Tuesday
November 6, 2007
The weekend of the concerts was the first time where I really felt that I have gotten past the frustrating aspects of the city and started to really enjoy it. Going to see Jorge Drexler was the first big city/latin opportunity I feel I took advantage of, but the weekend of the music festival and The Cure was distinct because not only did I see some amazing bands, but I hung out with a lot of locals and did some activities unique to the city. Also that weekend, now that I am looking back on it, was when I started to realize that I was beginning to have some pretty well established friends.
The motorokrfest started early on Friday so to help me out, Homero (a friend of Mauricio from high school) picked me up from school on his way down from Toluca. He and his and Mau’s friend Alejandra was with him too. I had met Homero twice before. The first time was at a bar in Toluca and the second time was when he came to town for a conference. Hanging out with Mau’s friends is always great because I learn more Spanish, I learn more of the subtle cultural intricacies,* and they’re fun. Mau noticed after seeing me with both his high school friends and his college friends that I seem to be more comfortable with the former group. Recently I have been thinking about it and I think that since they’re from high school and not from his political science college, they are more diverse. For example, Homero is an architect, Marlen is in marketing, and Tavo works for a Japanese car company. I ended up getting to know Homero and Alejandra quite well on the way to the “Foro Sol” since the traffic was horrible. He picked me up at 3:30 and we arrived around 5:30 or 6:00. I always thought it was going to be a tough transition when I finally get settled somewhere and I no longer have the 8 minute bike ride to campus and the 2 minute bike ride to work at the Inn. However, living in Mexico City is going to make living nearly anywhere else a breeze when it comes to my future commute. I can’t wait to be able to laugh at myself in retrospect. Until then, I will take advantage of the traffic and get to know my traveling companions.
The concert was unbelievable. The baseball stadium wasn’t completely packed but I do remember walking to it from the pedestrian overpass and seeing the sea of people on the field in front of the main stage. The most impressive thing was not the amount of people, but the fact that of this crowd of people, all I could see was black hair. Yep, I’m a white girl in the middle of Mexico City. The other striking thing was that for the first time since I graduated college, I was actually surrounded by people my age. It was a fantastic feeling.
Of the bands I saw, I was mostly impressed with the Killers, Molotov, and El Instituto Mexicano del Sonido. Incubus wasn’t too great and The Dandy Warhols, although I have gotten to love their music, played too early for them to really rock. Being able to see Molotov was a very special experience. One thing I will always remember, which is one main point that separates the Mexican Indie/Hipster crowd from their American counterparts, is that in the US, an indie crowd would never listen to the hip-hop/rap/rock that is Molotov. But, Molotov is so important to Mexican culture that no matter what music you prefer, if you are young, liberal, and Mexican, you are going to rock out to Molotov.
In addition to giant cups of beer that were sold at the Foro Sol, fans were offered quite the selection of snacks. To accompany your Sol or Indio, you could enjoy a doughnut, Cheetos, personal pizza (Hawaiian or pepperoni), or a cup of hot ramen. Yes your read correctly, Top Ramen, or Maruchan as they call it here, is quite the popular (and apparently normal) concert snack. At the The Cure concert which was in an indoor stadium called the Palacio de los Deportes, vendors were selling candied apples as well as Ramen, beer, and doughnuts.
After the Friday night show, Homero, Marlen, Tavo, Alejandra, Mauricio, and I went out for tacos in La Condesa. The next day we met for a late breakfast in the Mercado of Coyoacan. To get there, we decided to give Alejandra an introduction to the metro of Mexico City. Although it was just one stop, we figured that since it was a tranquil Saturday morning, it would be a good first time for her. It made me happy that I, as a gringa, got to teach a Mexican the ways of public transportation. Breakfast was frustrating as I am still not in love with much of the food here. They all had quesadillas and I ended up having chicken soup. After eating we all walked around Coyoacan (my favorite place) and parted ways since Alejandra had a meeting she had to get to back in Toluca that afternoon.
My day didn’t stop then. Mauricio and I headed back to his apartment just in time to have lunch (yeah – and I wonder why I haven’t lost any weight here) with his parents, Sergio, and his girlfriend Alejandra. His mom had made delicious taquitos de papa, pollo, y frijoles. I love spending time with them because we laugh and joke a lot and they make me feel very comfortable. One interesting conversation we had was about sleeping on the job. Sergio Sr. used to go to the movies during the afternoon just to get some sleep between shifts when he used to work longer hours. To this day, apparently, he can’t stay away when he goes to the movies. Sergio, being that he is in residency, obviously sleeps often at the hospital, and I told them of my long naps in the corner of my classroom. We joked that some morning my kids are going to walk in on me sleeping at one of their desks. This conversation made me realize that I need to start cracking down on the “don’t come in if you don’t see me in the classroom” policy that I have loosely established with my students.
Later that night I went to a Halloween party that Sarah threw. It was great to be able to balance Mexican social gatherings with more international ones as I am happy to be able to speak English every once in a while. I have so much more to tell but it’s late and I need to start thinking about my field hockey and Day of the Dead entries.
Good night and as always, comments are welcome.
* One example, which I haven’t quite gotten used to (and have suffered as a result), is that in Mexico, friends say cheers (salud) for seemingly random reasons. In the US, saying cheers is a somewhat formal act. The custom, at least for me and the people who have taught me, is to look everyone in the eye, say cheers, and take a drink. If you don’t do one of those things, you are either considered to be rude or are stricken with bad luck. Here in Mexico, someone will propose “salud” for whatever les da las ganas. People say “salud” if a random feeling of happiness overcomes them, if someone shares a good memory, or even if someone spills. For pure reasons of survival, and sobriety, Mexicans don’t always drink when they clank glasses. That’s where the suffering (if you can call it that) comes in for me. Holding true my superstitions, I have had to adjust my sip size when drinking under conditions where much “salud” is wished upon by my drinking companions.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Photos from my concert weekend
Some of my 5th graders workingEating breakfast with Mau's friends who went to the concert Friday night
My 2nd grade class
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Soccer Stress and Late Nights
Sunday
October 14, 2007
It is Sunday afternoon and as I wait for my various loads of laundry to be finished, I will write. Right now I am sitting on my sheetless bed, listening to The Cure, The Killers, Austin TV, Porter, and Molotov. Essentially, I’m cramming for my upcoming weekend of Rock en Español and international rock. You see, there is a huge festival on Friday called “Moto Rokr Fest” (http://www.motorokrfest.com/). It is being held at the “Foro Sol” which is the home of the baseball team the Diablos Rojos del Mexico and host of many Mexican League baseball games. The park is in the central east part of Mexico City. Bands such as The Killers (Las Vegas- http://www.myspace.com/thekillers), Incubus (LA- http://www.myspace.com/incubus) , Molotov (DF- http://www.myspace.com/molotovoficial), Porter (Guadalajara- http://www.myspace.com/porterbank), and The Dandy Warhols (Portland, Oregon- http://www.myspace.com/thedandywarhols) will play. Mauricio, a bunch of his friends, and I are going and I’m trying to do as much preparation as possible before the concert. On Sunday, the Cure is playing at the Palacio de Los Deportes. I’m going to that too. I better rest up this week.
Speaking of rest, I woke up at 1pm today. Last night I went to a party in a neighborhood very far away. Mauricio, Sergio (his brother), Alejandra (Sergio’s girlfriend), and I left the house around 10:30 last night and arrived around 12am. We had a tough time finding it because not only was the house far away (near Santa Fe where I work) but it was very complicated and they hardly ever go to that area of the city. The whole time we were looking for it I was secretly hoping that we would get more lost because I was really enjoying the ride there. Alejandra and Sergio are super fun and I hardly ever get to see them because medical school takes up the majority of their time. It was a beautifully clear night and the further from the city we got, the brighter the stars and the nicer the houses became… and the more lost we got. It was great. I felt like I was back in middle and high school where the ride to the houses in the foothills was often more interesting than the parties themselves. By the way… thanks, mom. I now realize how difficult that must have been for you.
