy! haha) and I made it for myself too. I’ve been writing things on them but, of course, there are no further months after December, so I can’t write January and beyond’s events.
Before I had a calendar, I used to make and print 4 months at a time to view the whole semester at a glance. It’s very useful for uni, but it’s also useful as someone who lives abroad and goes home about 4 times a year.
I now made another one until February, which I already filled with all my university deadlines (ironic “yay!”). You know, just to remind myself to be anxious about them and stop living a calm life. But seriously, I find it so useful that I think others would too (I’ve sent previous ones to my chaotic sister before as a hint), if you want it, go get it, it’s free.
Anyway, enough rambling, I wanted to talk about the calendar I’m now designing. This design isn’t necessarily made for organisation, as I didn’t make spaces to write on, but more like a decorative calendar, if that’s even a thing.
Every month will have an illustration of a chair or some kind of seat with other objects around it, as if someone just left the field of view. The point is to make these scenes represent real life moments that could happen that month, giving a hint of someone’s imaginary life, or anyone’s life.
I’m not too sure about them being different colours. I like March’s blue, so I might end up turning all of them blue, or maybe black. All the colours together give me a childish vibe, but if I think about it, when hung you’ll only ever see one, and maybe then it’s good to have some colour variation every month. I’m just thinking out loud, I don’t know.
So far there’s a plant in 4 of the months, maybe I should think of other objects, too.
Also, don’t worry, I’m not putting a pumpkin for October, or a Christmas tree for December.
Living abroad sometimes brings kinda weird situations. At home, I’m the girl who lives in Germany, and in Germany I’m the girl from Spain. At home, most people around me see Spain as something outside of us, we don’t entirely identify with it, yet in Germany that has become part of my identity, in a way.
Also, when it comes to language, abroad everyone assumes Spanish is my language, and sure, I do speak Spanish pretty well since I was little, but it very much isn’t my language. I often forget some words, and sometimes struggle with pronunciation — or rather, my non-native accent is strong — because I don’t speak the language very often.
It’s a weird place to be in. People ask, “how do you say this in Spanish?” and sometimes I have to think about it or google it. I studied a year of high school in Italy, where I had a Spanish class, and the teacher wanted to give me a 10 because “how could I not? It’s your language” and although I was happy for that average mark boost, if you counted the points of exams, they didn’t always make a ten. I found that amusing.
It only starts to be annoying when they are aware I’m not a fully native Spanish speaker and my language is actually Catalan, yet when showing interest in “my language”, they’re still referring to Spanish. It just doesn’t make any sense. I wouldn’t ask a French-speaking Swiss how to say things in German.
But it’s not their fault. It’s unfortunately not common knowledge that Spain has four languages, sometimes it seems it’s barely even common knowledge within Spain. I guess that’s what happens when a dictator dies only of old age. The Castilian language, which mainly is called exactly that within Spain, is in other languages called Spanish, leaving the rest behind the scenes. When you think about it, it has the same vibe as calling the USA, America, as if America wasn’t the whole continent.
In conclusion, maybe I should just start always calling it Castilian, but then no one abroad understands, and I have to explain myself, and the whole point is I don’t want to explain myself. But maybe it’s what it takes?
Bit of a different topic than usual, and I may talk about languages in the future again, since this is not the first time.
Thank you so much for reading and remember you can earn rewards by sharing the blog! 🥰🫶🏼
Also, happy Halloween if you celebrate it!
How do you organize? Are you messy or organized with time? Or do you have phases of both?
Do you own a calendar? Does owning a calendar make us adults?
What is your favourite chair from the calendar? I think mine is August
April is my fav 💗