Hello my dedicated followers,
And so passes another week of my life in Mexico… of course, if we’re going by American standards, 7 24-hour periods have passed since the last blog, but only about 1/3 of the actual events or activities that would normally take place during that time period have actually come to fruition. This is what is charmingly referred to by all of those not forced to live with it as “Mexican Time.” For those of us who are forced to operate in a time zone that is perpetually late and behind schedule, it’s called an annoyance. That sounded uncharacteristically bitter (what? I’m not bitter, shut up.) and I don’t actually mean to sound that way. I am learning to live with Mexican Time and have even began to plan around it and assume a 2 hour delay in everything except the beginning of my classes and the movie theaters. A curious fact: everything is late or behind schedules, but most schools start at 7am… and if you’re late, you’re not allowed for the day. So you can call me late, apparently, just not late to school.
This week Pako had a brain surge and decided that, as he is STILL waiting for his teaching license and degree to be set free from his University in Acapulco and thus can’t even apply for a job as a waiter (to process your degree they require the ORIGINAL copies of your graduation certificates from ALL schools, starting with kindergarten), he should repaint our apartment. Well, in theory, this was a good idea. He’s not working and the apartment really would benefit from a fresh coat of paint. Why not?
I will tell you why not. Why not because he doesn’t know about taping windows or corners and doesn’t want to move anything, he just wants to drape old sheets over things that have been slightly shifted away from the wall. At first, I went calmly and quietly along with this plan figuring that he would eventually stumble upon the fact that this technique would lead to paint-stained possessions and more work for him (and me). I was wrong. He did not so much stumble upon that idea on his own as I had push him full force into it! This surge of aggression on my part was due to an episode in the kitchen, which I will now relate to you in great detail.
The kitchen ceiling was painted with oil paint by the previous resident (Pako’s aunt) which is
now peeling and flaking. Pako wanted to scrape the paint off (with a hand held scraper tool and nothing else) and then paint over whatever he couldn’t remove. So far not so crazy. Well, he and his mother, God love her, assess the situation and decide that rather than moving everything, holding a sheet over our heads and under Pako (who will be balanced on the top rung of a ladder-see picture) to catch all of the falling flakes and debris will suffice. So, from my lesson planning (ok, email writing, whatever, I was using my computer and nobody can prove I wasn’t working) I am summoned to hold a sheet over my pots, pans and various foodstuffs. Being a good pseudo-wife and daughter-in-law, I oblige, shaking my head as I go. Needless to say, as the probably lead filled paint chips and dust are wafting past the sure-fire sheet and settling on to my kitchenware, those around me start to see the error of their ways. Pako goes so far as to comment that it’s snowing in our kitchen. Hilarious.
This type of logic has been applied to the entire apartment-painting process (or fiasco, which is my preferred word choice) and I now have half a brightly colored, freshly painted apartment with a newly speckled floor and furniture. I spent quite a bit of time scrubbing the bathroom sink as no one (Pako) didn’t think it necessary to cover, so that’s mostly yellow with some blue
droplets here and there for character. The living room/dining room, kitchen and bathroom have been completed leaving the bedrooms. I’m nervous as to when my bedroom will be painted because we all know that I will have a first-class hissy-fit if my clothes or shoes should become Robin’s egg blue polka-dotted! I have been planning for the painting of the bedroom however and slowly stashing my things out of site, trying to avoid the fates of the living room and kitchen. Keep your fingers crossed and should you happen to see blue spots on my clothes in pictures or when I come home, kindly do not mention in.
I have given and graded the first exams for my high school classes. Not so bad. I thought they were going to be really easy, but after all the calculations (which were done by hand as I’m not terribly proficient with EXCEL and couldn’t get it to quit auto-correcting my entries to the current date), I got some pretty even bell curves with one classes’ average being 77 and the other’s being 84. Only 2 people of the 26 students are failing! Score! Not that any of that is really due to me and my efforts, but still, it’s no fun to fail students, especially when they’re jolly and amusing in class.
I’m really starting to like my 6th grade class a lot! And, luckily, they’re warming up to me too! All it took was me dancing around like a lunatic and singing a couple of times and now I’ve got them creating sentences and doing their homework out of the palm of my hand! Not really, but they’re a lot more willing to work for me than they were, that’s for sure! Now if only I could get my 7th graders on board… No offense to any of you 7th graders or parents of 7th graders out there, but damn, I do not like that class! There are a few that are fun, a couple that are tolerable, but the vast majority me caen gordos! (That is a charming phrase in Spanish that literally means ‘they fall fat on me,’ but translates to ‘they bother me’). I would normally hesitate to say that about a class, but the teacher who had them last year is the one who said it to me and I found it a quite accurate description of how I was feeling. I’m putting a lot of work into planning for that class to make it more relevant and interesting for them, but they’re not taking the bait and that is starting to piss me off. I find myself mentally giving them worksheets and telling them to shut it and get to work, but the kind and compassionate teacher in me (haha) won’t let me do it. On Monday (which is when I will post this… so ‘today’) we’re talking about celebrities. What 7th grader doesn’t like to talk about celebrities? They’re all pop-culture junkies and I spent some of my hard earned pesos on a gossip magazine so that we have visuals to prompt our discussion should it falter. I hope it goes well, but I can’t say I’m all that optimistic.