The party was super fresa. The host of the party has a brother who is an architect who is finishing up a house in a fancy neighborhood in the hills of the eastern part of the city. Before they put the finishing touches on the house, they decided to throw a party. It was pretty extravagent. They bought a smoke machine and had lots of lights and really bad music. I danced a lot since that was the only thing to keep me from getting annoyed with the music. Our group was a lot of fun because Sergio and Alejandra love to dance. We joked around the entire time; it was great!
Unfortunately, the ride home didn’t take nearly as long. I was in bed by 4am. Yesterday was a pretty relaxing day. I slept in (after going to bed around 4am), had an obscure late breakfast/early lunch of fried rice, pomegranate seeds and coconut (from the del Valle tianguis), and went to Chapultepec to run. On Tuesdays I have been running with a coworker of mine named Marissa. She and I go to the 3rd section of the park which is pretty tranquil since it isn’t in the famous part of Chapultepec. This weekend I convinced Mauricio to go running where I usually do since I didn’t like Viveros (near Coyoacán) where we ran last Saturday. The area of Chapultepec where we went (http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=19.421768,-99.184613&spn=0.019571,0.029273&t=k&hl=en) is better because there aren’t as many people, it is visually more interesting because the tracks aren’t completely flat, the area is prettier, and there is a lake you can run around if you get bored of the dirt tracks. Next week I hope to run in the part of Chapultepec with the castle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castillo_de_Chapultepec).
Friday was an excellent day. I got an average amount of sleep (5hours) because I was out until midnight eating dinner the night before. I found an Arab restaurant in my neighborhood so Mauricio came by after work so we could check it out. The restaurant was strangely decorated. At first, all I noticed was as mural on the wall across from me with a desert scene with typical images of camels and people looking thirsty. But, near the end of dinner, I looked behind me and saw that there was another series of paintings. One part was of a rain forest and the other was of the ocean. They had 3D decorations in the corner of a jaguar coming out of a tree and further down the wall there was as an aquarium. The food was pretty good and the service was good for the first half of our meal. The reason for this is because right after we received our appetizers, a group of about 12 came in and sat down in the back. I was shocked because one of the guys who came in was someone I actually recognized from a novela I had seen literally two times. I remember him vividly because in the scene I saw him in his character was a disgusting man who was hanging around his swimming pool with a dozen women with huge breasts and tiny bikinis. In the scene, he had on tight white pants and a shirt buttoned only half way up. Which, by the way, is how a third of the people at the party Saturday night were dressed… fresas. Anyway, shocked that I actually recognized a famous actor here, I had to keep myself from looking back and therefore didn’t get a great view of the beautiful artwork on the walls. Later, Mauricio explained that he was probably the least famous of the people we saw at the restaurant that night. Anyway, after that group came in, we pretty much said “good-bye” to our waiter. The food was pretty good but I am excited to try some other Arab places before going back to Adonis.
School on Friday was fine. I usually play with the kids on Fridays and the day is usually much easier because of that. This week we I did Mad Libs with the 3rd graders. At first I told them we were going to play and they got really excited. Upon receiving a piece of paper full of text, their expressions of happiness suddenly turned to disappointment. I knew it would only take them a few minutes to come around and sure enough, they were coming up to my desk half way through their story just to show me what they had so far. They had a blast reading them out loud to the class. Some even got up and pretended to film their classmates while they read. This made me realize that a video project would be great for my 3rd graders. Early this week I am going to send the kids home with a letter asking for their parents’ authorization to work on a movie.
Classes went well on Friday but soccer was STRESSFUL. The big troublemaker, who goes by “Pollo,” actually came and I was happy that she did because if I can figure out how to work with her, she will be an important asset to the team. To explain who Pollo is in one sentence, I guess I would say that she is the rebel of the school. She tries to act macho, never comes to school, and likes to flaunt that she has money. Apparently she boxes and rides horses on her free time. I really like Pollo and would like to get along with her (I think she feels antagonized by the other faculty members) but I get extremely frustrated during practice when I have to spend half the time giving her special attention. For example, the day she came last week, she came late and I had to leave the team alone to scrimmage because I needed to run the steps of the amphitheatre again to make sure that she did it. I have no problem spending time after practice to talk about how she is doing and why she didn’t participate or what she enjoyed about practice, but during practice, I simply don’t have time. This has caused a lot of problems because if I don’t have time to talk 1 on 1 with her, she gets upset and says that I am not being reasonable with her. On Friday she arrived on time and ran the 7 summits (subidas sounds much better in Spanish) of the amphitheatre but after the two minute water break, she came back to the field talking on her cell phone. I asked her to hang up and come to the center of the field to divide up the teams for a scrimmage and she said, while still on the phone, “just a minute.” I said, “no, you come now or you won’t play,” and that was that. She got all upset and tried to make it sound like I’m the one being unreasonable. This wasn’t the only source of stress. Two other girls, Marisa and Fernanda, also miraculously arrived on time to practice. But, when I gathered everyone to go to the amphitheatre, they were nowhere to be seen. When we returned to the field to scrimmage, they were back fully expecting to play with us. I asked them where they were and they said, “es que no nos gusta correr” (“it’s that we don’t like to run”). I said, “Then you won’t play today” and had them leave the field. At first the simply muttered some things under their breath and refused to leave the field. I was caught in a tricky situation because normally this behavior is unacceptable but both the headmaster and the assistant principal (remember the principal was fired during the first week for sexual harassment and bringing alcohol in a water bottle to campus) are away and I didn’t know who to go to about behavioral problems. Also, I didn’t want to have to leave my girls alone to scrimmage for a second Friday in a row. So, I let Fernanda and Marisa off the hook. It didn’t take them much time to leave the field because they remembered they could chat with the boys from volleyball who were doing nothing because their coach, also the athletic director, quit a few weeks ago.
After practice I had a 15 minute discussion with Pollo. I explained my point of view and she explained why she got upset. One thing I have been trying to express to her is that I don’t know her history and I don’t know what people say about her in the high school. First of all, because I don’t care and don’t discriminate, and second of all because I don’t teach in the high school. She seems to automatically assume that teachers expect nothing from her and this is a problem because I treat her like the rest of my students. I explained to her that it isn’t fair to the other girls if I have to take time to run with her because she arrives late etc. I can tell that she wants to play soccer and the fact that she ran the entire time with us (considering the fact that she smokes, is out of shape, and was wearing Crocs) shows that she is willing to give a significant effort. I was really happy to be able to talk 1 on 1 with her and hope that every practice she cooperates like the rest of the team.
The scrimmage was exhausting. They finally fixed the synthetic field and since we scrimmage on Fridays, it was a perfect opportunity to inaugurate the field. Normally, for a scrimmage of 3 on 3, I would use half the field. But, a few of the players on the boys team, who do assume a level of superiority and privileged when it comes to equipment etc. were hassling me to let them use the field since they had a game that afternoon. Having experienced the machismo of the University of Costa Rica soccer program, I know that if I let them use even half of the field on Friday this will slowly convert to the entire field on Monday, more than half of the cones and pennies on Wednesday, and the better soccer balls on Friday. So, since I was already bitchy (my actions would be resemblant of strong and respectable character if I were a guy) enough to refuse them use of the field, I knew that we couldn’t just use half of the field for our scrimmage. So, the 6 of us busted our asses (well, I did at least) during the scrimmage just to take advantage of the entire space.
During the entire scrimmage, the boys who weren’t playing shouted things on the sideline. They were “positive” soccer-related remarks but all were thickly coated with sarcasm. I would have taken measures to stop them as the comments were enraging, but again, I didn’t know who to go to and I didn’t want to leave my team alone when time to scrimmage was quickly running out.
