martes, mayo 03, 2005
potpourri
i got an email from a poblana friend of mine pleading for me to come to méxico. since my parents are jetting off to france in july, i'm seriously considering it. méxico is good for my soul.
i've decided that my ultimate moonlighting career would be as the lead singer of a cover band that performed exclusively at gay clubs. we would do prince, erasure, depeche mode, and assorted eighties songs. it would be exquisite.
in the meantime, i will share with you my favorite prince quote:
pure genius.
back to the real world and my real life and my career and such things of a infinitely less entertaining nature. today was alright only because yesterday was terrible. i need to make a list of things to do and not do next year as a not-quite-new-but-not-quite-experienced teacher. this morning started out very strangely as the kids did their math assignment and i wandered around the room fixing this and rearranging that. i noticed that my students were silent. i turned around and stared at them. they were all working. ALL of them. it didn't last too long, but it was very surreal and made me feel quite content for a bit.. bonus: the vice principal walked in on it. other than that, i continued to count down the minutes and hours until blessed summer arrives.
i put up papel picado for our cinco de mayo celebration before having dinner with dad. poor thing, our dinners turn into kid bitch sessions, he's become quite a good listener since i became a teacher. that or he's very good at concealing his boredom. afterwards i headed to target to find a gift for the university mentor that assists my classroom. as i scrutinized clearance photo albums, i heard someone say "hey spanish teacher!" it was the hottie math teacher from the middle school i worked at last semester. we chatted for awhile about my new job and the middle school then parted ways. i wonder if i'll ever get around to visiting the school again. the other day i was listening to a ricardo arjona album that i used as a listening practice for my seventh graders. it made me very nostalgic... i truly loved teaching spanish to those guys, i had no idea i would like adolescents that much, but damn, they're fun! their learning styles meshed beautifully with my teaching style, and i was teaching a subject i was totally passionate about (creating my own curriculum helped a lot, too, i'm sure). anyway, that led me to think about whether i have made the right decision by staying in first grade instead of teaching middle school spanish. and i think i have. in terms of personal fulfillment, it's much more satisfying to know that i have taught a roomful of children how to read rather than a roomful of teenagers how to ask someone their name and birthday in a foreign language. granted, the latter is totally not that simple, and i was really passionate about teaching the native speakers not only the standardized forms of spoken and written language but pride towards their bilingualism. but i think i'm making a larger difference with my little ones, and i can always go back to middle school when i want a change.
wow, that kind of rambled on. i'll save the "how i learned spanish, and how YOU can learn it, too!" list for another day. i've got some painting to do! (my other moonlighting job: hippie painting bum. if i don't go to méxico, that's probably what i'll be doing all summer)
i've decided that my ultimate moonlighting career would be as the lead singer of a cover band that performed exclusively at gay clubs. we would do prince, erasure, depeche mode, and assorted eighties songs. it would be exquisite.
in the meantime, i will share with you my favorite prince quote:
women not girls rule my world
i said they rule my world
act your age mama
not your shoe size
pure genius.
back to the real world and my real life and my career and such things of a infinitely less entertaining nature. today was alright only because yesterday was terrible. i need to make a list of things to do and not do next year as a not-quite-new-but-not-quite-experienced teacher. this morning started out very strangely as the kids did their math assignment and i wandered around the room fixing this and rearranging that. i noticed that my students were silent. i turned around and stared at them. they were all working. ALL of them. it didn't last too long, but it was very surreal and made me feel quite content for a bit.. bonus: the vice principal walked in on it. other than that, i continued to count down the minutes and hours until blessed summer arrives.
i put up papel picado for our cinco de mayo celebration before having dinner with dad. poor thing, our dinners turn into kid bitch sessions, he's become quite a good listener since i became a teacher. that or he's very good at concealing his boredom. afterwards i headed to target to find a gift for the university mentor that assists my classroom. as i scrutinized clearance photo albums, i heard someone say "hey spanish teacher!" it was the hottie math teacher from the middle school i worked at last semester. we chatted for awhile about my new job and the middle school then parted ways. i wonder if i'll ever get around to visiting the school again. the other day i was listening to a ricardo arjona album that i used as a listening practice for my seventh graders. it made me very nostalgic... i truly loved teaching spanish to those guys, i had no idea i would like adolescents that much, but damn, they're fun! their learning styles meshed beautifully with my teaching style, and i was teaching a subject i was totally passionate about (creating my own curriculum helped a lot, too, i'm sure). anyway, that led me to think about whether i have made the right decision by staying in first grade instead of teaching middle school spanish. and i think i have. in terms of personal fulfillment, it's much more satisfying to know that i have taught a roomful of children how to read rather than a roomful of teenagers how to ask someone their name and birthday in a foreign language. granted, the latter is totally not that simple, and i was really passionate about teaching the native speakers not only the standardized forms of spoken and written language but pride towards their bilingualism. but i think i'm making a larger difference with my little ones, and i can always go back to middle school when i want a change.
wow, that kind of rambled on. i'll save the "how i learned spanish, and how YOU can learn it, too!" list for another day. i've got some painting to do! (my other moonlighting job: hippie painting bum. if i don't go to méxico, that's probably what i'll be doing all summer)
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The more I read your blog, the more I think you are a long lost sister of mine. This post made me laugh, particularly your moonlighting gig in gay clubs (that would be so awesome!).
Also, thank you tons for the advice for improving my language skills. I originally was going to spend the summer in Guadalajara in an immersion program, but, alas, we don't get summers off in adult ed. You never know, though.
I need to get out my old Erasure CDs.
Also, thank you tons for the advice for improving my language skills. I originally was going to spend the summer in Guadalajara in an immersion program, but, alas, we don't get summers off in adult ed. You never know, though.
I need to get out my old Erasure CDs.
i used "minutos" from santo pecado; to differentiate it (i had a mixed class of native and non-native speakers), my non-native speakers just had to fill in times to practice their number vocabulary, and the native speakers had to fill in and correctly spell words in every other line. we got to talk about a lot of metaphors too, it was probably one of the best lessons i did as a spanish teacher. after teaching the non-nativos the verb ser, we did a listening comp to cafe tacuba's "eres". good times.
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