Saturday night was an uncle’s birthday so we went over to eat a lot of food and have some cake. Apparently you’re not exempt from getting your face smashed into your birthday cake even well into your 60s. I didn’t know until now, but those of you with June or July birthdays that I will be present for, watch out! No one’s safe, not even those pushing ‘old’ people status! There seems to be a tradition of making at least two main dishes. Last weekend in Lazaro we had Pozole and BBQed beef; this weekend there was Chicken and Pozole. And let me tell you, if you do not take part in both dishes, people wonder why and then commence speculating whether you are on a diet and if not, whether you should be. Then there area always some kind of chips or snacky things. Then there’s cake. For those of you whose memory is already fading, I always have room for cake. Always. This tendency often results in a stomachache, as it did on Saturday night, but you’re crazy if you think I’m missing out on cake!
Sunday was a day of football (they aired the Viqueens game, but who wants to watch that? I hear they have some over the hill sell-out as a quarterback… ) and I went to watch the 2nd half of the Packer game at La Perla with my future hubby or fhubby if you went to Madison with one Ms. Trina Buss. Unfortunately, they were showing the Viqueens game so I was forced to watch that instead... All I can say is only Favre could have pulled off that kind of last second come back and it brought me back to the glory days when he was the only Republican I would have married. Now, not only is he still Republican, but runs around in Purple. All hope is lost. Not to mention my plans to marry someone else in the meantime. While my love for the Green and Gold continues, it’s not nearly as fun to watch without my dad drinking his coke and eating his pretzels while telling me to move so he can fold the laundry. Luckily, I can still here his comments in my mind when someone makes an especially good or bad play or when the refs make or break a call :).
Ok, off to finish lesson planning for the monsters … ahem… I mean my lovely 7th graders… ahem. Super lots of Happy Birthdays to my Dr. friend Karen Wright, who turned 25 on Friday the 25th, meaning that it was her golden birthday. I’m hoping there was Goldschlagger involved. Also, Ms. Jenn Walter, who turned 26 on the 27th, happy birthday to you, too, my badger-mom!
Hasta la próxima semana amiguitos!
Leyah
Ps. Isn’t my dog cute? He gets cold when it rains and the temperature drops to 80 degrees so we put him in his t-shirt… :P This picture is from this morning right before Pako and Teki brought me to school!
And so passes another week of my life in Mexico… of course, if we’re going by American standards, 7 24-hour periods have passed since the last blog, but only about 1/3 of the actual events or activities that would normally take place during that time period have actually come to fruition. This is what is charmingly referred to by all of those not forced to live with it as “Mexican Time.” For those of us who are forced to operate in a time zone that is perpetually late and behind schedule, it’s called an annoyance. That sounded uncharacteristically bitter (what? I’m not bitter, shut up.) and I don’t actually mean to sound that way. I am learning to live with Mexican Time and have even began to plan around it and assume a 2 hour delay in everything except the beginning of my classes and the movie theaters. A curious fact: everything is late or behind schedules, but most schools start at 7am… and if you’re late, you’re not allowed for the day. So you can call me late, apparently, just not late to school.
This week Pako had a brain surge and decided that, as he is STILL waiting for his teaching license and degree to be set free from his University in Acapulco and thus can’t even apply for a job as a waiter (to process your degree they require the ORIGINAL copies of your graduation certificates from ALL schools, starting with kindergarten), he should repaint our apartment. Well, in theory, this was a good idea. He’s not working and the apartment really would benefit from a fresh coat of paint. Why not?
I will tell you why not. Why not because he doesn’t know about taping windows or corners and doesn’t want to move anything, he just wants to drape old sheets over things that have been slightly shifted away from the wall. At first, I went calmly and quietly along with this plan figuring that he would eventually stumble upon the fact that this technique would lead to paint-stained possessions and more work for him (and me). I was wrong. He did not so much stumble upon that idea on his own as I had push him full force into it! This surge of aggression on my part was due to an episode in the kitchen, which I will now relate to you in great detail.