I was so stressed by the end of practice, and saddened after my conversation with Pollo, that I knew my only way to relax would be to stick around for high school lunch to play basketball with the boys. Usually on Fridays, since I’m already dressed in sports clothes from soccer, I stick around to play basketball with the few high schoolers who are actually nice, mature, and respectful. On Friday I played 3 on 3 with D. a super cool guy from Queens, two tall Brazilians from São Paulo, a humongous Korean we call Yao (for his size, not his nationality) and a small Mexican who was the perfect opponent for me. I had an absolute blast not only because these guys are cool, but because they aren’t too good and I actually contributed to the scrimmage significantly. Needless to say, I was exhausted afterwards and felt great.
When I got home that afternoon, I took a big nap so I could enjoy the night. First I meet up with some of the high school teachers at Aaron’s (from Oregon) apartment. Around midnight, we went to a bar in the Centro where there were a few rock bands playing. Two of the bands were really young and it was obvious that their parents and grandparents were there. The bar was a total dive. It was a big room named something like “El Torero” and had gigantic (10ft x 10ft) paintings of bullring scenes and framed statues of old kings and bull fighters. If I hadn’t been drinking, I probably would have been more freaked out by the scene. I loved ever second of our time at that bar. Don, I can’t wait to take you there.
I’m going to conclude my entry as I have to hang up my last load of laundry and get dressed to go and see a movie called Stellet Licht (Silent Light). It’s a film by Carlos Reygadas and it takes place in Northern Mexico. The main characters are Mennonites and the movie is in their native Dutch. It won the Jury award at Cannes and I think it’ll be up for more awards throughout the year. Luego les cuento qué tal.
October 14, 2007
It is Sunday afternoon and as I wait for my various loads of laundry to be finished, I will write. Right now I am sitting on my sheetless bed, listening to The Cure, The Killers, Austin TV, Porter, and Molotov. Essentially, I’m cramming for my upcoming weekend of Rock en Español and international rock. You see, there is a huge festival on Friday called “Moto Rokr Fest” (http://www.motorokrfest.com/). It is being held at the “Foro Sol” which is the home of the baseball team the Diablos Rojos del Mexico and host of many Mexican League baseball games. The park is in the central east part of Mexico City. Bands such as The Killers (Las Vegas- http://www.myspace.com/thekillers), Incubus (LA- http://www.myspace.com/incubus) , Molotov (DF- http://www.myspace.com/molotovoficial), Porter (Guadalajara- http://www.myspace.com/porterbank), and The Dandy Warhols (Portland, Oregon- http://www.myspace.com/thedandywarhols) will play. Mauricio, a bunch of his friends, and I are going and I’m trying to do as much preparation as possible before the concert. On Sunday, the Cure is playing at the Palacio de Los Deportes. I’m going to that too. I better rest up this week.
Speaking of rest, I woke up at 1pm today. Last night I went to a party in a neighborhood very far away. Mauricio, Sergio (his brother), Alejandra (Sergio’s girlfriend), and I left the house around 10:30 last night and arrived around 12am. We had a tough time finding it because not only was the house far away (near Santa Fe where I work) but it was very complicated and they hardly ever go to that area of the city. The whole time we were looking for it I was secretly hoping that we would get more lost because I was really enjoying the ride there. Alejandra and Sergio are super fun and I hardly ever get to see them because medical school takes up the majority of their time. It was a beautifully clear night and the further from the city we got, the brighter the stars and the nicer the houses became… and the more lost we got. It was great. I felt like I was back in middle and high school where the ride to the houses in the foothills was often more interesting than the parties themselves. By the way… thanks, mom. I now realize how difficult that must have been for you.
The party was super fresa. The host of the party has a brother who is an architect who is finishing up a house in a fancy neighborhood in the hills of the eastern part of the city. Before they put the finishing touches on the house, they decided to throw a party. It was pretty extravagent. They bought a smoke machine and had lots of lights and really bad music. I danced a lot since that was the only thing to keep me from getting annoyed with the music. Our group was a lot of fun because Sergio and Alejandra love to dance. We joked around the entire time; it was great!
Unfortunately, the ride home didn’t take nearly as long. I was in bed by 4am. Yesterday was a pretty relaxing day. I slept in (after going to bed around 4am), had an obscure late breakfast/early lunch of fried rice, pomegranate seeds and coconut (from the del Valle tianguis), and went to Chapultepec to run. On Tuesdays I have been running with a coworker of mine named Marissa. She and I go to the 3rd section of the park which is pretty tranquil since it isn’t in the famous part of Chapultepec. This weekend I convinced Mauricio to go running where I usually do since I didn’t like Viveros (near Coyoacán) where we ran last Saturday. The area of Chapultepec where we went (http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=19.421768,-99.184613&spn=0.019571,0.029273&t=k&hl=en) is better because there aren’t as many people, it is visually more interesting because the tracks aren’t completely flat, the area is prettier, and there is a lake you can run around if you get bored of the dirt tracks. Next week I hope to run in the part of Chapultepec with the castle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castillo_de_Chapultepec).
Friday was an excellent day. I got an average amount of sleep (5hours) because I was out until midnight eating dinner the night before. I found an Arab restaurant in my neighborhood so Mauricio came by after work so we could check it out. The restaurant was strangely decorated. At first, all I noticed was as mural on the wall across from me with a desert scene with typical images of camels and people looking thirsty. But, near the end of dinner, I looked behind me and saw that there was another series of paintings. One part was of a rain forest and the other was of the ocean. They had 3D decorations in the corner of a jaguar coming out of a tree and further down the wall there was as an aquarium. The food was pretty good and the service was good for the first half of our meal. The reason for this is because right after we received our appetizers, a group of about 12 came in and sat down in the back. I was shocked because one of the guys who came in was someone I actually recognized from a novela I had seen literally two times. I remember him vividly because in the scene I saw him in his character was a disgusting man who was hanging around his swimming pool with a dozen women with huge breasts and tiny bikinis. In the scene, he had on tight white pants and a shirt buttoned only half way up. Which, by the way, is how a third of the people at the party Saturday night were dressed… fresas. Anyway, shocked that I actually recognized a famous actor here, I had to keep myself from looking back and therefore didn’t get a great view of the beautiful artwork on the walls. Later, Mauricio explained that he was probably the least famous of the people we saw at the restaurant that night. Anyway, after that group came in, we pretty much said “good-bye” to our waiter. The food was pretty good but I am excited to try some other Arab places before going back to Adonis.
School on Friday was fine. I usually play with the kids on Fridays and the day is usually much easier because of that. This week we I did Mad Libs with the 3rd graders. At first I told them we were going to play and they got really excited. Upon receiving a piece of paper full of text, their expressions of happiness suddenly turned to disappointment. I knew it would only take them a few minutes to come around and sure enough, they were coming up to my desk half way through their story just to show me what they had so far. They had a blast reading them out loud to the class. Some even got up and pretended to film their classmates while they read. This made me realize that a video project would be great for my 3rd graders. Early this week I am going to send the kids home with a letter asking for their parents’ authorization to work on a movie.
