spunky

special emphasis on this. 

weight lifting at the gym 5x week + cardio (either 1h or half an hour, depending on the intensity) 6x week. my husband used to play hockey so he's got a good grasp of how to train and he's been helping me out.
 
to be very honest with you, i hate every minute i'm at the gym since the moment i get there until i leave. but i hate to be out of shape even more (especially during the summer) so i just suck it up and keep going. 

favourite.line.EVER. somoene needs to use this as a facebook status or something like that

While I agree with some of the post above (specifically, it's hard to live abroad, and HR may not be very patient if they don't know the university's name), there are several things I think are too harsh, or too US-centric.
 
Actually, education is prohibitively expensive in the US, and much cheaper almost anywhere else you go. You should be wondering not why the MA is cheap in Spain, but why it (and worse, the BA) is so expensive in the US (hint: it's not about "American exceptionalism or bootstrap work ethic"). It's cheap in Spain and other parts of Europe because it is subsidized by the government, so that everyone, not just the rich--or people who are wiling and able to take out ridiculous amounts of loans--can have access to this important public good. In some countries students also get a stipend from the government, so they can concentrate on their studies and don't have to work.
 
Language skills vary from person to person. I think you could achieve a high proficiency level in one year, if you made that a priority. It sounds like you don't have to, though I agree it's probably a good idea to learn at least some basic level. While it's true that dealing with bureaucracy is difficult if you don't speak the language well, there are ways to solve this that don't need to involve giving up on your plans. For example, you can have someone local come with you for errands once or twice. If you move in with roommates, everything in your apartment will be taken care of (internet, gas, etc), you'll have ready-made friends to help read stuff you're confused about, and you'll just deal with the other stuff. Getting a phone is actually probably going to be one of the easier things to deal with, if you ask me. You can usually buy a sim card at any medium to large store. Moving sucks, generally. Regardless of where you move. Moving to another country is even more difficult, even if you do speak the language. So it's true that it's something to keep in mind, but it wouldn't stop me (and hasn't in the past) from going abroad for my education if I otherwise thought that's where I want to be. I'm still not convinced at all that the OP should go to Spain, but I don't think this is a good reason not to go.
 
Again, US-centric. This information is not going to be relevant to the vast majority of students/alums. If anything, I'm sure more Spanish students/citizens go on to work in other EU countries, and perhaps in South America, where they already speak the language. We're talking about one of leading universities in Spain, not a third rate community college in a small town. I think you made a good point about HR in the beginning of your post, which I don't think translates to further ed, but this one goes too far.

there are like SO many positive things out there that work!!! a gym buddy of man (who's a HUGE fan of Wentworth Miller from 'Prison Break') said his motivation was saying "i wanna look like someone Wentworth would consider dating".
 
imagine how happy he was when Wentworth came out of the closet a few months ago
 
i think right now i just abide by John Lennon's maxim: "whatever gets you through the night... it's alright"

well... i've been wondering since today in the morning whether or not i should answer your question because how i do it is not pretty, and i don't think i would recommend it to anyone but myself (i'm not even sure it would work in anyone else. i guess on some people, maybe).   as a disclaimer, i'm the least-likely person that you'd ever find in a gym. i have never been physically dexterous and i was always picked last for teams in PE. i also got bullied a lot. actually, one of the silver linings of the budget cuts in elementary/middle school was that PE was the first thing to go out the window. living a sedentary lifestyle plus not eating healthy made get heavier and heavier. i would always try to volunteer for people doing research in kinesiology and nutrition (i figured i could get a free personal trainer/dietitian) in order to get in shape, but the fact of the matter is that, regardless of what i tried, i always ended up falling off the bandwagon.   eventually i couldn't take it any longer and started doing something pretty sad: i fat-shamed myself. i would stand in front of  the mirror during the night, before going to bed, and would say horrible things to my reflection. sometimes i was so hurtful i made myself cry. after maybe a couple of weeks of doing that i stopped feeling sad and then i started feeling very, very angry. i was very angry at myself both for being so harsh and for not stepping up and *doing* something to stop it. it didn't take me long to start going to the gym rigorously, at 7am sharp, 2 hours monday to saturday. i'd learnt about proper nutrition from all my times as a research subject so i was also very strict with my food and knew what to get. if i felt a craving for stuff like ice-cream (which i love), it would trigger my anger and i would stop craving it. if i felt too tired to go to the gym, i would start feeling angry again and that would make me want to go. and long and behold the pounds started dropping and i started becoming thinner and healthier. eventually i didn't need to get angry anymore to do it because it had become a habit of my daily routine until i met my boyfriend (now current husband) who sort of took me by the hand to help me move forward in a healtheir way, emotionally.    years after that he told me that i played a very dangerous game with what i did, because i could have developed an eating disorder or just sink in depression. maybe he is right, maybe he is not. but all i can say is that i'm glad things turned out well because i finally feel the way i've wanted to feel all my life. so my motivation to keep going to the gym is the fear of falling off the wagon again and the self-hatred that would come with it.   you be the judge of whether that works for you or not. 

Finding the motivation can be a serious struggle for sure! Have you thought about working out at home? That's what helped get me to actually enjoy fitness.