The kitchen ceiling was painted with oil paint by the previous resident (Pako’s aunt) which is
now peeling and flaking. Pako wanted to scrape the paint off (with a hand held scraper tool and nothing else) and then paint over whatever he couldn’t remove. So far not so crazy. Well, he and his mother, God love her, assess the situation and decide that rather than moving everything, holding a sheet over our heads and under Pako (who will be balanced on the top rung of a ladder-see picture) to catch all of the falling flakes and debris will suffice. So, from my lesson planning (ok, email writing, whatever, I was using my computer and nobody can prove I wasn’t working) I am summoned to hold a sheet over my pots, pans and various foodstuffs. Being a good pseudo-wife and daughter-in-law, I oblige, shaking my head as I go. Needless to say, as the probably lead filled paint chips and dust are wafting past the sure-fire sheet and settling on to my kitchenware, those around me start to see the error of their ways. Pako goes so far as to comment that it’s snowing in our kitchen. Hilarious.This type of logic has been applied to the entire apartment-painting process (or fiasco, which is my preferred word choice) and I now have half a brightly colored, freshly painted apartment with a newly speckled floor and furniture. I spent quite a bit of time scrubbing the bathroom sink as no one (Pako) didn’t think it necessary to cover, so that’s mostly yellow with some blue
droplets here and there for character. The living room/dining room, kitchen and bathroom have been completed leaving the bedrooms. I’m nervous as to when my bedroom will be painted because we all know that I will have a first-class hissy-fit if my clothes or shoes should become Robin’s egg blue polka-dotted! I have been planning for the painting of the bedroom however and slowly stashing my things out of site, trying to avoid the fates of the living room and kitchen. Keep your fingers crossed and should you happen to see blue spots on my clothes in pictures or when I come home, kindly do not mention in.I have given and graded the first exams for my high school classes. Not so bad. I thought they were going to be really easy, but after all the calculations (which were done by hand as I’m not terribly proficient with EXCEL and couldn’t get it to quit auto-correcting my entries to the current date), I got some pretty even bell curves with one classes’ average being 77 and the other’s being 84. Only 2 people of the 26 students are failing! Score! Not that any of that is really due to me and my efforts, but still, it’s no fun to fail students, especially when they’re jolly and amusing in class.
I’m really starting to like my 6th grade class a lot! And, luckily, they’re warming up to me too! All it took was me dancing around like a lunatic and singing a couple of times and now I’ve got them creating sentences and doing their homework out of the palm of my hand! Not really, but they’re a lot more willing to work for me than they were, that’s for sure! Now if only I could get my 7th graders on board… No offense to any of you 7th graders or parents of 7th graders out there, but damn, I do not like that class! There are a few that are fun, a couple that are tolerable, but the vast majority me caen gordos! (That is a charming phrase in Spanish that literally means ‘they fall fat on me,’ but translates to ‘they bother me’). I would normally hesitate to say that about a class, but the teacher who had them last year is the one who said it to me and I found it a quite accurate description of how I was feeling. I’m putting a lot of work into planning for that class to make it more relevant and interesting for them, but they’re not taking the bait and that is starting to piss me off. I find myself mentally giving them worksheets and telling them to shut it and get to work, but the kind and compassionate teacher in me (haha) won’t let me do it. On Monday (which is when I will post this… so ‘today’) we’re talking about celebrities. What 7th grader doesn’t like to talk about celebrities? They’re all pop-culture junkies and I spent some of my hard earned pesos on a gossip magazine so that we have visuals to prompt our discussion should it falter. I hope it goes well, but I can’t say I’m all that optimistic.
Saturday night was an uncle’s birthday so we went over to eat a lot of food and have some cake. Apparently you’re not exempt from getting your face smashed into your birthday cake even well into your 60s. I didn’t know until now, but those of you with June or July birthdays that I will be present for, watch out! No one’s safe, not even those pushing ‘old’ people status! There seems to be a tradition of making at least two main dishes. Last weekend in Lazaro we had Pozole and BBQed beef; this weekend there was Chicken and Pozole. And let me tell you, if you do not take part in both dishes, people wonder why and then commence speculating whether you are on a diet and if not, whether you should be. Then there area always some kind of chips or snacky things. Then there’s cake. For those of you whose memory is already fading, I always have room for cake. Always. This tendency often results in a stomachache, as it did on Saturday night, but you’re crazy if you think I’m missing out on cake!
Sunday was a day of football (they aired the Viqueens game, but who wants to watch that? I hear they have some over the hill sell-out as a quarterback… ) and I went to watch the 2nd half of the Packer game at La Perla with my future hubby or fhubby if you went to Madison with one Ms. Trina Buss. Unfortunately, they were showing the Viqueens game so I was forced to watch that instead... All I can say is only Favre could have pulled off that kind of last second come back and it brought me back to the glory days when he was the only Republican I would have married. Now, not only is he still Republican, but runs around in Purple. All hope is lost. Not to mention my plans to marry someone else in the meantime. While my love for the Green and Gold continues, it’s not nearly as fun to watch without my dad drinking his coke and eating his pretzels while telling me to move so he can fold the laundry. Luckily, I can still here his comments in my mind when someone makes an especially good or bad play or when the refs make or break a call :).
Ok, off to finish lesson planning for the monsters … ahem… I mean my lovely 7th graders… ahem. Super lots of Happy Birthdays to my Dr. friend Karen Wright, who turned 25 on Friday the 25th, meaning that it was her golden birthday. I’m hoping there was Goldschlagger involved. Also, Ms. Jenn Walter, who turned 26 on the 27th, happy birthday to you, too, my badger-mom!
Hasta la próxima semana amiguitos!
Leyah
Ps. Isn’t my dog cute? He gets cold when it rains and the temperature drops to 80 degrees so we put him in his t-shirt… :P This picture is from this morning right before Pako and Teki brought me to school!
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