Classes went well on Friday but soccer was STRESSFUL. The big troublemaker, who goes by “Pollo,” actually came and I was happy that she did because if I can figure out how to work with her, she will be an important asset to the team. To explain who Pollo is in one sentence, I guess I would say that she is the rebel of the school. She tries to act macho, never comes to school, and likes to flaunt that she has money. Apparently she boxes and rides horses on her free time. I really like Pollo and would like to get along with her (I think she feels antagonized by the other faculty members) but I get extremely frustrated during practice when I have to spend half the time giving her special attention. For example, the day she came last week, she came late and I had to leave the team alone to scrimmage because I needed to run the steps of the amphitheatre again to make sure that she did it. I have no problem spending time after practice to talk about how she is doing and why she didn’t participate or what she enjoyed about practice, but during practice, I simply don’t have time. This has caused a lot of problems because if I don’t have time to talk 1 on 1 with her, she gets upset and says that I am not being reasonable with her. On Friday she arrived on time and ran the 7 summits (subidas sounds much better in Spanish) of the amphitheatre but after the two minute water break, she came back to the field talking on her cell phone. I asked her to hang up and come to the center of the field to divide up the teams for a scrimmage and she said, while still on the phone, “just a minute.” I said, “no, you come now or you won’t play,” and that was that. She got all upset and tried to make it sound like I’m the one being unreasonable. This wasn’t the only source of stress. Two other girls, Marisa and Fernanda, also miraculously arrived on time to practice. But, when I gathered everyone to go to the amphitheatre, they were nowhere to be seen. When we returned to the field to scrimmage, they were back fully expecting to play with us. I asked them where they were and they said, “es que no nos gusta correr” (“it’s that we don’t like to run”). I said, “Then you won’t play today” and had them leave the field. At first the simply muttered some things under their breath and refused to leave the field. I was caught in a tricky situation because normally this behavior is unacceptable but both the headmaster and the assistant principal (remember the principal was fired during the first week for sexual harassment and bringing alcohol in a water bottle to campus) are away and I didn’t know who to go to about behavioral problems. Also, I didn’t want to have to leave my girls alone to scrimmage for a second Friday in a row. So, I let Fernanda and Marisa off the hook. It didn’t take them much time to leave the field because they remembered they could chat with the boys from volleyball who were doing nothing because their coach, also the athletic director, quit a few weeks ago.
After practice I had a 15 minute discussion with Pollo. I explained my point of view and she explained why she got upset. One thing I have been trying to express to her is that I don’t know her history and I don’t know what people say about her in the high school. First of all, because I don’t care and don’t discriminate, and second of all because I don’t teach in the high school. She seems to automatically assume that teachers expect nothing from her and this is a problem because I treat her like the rest of my students. I explained to her that it isn’t fair to the other girls if I have to take time to run with her because she arrives late etc. I can tell that she wants to play soccer and the fact that she ran the entire time with us (considering the fact that she smokes, is out of shape, and was wearing Crocs) shows that she is willing to give a significant effort. I was really happy to be able to talk 1 on 1 with her and hope that every practice she cooperates like the rest of the team.
The scrimmage was exhausting. They finally fixed the synthetic field and since we scrimmage on Fridays, it was a perfect opportunity to inaugurate the field. Normally, for a scrimmage of 3 on 3, I would use half the field. But, a few of the players on the boys team, who do assume a level of superiority and privileged when it comes to equipment etc. were hassling me to let them use the field since they had a game that afternoon. Having experienced the machismo of the University of Costa Rica soccer program, I know that if I let them use even half of the field on Friday this will slowly convert to the entire field on Monday, more than half of the cones and pennies on Wednesday, and the better soccer balls on Friday. So, since I was already bitchy (my actions would be resemblant of strong and respectable character if I were a guy) enough to refuse them use of the field, I knew that we couldn’t just use half of the field for our scrimmage. So, the 6 of us busted our asses (well, I did at least) during the scrimmage just to take advantage of the entire space.
During the entire scrimmage, the boys who weren’t playing shouted things on the sideline. They were “positive” soccer-related remarks but all were thickly coated with sarcasm. I would have taken measures to stop them as the comments were enraging, but again, I didn’t know who to go to and I didn’t want to leave my team alone when time to scrimmage was quickly running out.
I was so stressed by the end of practice, and saddened after my conversation with Pollo, that I knew my only way to relax would be to stick around for high school lunch to play basketball with the boys. Usually on Fridays, since I’m already dressed in sports clothes from soccer, I stick around to play basketball with the few high schoolers who are actually nice, mature, and respectful. On Friday I played 3 on 3 with D. a super cool guy from Queens, two tall Brazilians from São Paulo, a humongous Korean we call Yao (for his size, not his nationality) and a small Mexican who was the perfect opponent for me. I had an absolute blast not only because these guys are cool, but because they aren’t too good and I actually contributed to the scrimmage significantly. Needless to say, I was exhausted afterwards and felt great.
When I got home that afternoon, I took a big nap so I could enjoy the night. First I meet up with some of the high school teachers at Aaron’s (from Oregon) apartment. Around midnight, we went to a bar in the Centro where there were a few rock bands playing. Two of the bands were really young and it was obvious that their parents and grandparents were there. The bar was a total dive. It was a big room named something like “El Torero” and had gigantic (10ft x 10ft) paintings of bullring scenes and framed statues of old kings and bull fighters. If I hadn’t been drinking, I probably would have been more freaked out by the scene. I loved ever second of our time at that bar. Don, I can’t wait to take you there.
I’m going to conclude my entry as I have to hang up my last load of laundry and get dressed to go and see a movie called Stellet Licht (Silent Light). It’s a film by Carlos Reygadas and it takes place in Northern Mexico. The main characters are Mennonites and the movie is in their native Dutch. It won the Jury award at Cannes and I think it’ll be up for more awards throughout the year. Luego les cuento qué tal.
Monday, October 1, 2007
El juego de las llantas
Monday
October 1, 2007
I realize it’s been over a month but I’ve been busy. I’ve been adjusting. I know it’s no proper excuse but that’s the one I’m going to give. The hardest adjustment I have had to go though, beating out a change of country, a change of home, language, and climate, is that for the first time in my entire life I actually have a 9 to 5. It really sucks. I actually get up at the same time every single day. I haven’t even mastered the alarm function on my clock since there is no need to change it. When I go to the supermarket, it’s packed. I rush home in time to get to the bank. When I think about planning a trip to Six Flags, my head aches at the thought of the lines because I can only go on the weekend. I’m extremely grateful for something very important, though. I’m thankful that I am a teacher and that my days go by relatively quickly. Who am I kidding? The days and weeks have been going by extremely quickly. Now that I am in a rhythm of making sure every minute of class is productive, classes go by fast and I never get bored. Things get the most tricky when I find myself in a lull and can’t figure out what to do next. 75% of the material in my classes is predictable but the other 25% is due to changes based on the class size and the behavior and level of productivity of the class on a particular day. Today, for example, I had a killer time with my 3rd graders. They are the worse behaved class and what adds to the stress is that there is a strong gap in English proficiency among the students.
This week each student will be reading a story. Today I started with an introduction to the new vocabulary. Well, I had to break up my 3rd graders into groups because some are reading a more advanced story than others. It was a disaster because the minute I leave one group to work alone, they go crazy. We got nothing done. It was so annoying. This was obviously poor planning on my part and I suffered as a result. But, when I plan successfully, class is a breeze. It’s really quite amazing how one class can fly by while another can be a nightmare that never ends. At least now I know something important about my 3rd graders.
In my last entry, I wrote about how I was just about to move into my apartment. well, I am indeed in Polanco – home of “fresas,” “ricos,” and most importantly, Jews. Lots and lots of Jews. People call my area of Polanco “little Jerusalem.” It’s awesome. I feel so much closer to home. Today I went down the street to eat at an Israeli restaurant I had seen. It turns out it was just a poster for take-out, but my search will continue. I am excited though because today I found a market specializing in Arab products and the Catalan owner told me of a good restaurant about 15 minutes from my house. Later on in the week I’ll check it out. I’m dying for Middle Eastern food.
My apartment is great. It’s 200 square meters and as I mentioned before, I have my own full bathroom. The kitchen is awesomely big and I have all the knives I could possibly desire. That, my friends, is the huge plus of living with a married couple. They have the house-ware hook-up. It’s great. They even have a juicer. I’m still not thrilled about my neighborhood in general but I’ve been spending a lot of Saturdays in the neighborhood where Mauricio lives so I do get to buy groceries at the tianguis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianguis).
