venga

i.

the temperature change is so gradual here. this morning i thought about wearing a skirt, but it was chilly last night so i figured it was still cold outside. i have on jeans, a tank top with a crocheted thing over it, a cardigan, the silk scarf cecile gave me for christmas. i stood in the sun waiting for the bus and thought 'it's cold' but also 'i'm not wearing a jacket anymore.' and i get a little bit mad that it's still cold, but that's because i'm used to louisiana, where you wake up one morning in march and it's hot for 8 months.

so this is what it's like to have 'seasons.'

ii.

on monday i did wear a skirt and i went to the secretary's office to see if i could get paid before the weekend. in january i had a 300 euro cushion in my bank account, because i spent dollars instead of euros over christmas. but after traveling, my euros have dwindled. i'm down to 41 and rent is due on monday. josé antonio said no problem, i'll pay you tomorrow.

then i had 3B and 3A. carmen and ivan came in late because they had been with a tutor. i showed carmen where we were in the exercise, and she nodded and motioned to me to come over, and she whispered, 'hoy vienes muy guapa.' it made me smile so big.

iii.

josé antonio paid me today and we talked about the seafood restaurant by the big lookout rock in salobreña. i haven't eaten there but i've seen them roasting pulpo over a fire. then salud came in bitching at josé antonio for not helping with recess, because they're missing teachers today. salud can't talk without yelling and has yelled at me at least twice. josé antonio didn't even look at her, he was like 'yeah yeah i'm coming ahora mismo,' and i was glad i'm not the only one who thinks she's a bitch.

iv.

agustín's been doing this really annoying thing where he says his throat hurts, so can i teach the class today? and then he grades exams. i actually like doing stuff with the kids; it only annoys me because it's a lie. he's making me teach the whole class so he doesn't have to grade exams at home.

so with the 5th grade we're doing directions and shops: butcher, bakery, bank, police (es)station. 

do you know i only just figured out why they add the 'es' before, for example, 'ski' and 'station.'

in spanish they say eski and estación and español, but they also have words that start with 's' - saldo, seco. i couldn't understand why it was so difficult for them to go straight to the 's' sound in english. literally the kids will look at an english word that starts with 's,' like Spain, and they will say: Espain. i'm like, no. stop. listen. SSSSSSSpain. and they go eSSSSSSpain.

so i'm on the bus yesterday and it dawns on me that the initial 's' in spanish words is followed by a damn vowel. that's why it's hard. i can't believe it took me so long.

v.

i reviewed the map exercise agustín had given them for homework, did transportation flashcards (hhhhhhhhelicopter), did an exercise in the activity book categorizing modes of transportation (by sea, by rail...), drew a modified map of the french quarter and did more work with directions: how do we get from maspero's to cafe du monde? i added a fortune teller somewhere along royal. then we did the alphabet (agustín's request). we went through all the letters twice and then i pointed to random letters (E, I, E, A, E, I, Y, G, J) - i gave them dirty looks when they said aaaaayyy for E and eeeeee for I and iiiiiii for A and they laughed. they knew i was trying to trip them up. those three vowels are so hard for them to keep straight.

then i taught them the alphabet song and they laughed when we did LMNOP. at the end of class they asked agustín why his class wasn't fun like mine. he looked really annoyed and said 'because ann is the fun teacher and i'm the boring one' and i smiled and thought to myself: gotcha back.

Comments

[Dominic]

yeah my best class this semester, with a profe from mallorca, has been hispanic cultural estudies.
and that's great that you're the fun one :D