My feelings exactly. I've been going 4x a week cardio+strength training (total 2ish? hours depending on time) for a good few years now and still hate it. Though watching Netflix while doing cardio has made the process 1000x more pleasant! I use the time to watch documentaries or catch up on TV shows

weight lifting at the gym 5x week + cardio (either 1h or half an hour, depending on the intensity) 6x week. my husband used to play hockey so he's got a good grasp of how to train and he's been helping me out.
 
to be very honest with you, i hate every minute i'm at the gym since the moment i get there until i leave. but i hate to be out of shape even more (especially during the summer) so i just suck it up and keep going. 

weight lifting at the gym 5x week + cardio (either 1h or half an hour, depending on the intensity) 6x week. my husband used to play hockey so he's got a good grasp of how to train and he's been helping me out.
 
to be very honest with you, i hate every minute i'm at the gym since the moment i get there until i leave. but i hate to be out of shape even more (especially during the summer) so i just suck it up and keep going. 

weight lifting at the gym 5x week + cardio (either 1h or half an hour, depending on the intensity) 6x week. my husband used to play hockey so he's got a good grasp of how to train and he's been helping me out.
 
to be very honest with you, i hate every minute i'm at the gym since the moment i get there until i leave. but i hate to be out of shape even more (especially during the summer) so i just suck it up and keep going. 

weight lifting at the gym 5x week + cardio (either 1h or half an hour, depending on the intensity) 6x week. my husband used to play hockey so he's got a good grasp of how to train and he's been helping me out.
 
to be very honest with you, i hate every minute i'm at the gym since the moment i get there until i leave. but i hate to be out of shape even more (especially during the summer) so i just suck it up and keep going. 

weight lifting at the gym 5x week + cardio (either 1h or half an hour, depending on the intensity) 6x week. my husband used to play hockey so he's got a good grasp of how to train and he's been helping me out.
 
to be very honest with you, i hate every minute i'm at the gym since the moment i get there until i leave. but i hate to be out of shape even more (especially during the summer) so i just suck it up and keep going. 

weight lifting at the gym 5x week + cardio (either 1h or half an hour, depending on the intensity) 6x week. my husband used to play hockey so he's got a good grasp of how to train and he's been helping me out.
 
to be very honest with you, i hate every minute i'm at the gym since the moment i get there until i leave. but i hate to be out of shape even more (especially during the summer) so i just suck it up and keep going. 

special emphasis on this. 

it's a predatory publisher. stay away from that. 

special emphasis on this. 

it's a predatory publisher. stay away from that. 

well, the general trend of the sample (N=3) of people who replied to this thread and own their homes shows that we all have a significant other in our lives who contributed to our home-owner status (which TakeruK addresses in point #4).
 
so now we know the secret for future grad students who want to own a home: get married! XD

well, the general trend of the sample (N=3) of people who replied to this thread and own their homes shows that we all have a significant other in our lives who contributed to our home-owner status (which TakeruK addresses in point #4).
 
so now we know the secret for future grad students who want to own a home: get married! XD

I'm the Mother of Dragons.... AND I WILL TAKE WHAT IS MINE WITH FIRE AND BLOOD

aside from your salary, is there anything else you could see yourself doing that people would pay you for?  your profile says you're in journalism. maybe something with social media/youtube? or even something less glamorous like proofreading other people's work?  diversifying potential sources of income is always a good move, even if it has absolutely nothing to do with your immediate area of expertise. like i found out i'm a good online retailer, even though it has absolutely nothing to do with my degree.

once a year is about right for me.... i gotta agree with the above comment of becoming prone to implosion if left with the family for too long. 
 
my mom and i luv each other  but we also hurt each other a lot, so placing some distance (a couple of countries) between her and i have worked wonders for our relationship. 

once a year is about right for me.... i gotta agree with the above comment of becoming prone to implosion if left with the family for too long. 
 
my mom and i luv each other  but we also hurt each other a lot, so placing some distance (a couple of countries) between her and i have worked wonders for our relationship. 

first of all, sorry to hear about the whole debt thing. this is truly a growing problem that nobody seems to be addressing quickly enough and will blow up on our faces.
 
i own my condo here in downtown Vancouver (Canada). there were two things that helped me out a lot. first,  my undergrad degree is in  STEM area (i did a double-major in Psychology and Mathematics) so I was able to find a work placement right after graduation and before i decided to proceed towards graduate school. i also chose my area wisely because as an undergrad i became very much aware that even professors with PhDs in Psychology are not trained very well in research methods and people in my program in Math/Stats had little interest in helping them out. so i figured that was a very big market where people were doing little incursion. 
 
the second thing i did (along with my husband) was opening an online business on eBay/Amazon. i had been doing this on- and off- as an undergrad so i had already built some reputation on both sites and once i graduated i just pushed myself to become really good at it and that has become my primary source of income. 
 
i think the combination of being self-employed + having and 'in-demand' major helped me save enough money to finally move out of the house we were renting and into our own place. 
 
as of today, i've managed to pay off all my debt (except the one i incur month to month on my credit card, which i always pay in full) and intend to stay that way.