Until mid November my roommate, Flora, will be taking me to Santa Fe in the morning. She teaches at 7am in a school near Westhill so I get a ride every morning. In the afternoons I have been doing a few different things. On Mondays and Fridays I get a ride from the 3rd grade Spanish teacher. She lives in Polanco and drops me off near where I live. I enjoy these days because she is good at making conversation and we always find something interesting to talk about.
On Tuesdays I go home with Marisa, the art teacher. She is closer to my age and is a huge mountain bike rider and all around athlete. So, on Tuesdays she takes me to Chapultepec to go running. On Wednesdays and Thursdays I tutor a 4th grader from Colombia. Her family pays for my taxi home so I go home alone on these days. I’m hoping to change my tutoring days to Monday and Wednesday so I can run with Marisa on Thursdays too. Marisa is definitely one of my favorite Westhill employees. She is half American and half Mexican and we are very similar. Every Thursday during 4th – 6th grade lunch, we have recess duty. Last week some 6th graders found three tires and started playing a jumping challenge game with them. Everyone formed a line across the playground from the tires. Two boys were in charge of setting up the tires for the “runner” to try to jump over. Any other teacher would have prohibited this but Marisa and I have similar tomboy backgrounds and both understand that risking getting hurt is the only way some can really have fun. Plus, we understand the fact that the playground for the elementary school is really quite pathetic and the fact these boys were able to have fun with a resource they found is quite commendable. Fortunately nobody got hurt and I was left with quite the lasting impression. Initially I designated myself as official tire alignment checker. I wanted to make sure that these boys didn’t attempt something so hard that it would only result in broken bones. So, upon seeing an absolutely impossible arrangement of tires I told the boys to make it easier. They assured me that it was a proper challenge for the boy next in line and so I braced myself to run to the nurse to call an ambulance. Well, what in my mind was surely an impossible figure to jump over was absolutely feasible for some of these boys. From then on I let them set up the tires however they wanted. I just make sure they didn’t jump them with lollipops in their mouths.
October 1, 2007
I realize it’s been over a month but I’ve been busy. I’ve been adjusting. I know it’s no proper excuse but that’s the one I’m going to give. The hardest adjustment I have had to go though, beating out a change of country, a change of home, language, and climate, is that for the first time in my entire life I actually have a 9 to 5. It really sucks. I actually get up at the same time every single day. I haven’t even mastered the alarm function on my clock since there is no need to change it. When I go to the supermarket, it’s packed. I rush home in time to get to the bank. When I think about planning a trip to Six Flags, my head aches at the thought of the lines because I can only go on the weekend. I’m extremely grateful for something very important, though. I’m thankful that I am a teacher and that my days go by relatively quickly. Who am I kidding? The days and weeks have been going by extremely quickly. Now that I am in a rhythm of making sure every minute of class is productive, classes go by fast and I never get bored. Things get the most tricky when I find myself in a lull and can’t figure out what to do next. 75% of the material in my classes is predictable but the other 25% is due to changes based on the class size and the behavior and level of productivity of the class on a particular day. Today, for example, I had a killer time with my 3rd graders. They are the worse behaved class and what adds to the stress is that there is a strong gap in English proficiency among the students.
This week each student will be reading a story. Today I started with an introduction to the new vocabulary. Well, I had to break up my 3rd graders into groups because some are reading a more advanced story than others. It was a disaster because the minute I leave one group to work alone, they go crazy. We got nothing done. It was so annoying. This was obviously poor planning on my part and I suffered as a result. But, when I plan successfully, class is a breeze. It’s really quite amazing how one class can fly by while another can be a nightmare that never ends. At least now I know something important about my 3rd graders.
In my last entry, I wrote about how I was just about to move into my apartment. well, I am indeed in Polanco – home of “fresas,” “ricos,” and most importantly, Jews. Lots and lots of Jews. People call my area of Polanco “little Jerusalem.” It’s awesome. I feel so much closer to home. Today I went down the street to eat at an Israeli restaurant I had seen. It turns out it was just a poster for take-out, but my search will continue. I am excited though because today I found a market specializing in Arab products and the Catalan owner told me of a good restaurant about 15 minutes from my house. Later on in the week I’ll check it out. I’m dying for Middle Eastern food.
My apartment is great. It’s 200 square meters and as I mentioned before, I have my own full bathroom. The kitchen is awesomely big and I have all the knives I could possibly desire. That, my friends, is the huge plus of living with a married couple. They have the house-ware hook-up. It’s great. They even have a juicer. I’m still not thrilled about my neighborhood in general but I’ve been spending a lot of Saturdays in the neighborhood where Mauricio lives so I do get to buy groceries at the tianguis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianguis).
Until mid November my roommate, Flora, will be taking me to Santa Fe in the morning. She teaches at 7am in a school near Westhill so I get a ride every morning. In the afternoons I have been doing a few different things. On Mondays and Fridays I get a ride from the 3rd grade Spanish teacher. She lives in Polanco and drops me off near where I live. I enjoy these days because she is good at making conversation and we always find something interesting to talk about.
On Tuesdays I go home with Marisa, the art teacher. She is closer to my age and is a huge mountain bike rider and all around athlete. So, on Tuesdays she takes me to Chapultepec to go running. On Wednesdays and Thursdays I tutor a 4th grader from Colombia. Her family pays for my taxi home so I go home alone on these days. I’m hoping to change my tutoring days to Monday and Wednesday so I can run with Marisa on Thursdays too. Marisa is definitely one of my favorite Westhill employees. She is half American and half Mexican and we are very similar. Every Thursday during 4th – 6th grade lunch, we have recess duty. Last week some 6th graders found three tires and started playing a jumping challenge game with them. Everyone formed a line across the playground from the tires. Two boys were in charge of setting up the tires for the “runner” to try to jump over. Any other teacher would have prohibited this but Marisa and I have similar tomboy backgrounds and both understand that risking getting hurt is the only way some can really have fun. Plus, we understand the fact that the playground for the elementary school is really quite pathetic and the fact these boys were able to have fun with a resource they found is quite commendable. Fortunately nobody got hurt and I was left with quite the lasting impression. Initially I designated myself as official tire alignment checker. I wanted to make sure that these boys didn’t attempt something so hard that it would only result in broken bones. So, upon seeing an absolutely impossible arrangement of tires I told the boys to make it easier. They assured me that it was a proper challenge for the boy next in line and so I braced myself to run to the nurse to call an ambulance. Well, what in my mind was surely an impossible figure to jump over was absolutely feasible for some of these boys. From then on I let them set up the tires however they wanted. I just make sure they didn’t jump them with lollipops in their mouths.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Chilango Math
Here is something great I discovered today.
t + (trip to Santa Fe by bus) = t + 1:15
t - :10 + (trip to Santa Fe by bus) = t + :30
This morning I left the house ten minutes early and got to school forty-five minutes early.
t + (trip to Santa Fe by bus) = t + 1:15
t - :10 + (trip to Santa Fe by bus) = t + :30
This morning I left the house ten minutes early and got to school forty-five minutes early.
Monday, August 27, 2007
First Day of School
Monday
August 27, 2007
Today was my first day of school. It pretty much sucked. The high points were that I finally found a way to get to school by taking just one bus. The annoying thing is that the bus is absolutely packed by the time I’m supposed to get off and between the foggy windows, the dim morning light, and the stacks of people, it’s always a craps shot as to where I’m actually supposed to get off. It’s still better than the bus-to-metro-to-bus route I was taking before. I’ll be moving to a neighborhood called Polanco on Saturday so I’ll have to figure out transportation all over again but it is a nice feeling to know that I was able to narrow down my vehicles by two thirds.
I wake up at 5am and am out of the door by 6 to walk to the metro Zapata. It’s a nice walk because I enjoy seeing all of the street vendors setting up their carts. By the time I near Santa Fe at around 7am, the sun is coming up and I get a great view of the city with deep blues and purples in the background. I love the cool air, especially after getting off the hot bus.
I arrived at 7:30, just in time to take some quick photos of my classroom and to see some of the parents dropping off their kids. One thing that I like about taking public transportation, or at least why I haven’t bothered to arrange a carpool quite just yet, is that in some respect, it keeps me grounded because as soon as I step off that bus, I am in fresa land. The parents are mostly Hispanic but there are quite a few Asians (just Koreans that I know of so far), and a bunch of Americans. So far I have had many Mexicans, two Koreans, three Brazilians, a few Colombians, a Nicaraguan, a Venezuelan, and a pair of Swedish brothers who literally know no English. The brother that is in second grade, named William, started crying in the middle of class. I felt so bad for him and hated that I couldn’t communicate with him to let him know that every day is only going to get easier…hmm, sounds like I should take my own advice. Anyway, of the kids that know hardly any English there are two Koreans, two Brazilians, and the two Swedish brothers. I can’t even imagine what they must be going through. The principal was passing around a sign up sheet for anyone interested in getting paid to do after school tutoring. I would absolutely love the chance to tutor William and his brother not only because I would like to be able to help them on an individual basis, but because I think it will be fascinating to closely follow their progress throughout the year.
My role at the school is to take the kids, grades 1st through 6th, to provide extra help with English while their classmates are in French. What is tricky about my job is that although each class has students from just one grade, they are at all different English proficiency levels. So far the hardest is going to be 5th grade because there are 13 students. Another tricky class is the 3rd grade class because they have huge behavioral problems. What makes my job harder yet is that the school is totally disorganized and nothing is done, on the administrative side, to help us. Oh, add to that the fact that I have no idea what I’m doing.
Today I taught the kids whose teachers anticipated their needing to be in ESL. I may end up having more and I may end up having less. There are a few who I don’t think need to be with me so I’ll need to keep in close contact with their regular teachers to make sure they are doing ok in their regular English class.
In the morning I have 6th, 5th, and 4th respectively. I had them ask me questions and then I had them write a question on a piece of paper. I mixed up the questions and had each of them practice asking their partners. This worked well but in a class with 13 kids, it’s really hard for me to get a feel for whether they should be in ESL or not. Tomorrow and Wednesday they’ll be taking a diagnostic test which will hopefully serve as reinforcement to the assessments I will make by the end of the week.
The students had a welcome assembly in the morning. A lot of it involved national anthem playing and singing of the school song. They all stood in straight lines to sing and with the combination of their uniforms, a foreign anthem, and the position of their hands (in Mexico they hold their hand to their heart but palm down and parallel to the ground), it looked very 1930’s Germany-esque as Jezz, the British science teacher, described it. It was weird to see the kids like this because I always associate such scenes with film footage of radically nationalist countries far away from my own. These, however, are my own students. This also brings up an interesting bias against the US that I often hear from foreigners. Many have told me that they view the US is too quick to fly their flag and demonstrate patriotism via anthem playing. For the first time, I considered the US to be quite moderate in this respect.
After the assembly I had my class of 4th graders and then a very large lunch break broken up at 11:30 when I introduced myself at the high school electives assembly. I am going to be coaching female varsity soccer. I had mentioned wanting to coach basketball ever since I applied to Westhill. The headmaster didn’t seemed too convincing that I would get to coach so last week I paid a few visits to the athletic director. The first one was to introduce myself and to let them know that I would like a coaching position. A few days later, after realizing that the positions were, as they led me to believe, full, I went back and did all I could to convince them of my talents and desire to coach. Apparently it paid off because on Friday I was told that I was going to coach soccer. It’s a bit of a joke since they practice for 30 minutes twice a week but they will have interscholastic competitions and there will be some traveling involved. I’m excited to finally see what it’s like on the other side of the sideline but I’m equally excited to become familiar with some of the high school students since I still haven’t gotten over my constant state of high school envy. My jealousy did get a break from approximately 11:42 until 11:44 while I was on stage absolutely terrified by the “big kids” whose only purpose in life can’t be anything other than to eat me alive. I’m hoping they didn’t notice my stuttering. Maybe my side of the auditorium isn’t so bad after all.
Lunch went slowly but I did manage to write up a set of reading comprehension questions for the upper level kids tomorrow. In the afternoon I had 1st grade, 2nd grade, and 3rd grade. The 1st grade was pretty tough, although there were only about six. It’s amazing how the one trouble child can make a perfectly good class awful. On my way home I realized a very important thing: it’s ok to be mean and strict. I felt bad when I seperated Nicolas (the bad one) because he wasn’t participating. At the time it seemed like a horrible idea because the point is for them to improve their English. How are they supposed to improve they are sitting on the other side of the room observing from a distance? If I don’t set the behavioral standards now, though, he will constantly act up and never be able to participate. If I crack down now, hopefully he will learn to cooperate and will therefore learn to cooperate with the class in a few weeks. Oh God, oh God: please let this be true.
The 2nd grade class was wonderful. There were about 6 and miraculously, they paid attention and treated each other with respect. In this class is the older of the Swedish brothers. At the beginning I had everyone tell where they were from and point to their country on the globe. I knew William knew no English and wanted to give him more individual attention but I had to attend to the rest of the class. We were working on salutations when I noted that William was sitting in the circle with teary eyes. I felt so bad for him. So, I gathered everyone around in a tight circle, sat next to William and showed them pictures from my book of photos from Arizona. This definitely calmed William down and the class was fascinated by the photos.
My last class, the 3rd graders, was miserable. They would not sit still and did not stop talking. It was HORRIBLE. I mentioned them to one of the 6th grade teachers and he said, “oh, I remember them.” They were so bad that I can’t even stand to write about them right now.
Now for some good news: I finally found an apartment. On Friday of last week, one of the French teachers mentioned to me that a former Westhill employee was looking for someone to rent a room in the apartment she and her husband live in. I called her friend, Flora, and made an appointment for Sunday evening. The apartment is very big and my bedroom is great as well. I’ll have my own bathroom and semi-walk-in closet. The kitchen is also pretty big which will be great since I’m hoping cook dinner for friends when I get the chance. Flora was born in Mexico but I think she has a French father. Christophe, her husband, is French and both have been here for quite some time. I’m excited because not only am I going to be speaking Spanish in the apartment, but I’ll be speaking a bit of French too! The apartment is in a nice neighborhood called Polanco. So far the only negative aspects of it are that it is in a nice neighborhood. There won’t be any cool taco stands near by and it’s not very close to the metro station. There is a cool skate park that is about 15 minutes away and apparently you can get to Chapultepec by foot as well. The obvious pluses are that it is in a nice neighborhood. Flora and Christophe have someone staying in the extra bedroom right now so I have to wait until Saturday to move in. I CAN’T wait. I can’t even describe how excited I am to have a room all to myself. I have had a really tough time with the cat here at Mauricio’s apartment and I am anxious to be able to leave something out without having it get ruined by scratches. “Cota,” Mauricio’s kitten, has absolutely confirmed my utter hatred of cats. It’s amazing how a single tiny creature can make someone so miserable. I fed Cota tap water yesterday hoping she would die. She didn’t. In fact, she is ripping up the straps of my backpack as I type.
Hopefully I will become more positive as the weeks progress I anticipate enjoying the city more and more but unfortunately, liking the school less and less. Until I finally move into the apartment, it’s hard to tell what emotions are in store.
August 27, 2007
Today was my first day of school. It pretty much sucked. The high points were that I finally found a way to get to school by taking just one bus. The annoying thing is that the bus is absolutely packed by the time I’m supposed to get off and between the foggy windows, the dim morning light, and the stacks of people, it’s always a craps shot as to where I’m actually supposed to get off. It’s still better than the bus-to-metro-to-bus route I was taking before. I’ll be moving to a neighborhood called Polanco on Saturday so I’ll have to figure out transportation all over again but it is a nice feeling to know that I was able to narrow down my vehicles by two thirds.
I wake up at 5am and am out of the door by 6 to walk to the metro Zapata. It’s a nice walk because I enjoy seeing all of the street vendors setting up their carts. By the time I near Santa Fe at around 7am, the sun is coming up and I get a great view of the city with deep blues and purples in the background. I love the cool air, especially after getting off the hot bus.
I arrived at 7:30, just in time to take some quick photos of my classroom and to see some of the parents dropping off their kids. One thing that I like about taking public transportation, or at least why I haven’t bothered to arrange a carpool quite just yet, is that in some respect, it keeps me grounded because as soon as I step off that bus, I am in fresa land. The parents are mostly Hispanic but there are quite a few Asians (just Koreans that I know of so far), and a bunch of Americans. So far I have had many Mexicans, two Koreans, three Brazilians, a few Colombians, a Nicaraguan, a Venezuelan, and a pair of Swedish brothers who literally know no English. The brother that is in second grade, named William, started crying in the middle of class. I felt so bad for him and hated that I couldn’t communicate with him to let him know that every day is only going to get easier…hmm, sounds like I should take my own advice. Anyway, of the kids that know hardly any English there are two Koreans, two Brazilians, and the two Swedish brothers. I can’t even imagine what they must be going through. The principal was passing around a sign up sheet for anyone interested in getting paid to do after school tutoring. I would absolutely love the chance to tutor William and his brother not only because I would like to be able to help them on an individual basis, but because I think it will be fascinating to closely follow their progress throughout the year.
My role at the school is to take the kids, grades 1st through 6th, to provide extra help with English while their classmates are in French. What is tricky about my job is that although each class has students from just one grade, they are at all different English proficiency levels. So far the hardest is going to be 5th grade because there are 13 students. Another tricky class is the 3rd grade class because they have huge behavioral problems. What makes my job harder yet is that the school is totally disorganized and nothing is done, on the administrative side, to help us. Oh, add to that the fact that I have no idea what I’m doing.
Today I taught the kids whose teachers anticipated their needing to be in ESL. I may end up having more and I may end up having less. There are a few who I don’t think need to be with me so I’ll need to keep in close contact with their regular teachers to make sure they are doing ok in their regular English class.
In the morning I have 6th, 5th, and 4th respectively. I had them ask me questions and then I had them write a question on a piece of paper. I mixed up the questions and had each of them practice asking their partners. This worked well but in a class with 13 kids, it’s really hard for me to get a feel for whether they should be in ESL or not. Tomorrow and Wednesday they’ll be taking a diagnostic test which will hopefully serve as reinforcement to the assessments I will make by the end of the week.
The students had a welcome assembly in the morning. A lot of it involved national anthem playing and singing of the school song. They all stood in straight lines to sing and with the combination of their uniforms, a foreign anthem, and the position of their hands (in Mexico they hold their hand to their heart but palm down and parallel to the ground), it looked very 1930’s Germany-esque as Jezz, the British science teacher, described it. It was weird to see the kids like this because I always associate such scenes with film footage of radically nationalist countries far away from my own. These, however, are my own students. This also brings up an interesting bias against the US that I often hear from foreigners. Many have told me that they view the US is too quick to fly their flag and demonstrate patriotism via anthem playing. For the first time, I considered the US to be quite moderate in this respect.
After the assembly I had my class of 4th graders and then a very large lunch break broken up at 11:30 when I introduced myself at the high school electives assembly. I am going to be coaching female varsity soccer. I had mentioned wanting to coach basketball ever since I applied to Westhill. The headmaster didn’t seemed too convincing that I would get to coach so last week I paid a few visits to the athletic director. The first one was to introduce myself and to let them know that I would like a coaching position. A few days later, after realizing that the positions were, as they led me to believe, full, I went back and did all I could to convince them of my talents and desire to coach. Apparently it paid off because on Friday I was told that I was going to coach soccer. It’s a bit of a joke since they practice for 30 minutes twice a week but they will have interscholastic competitions and there will be some traveling involved. I’m excited to finally see what it’s like on the other side of the sideline but I’m equally excited to become familiar with some of the high school students since I still haven’t gotten over my constant state of high school envy. My jealousy did get a break from approximately 11:42 until 11:44 while I was on stage absolutely terrified by the “big kids” whose only purpose in life can’t be anything other than to eat me alive. I’m hoping they didn’t notice my stuttering. Maybe my side of the auditorium isn’t so bad after all.
Lunch went slowly but I did manage to write up a set of reading comprehension questions for the upper level kids tomorrow. In the afternoon I had 1st grade, 2nd grade, and 3rd grade. The 1st grade was pretty tough, although there were only about six. It’s amazing how the one trouble child can make a perfectly good class awful. On my way home I realized a very important thing: it’s ok to be mean and strict. I felt bad when I seperated Nicolas (the bad one) because he wasn’t participating. At the time it seemed like a horrible idea because the point is for them to improve their English. How are they supposed to improve they are sitting on the other side of the room observing from a distance? If I don’t set the behavioral standards now, though, he will constantly act up and never be able to participate. If I crack down now, hopefully he will learn to cooperate and will therefore learn to cooperate with the class in a few weeks. Oh God, oh God: please let this be true.
The 2nd grade class was wonderful. There were about 6 and miraculously, they paid attention and treated each other with respect. In this class is the older of the Swedish brothers. At the beginning I had everyone tell where they were from and point to their country on the globe. I knew William knew no English and wanted to give him more individual attention but I had to attend to the rest of the class. We were working on salutations when I noted that William was sitting in the circle with teary eyes. I felt so bad for him. So, I gathered everyone around in a tight circle, sat next to William and showed them pictures from my book of photos from Arizona. This definitely calmed William down and the class was fascinated by the photos.
My last class, the 3rd graders, was miserable. They would not sit still and did not stop talking. It was HORRIBLE. I mentioned them to one of the 6th grade teachers and he said, “oh, I remember them.” They were so bad that I can’t even stand to write about them right now.
Now for some good news: I finally found an apartment. On Friday of last week, one of the French teachers mentioned to me that a former Westhill employee was looking for someone to rent a room in the apartment she and her husband live in. I called her friend, Flora, and made an appointment for Sunday evening. The apartment is very big and my bedroom is great as well. I’ll have my own bathroom and semi-walk-in closet. The kitchen is also pretty big which will be great since I’m hoping cook dinner for friends when I get the chance. Flora was born in Mexico but I think she has a French father. Christophe, her husband, is French and both have been here for quite some time. I’m excited because not only am I going to be speaking Spanish in the apartment, but I’ll be speaking a bit of French too! The apartment is in a nice neighborhood called Polanco. So far the only negative aspects of it are that it is in a nice neighborhood. There won’t be any cool taco stands near by and it’s not very close to the metro station. There is a cool skate park that is about 15 minutes away and apparently you can get to Chapultepec by foot as well. The obvious pluses are that it is in a nice neighborhood. Flora and Christophe have someone staying in the extra bedroom right now so I have to wait until Saturday to move in. I CAN’T wait. I can’t even describe how excited I am to have a room all to myself. I have had a really tough time with the cat here at Mauricio’s apartment and I am anxious to be able to leave something out without having it get ruined by scratches. “Cota,” Mauricio’s kitten, has absolutely confirmed my utter hatred of cats. It’s amazing how a single tiny creature can make someone so miserable. I fed Cota tap water yesterday hoping she would die. She didn’t. In fact, she is ripping up the straps of my backpack as I type.
Hopefully I will become more positive as the weeks progress I anticipate enjoying the city more and more but unfortunately, liking the school less and less. Until I finally move into the apartment, it’s hard to tell what emotions are in store.
My day 8/16/07
Hi all,
I had another packed day today. At 11 I was supposed to me a guy who was going to show me two apartments in La Roma. He didn't show. But I did come across another place that I was able to see. I no longer remember what it looked like. That's been my biggest problem. I spend 6 hours walking aroun and making phone calls and taking pictures and taking notes and when I sit down in the evening to organize my thoughts, I can't think past the last thing I saw. I guess that means that the ones that I am able to remember are the ones I should remember. The headmaster's wife, who helps look for apartments for those who get here last minute and for those who don't know Spanish (no sympathy for them on my part needless to say) went around together on Wednesday for most of the morning and early afternoon. I had a couple of appointments in the evening and later that night, she asked me for my info. I gladly passed on to her a variety of places I've seen but kept the phone numbers to myself to prevent any competition. C'mon, I'm not that nice :). This is one of the hardest things I've done in my life. Fortunately, I needed this week to go by slowly and contrary to what usually happens when Murphey has any say, it actually did go by slowly... incredibly slowly. My days have been incredibly long. Today, I came home for an hour to eat lunch and to download my photos from the morning. Then I headed up north to meet with a guy who has a place in San Rafael. It was ok but learned that he and his business partner have another place in the south of city, closer to Coyoacan and Del Valle (where Mauricio lives). So we took the Metro Bus together all the way across town. I was happy to hear that we were going by metrobus because I happen to have P$96 worth of credit on my card. It costs P$3 to ride it. I had a mental-currency block when I put credit on it my first day. The broker, Juan, did not stop talking for the entire time we were looking at the first apartment, until I got off at my stop after having traveled across town, looked at the second place, walked for 15 minutes to the subway, realized that we needed to take the metrobus, walked to the metro bus, and traveled half way up for me to get off at my stop. I felt that they should have given me the apartment for having suffered through incessant speech. He is a biologist who is an animal trainer and travels all around the world to work with actors in films using the animals. So, some of what he was talking about was interesting. Ask me how to wrangle a crocodile and I'll tell you - in Spanish. I got home around 5pm, anxious to collect my thoughts and chat with you guys. But, the whole place was a mess and reeked of unnaturally potent orange cleaning solution. The cleaning lady hadn't come so Barbara was cleaning the entire apartment. So, for two hours I helped. Then Mauricio came to pick me up because I asked him if we could check out San Rafael to see how safe it seems at night. It's not one of the neighborhoods the school recommends (God forbid I live near other Mexicans) so I wanted to make sure it's on ok area for me to live. I've narrowed down the apartment options (before talking to my future roommate) to three places: the more expensive one near La Condesa, a small furnished one in San Rafael, or a long shot which I am aiming for which involves one of Mauricio's friends informing me that she kicked out her awful roommate so that I can move in. Or there's the unfurnished place I saw in La Roma, or the new furnished place in Escandon, or the place near Mauricio's apartment, or the steps of Westhill Institute. After the ever generous Mauricio drove me around San Rafael, we met up with a friend of his from college who lives in La Condesa. We walked down to little corner Argentinian restaurant called "El Diez" (for Maradonna). They had a cool tin sign up that said, "El Rey es Pele, pero Dios es Argentino." I didn't appreciate that, but the food made up for it. AMAZING... photos to come. JT, I'm not going to disappoint. I got home around midnight, happy to see that there was a note for me that I'm going to get picked up at 6:45am tomorrow. Mauricio and I had already planned my route which involved a walk to Felix Cuevas, a pesero to the metro Mixcoac which would take me to Tacubaya which would scare the shit out of me while I look for the transfer line to Observatorio. There I would take a taxi to the school in Santa Fe. Needless to say I'm happy about getting a ride tomorrow morning. I leave in five hours, so I best conclude this email.
Muchos besos y abrazos!
Hannah
I had another packed day today. At 11 I was supposed to me a guy who was going to show me two apartments in La Roma. He didn't show. But I did come across another place that I was able to see. I no longer remember what it looked like. That's been my biggest problem. I spend 6 hours walking aroun and making phone calls and taking pictures and taking notes and when I sit down in the evening to organize my thoughts, I can't think past the last thing I saw. I guess that means that the ones that I am able to remember are the ones I should remember. The headmaster's wife, who helps look for apartments for those who get here last minute and for those who don't know Spanish (no sympathy for them on my part needless to say) went around together on Wednesday for most of the morning and early afternoon. I had a couple of appointments in the evening and later that night, she asked me for my info. I gladly passed on to her a variety of places I've seen but kept the phone numbers to myself to prevent any competition. C'mon, I'm not that nice :). This is one of the hardest things I've done in my life. Fortunately, I needed this week to go by slowly and contrary to what usually happens when Murphey has any say, it actually did go by slowly... incredibly slowly. My days have been incredibly long. Today, I came home for an hour to eat lunch and to download my photos from the morning. Then I headed up north to meet with a guy who has a place in San Rafael. It was ok but learned that he and his business partner have another place in the south of city, closer to Coyoacan and Del Valle (where Mauricio lives). So we took the Metro Bus together all the way across town. I was happy to hear that we were going by metrobus because I happen to have P$96 worth of credit on my card. It costs P$3 to ride it. I had a mental-currency block when I put credit on it my first day. The broker, Juan, did not stop talking for the entire time we were looking at the first apartment, until I got off at my stop after having traveled across town, looked at the second place, walked for 15 minutes to the subway, realized that we needed to take the metrobus, walked to the metro bus, and traveled half way up for me to get off at my stop. I felt that they should have given me the apartment for having suffered through incessant speech. He is a biologist who is an animal trainer and travels all around the world to work with actors in films using the animals. So, some of what he was talking about was interesting. Ask me how to wrangle a crocodile and I'll tell you - in Spanish. I got home around 5pm, anxious to collect my thoughts and chat with you guys. But, the whole place was a mess and reeked of unnaturally potent orange cleaning solution. The cleaning lady hadn't come so Barbara was cleaning the entire apartment. So, for two hours I helped. Then Mauricio came to pick me up because I asked him if we could check out San Rafael to see how safe it seems at night. It's not one of the neighborhoods the school recommends (God forbid I live near other Mexicans) so I wanted to make sure it's on ok area for me to live. I've narrowed down the apartment options (before talking to my future roommate) to three places: the more expensive one near La Condesa, a small furnished one in San Rafael, or a long shot which I am aiming for which involves one of Mauricio's friends informing me that she kicked out her awful roommate so that I can move in. Or there's the unfurnished place I saw in La Roma, or the new furnished place in Escandon, or the place near Mauricio's apartment, or the steps of Westhill Institute. After the ever generous Mauricio drove me around San Rafael, we met up with a friend of his from college who lives in La Condesa. We walked down to little corner Argentinian restaurant called "El Diez" (for Maradonna). They had a cool tin sign up that said, "El Rey es Pele, pero Dios es Argentino." I didn't appreciate that, but the food made up for it. AMAZING... photos to come. JT, I'm not going to disappoint. I got home around midnight, happy to see that there was a note for me that I'm going to get picked up at 6:45am tomorrow. Mauricio and I had already planned my route which involved a walk to Felix Cuevas, a pesero to the metro Mixcoac which would take me to Tacubaya which would scare the shit out of me while I look for the transfer line to Observatorio. There I would take a taxi to the school in Santa Fe. Needless to say I'm happy about getting a ride tomorrow morning. I leave in five hours, so I best conclude this email.
Muchos besos y abrazos!
Hannah
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