Leyah's New, Sunnier and More Spanishy Life: Disjointed, but soap-boxy

Well kids, another week done and gone. They are positively flying by, which I don’t mind telling you, is fine with me! While I’ve had fun and definitely learned a lot, I won’t be sad to see this year of Montessori come to a close. Right now we’re dealing with the splitting of groups (who will teach what grade/class) for next year and let me tell you, it is one more big pain in the arse, shaped scarily like that big lump I sometimes refer to as Ricardo. As it stands now, there are 3 English teachers: Artemisa (Kindergarten 1, 2 and 3, and primary 1), Coco (Primary 2-5, Secondary 2) and myself (Primary 6, Secondary 1, High school 1 and 2). Ricardo thinks that it’ a good idea to incorporate all of us in ALL levels of the school, kinder – high school, thus giving all of us classes in Kinder, primary, secondary (impossible, there are only two levels) and high school (NO!!! those are my classes!). Now, this irks all three of us teachers because we like our levels (except I do NOT like Secondary 1, but next year they’ll be my babies from Primary 6, so I’m hoping for a better class) and we’re comfortable in our roles. I don’t know how the heck I’d teach kindergarten. I have no clue how to teach 3 year olds and I have interest in finding out. They don’t use a book, so curriculum would be up to me. No thank you. I’m also not buying one of the ridiculous aprons they make the kinder teachers wear. I love my high school classes. They are conversation classes and I like the freedom of that. I can follow the book and bring in my own articles and it’s interesting listen to the discussions that develop. Anywho, this is the current Montessori drama in my life and it is nowhere close to being finished. I am NOT going down without a fight. What is going to happen is that I’m going to drop off my resume in other schools and do some networking with the other teachers that I’ve met in Zihua. If I have to drop some hours at Montessori and pick some up elsewhere, I’m not opposed to that idea. Ricardo has no idea who his sad, confused, inept self has messed with.

Continuing with the school theme, yesterday was my last day at the Instituto Tecnologico de la Costa Grande as a college professor. Bummer. Though not so much bummer when I think about the Saturday mornings that won’t be brought in with a too early alarm. May 15^th is Dia de los Maestros (Teacher’s Day) here in Mexico, so a lot of my students shook my hand or gave me hugs. It was an odd experience. I didn’t know why they were hugging me at first and then one of the more advanced student’s said in English “happy teachers’ day, teacher.” Well, not only did my heart swell as I realized that she used the possessive -s (teachers’) correctly, but I then understood why all of a sudden people were shaking my hand. Now I knew that teachers’ day was this week because of the two parties I had missed during the week due to an awesome cold that decided to take up residence on Wednesday morning, but I had forgot that the actual day was on Saturday. Montessori threw a pretty nice party for the teachers at a restaurant in Ixtapa and gave out presents and then the local government through an even bigger party at a hotel in Ixtapa and gave out presents (but only for government teachers, which means I wouldn’t have qualified anyway – they raffled off laptops!) Alas, I was laid up in bed, sweating from a slight fever compounded by unpleasant humidity. Oh well, there is always next year!

I’m happy to say that I’m feeling better today. Still have crud in my throat that forces me to make obnoxious noises from time to time, but I’m definitely on the mend. On Wednesday, after Pako picked me up from school early, we headed out to La Ropa to pick something up from Eliseo and he offered me a home remedy for congestion – mescal. I took a shot, all the while being a doubting Debbie, and immediately my sinuses were cleared and I felt slightly drunk. Now, mescal is not tasty (not even a little bit – ugh) so it’s not a medicine that I will be turning to often in the future, but I had to try it at least once, if just to be able to write about it here. In Minnesota, they give you tea and honey. In Mexico, your father in law gives you mescal. Sounds about right. Thursday I stayed home from school and only went for half a day on Friday and on those days definitely stayed away from any home remedies. Saturday I manned up and went to give my last class at the college, which was shortened as it was only a quick review and then an exam. Then came home and took two naps. Apparently, sleeping helps when one is sick. I had to remind my body of this as it is so averse to sleeping well at any time, in sickness or in health.

Speaking of sickness and health, Pako and I finally found little glass thingys to complete the centerpieces for the tables at our wedding reception. Woohoo! No you all may think that is boring news, but its one less thing on my list. Planning a wedding is a lot of details and all this heat makes me lazy! People asked why I planned such a long engagement – well, this is why: I knew myself and my tendency towards laziness when planning fiestas. So here we are, 10 months away from the big day and I’m already feeling the time crunch. Can you imagine how I’m going to feel in 6 months? 8 months? 9 months? Poor Pako.

May 14^th was my dad’s birthday. If you forgot, well shame on you! If you didn’t know, now you do. I wish that I could have been there to celebrate; especially when I found out they were eating beer-brats, potato salad and baked beans. I neglected to send his present through the mail as I’ve been to the post office here and it’s sketchy at the best. At least bringing it home with me means that it will arrive, late but sure, in June. Speaking of June – woooohooooo! I’m already dreaming about the food I’m going to eat! I know that’s probably not what I should be dreaming about, but it is. Friday fish fry, Turkey Tuesday, Krohl’s, deep-fried cheese curds… the list goes on.. but I won’t. Happy birthday again Dad, I love you!

Pako’s soccer team (with Sol, of all ironic places to be playing soccer) has made it to the semi finals and he broke his cleats open doing some fantastical defensive move that he has described to me in it’s entirety a number of times (but which I still can not visualize… or bring myself to care about … shh) and thus we had to go searching for some new ones. How could he be there for his team 100% with broken cleats? Anyway, we got ULTRA lucky and found some really nice ones here for the exact same price they are selling for in the states. That NEVER happens. Anyway, he’s like a proud papa and brings them out to show anyone who knows anything about soccer. Whilst playing, he’s been hearing rumors about being called back to Sol, but we’re not holding our breath or counting any chickens. He’s going to stop by Lala (Dairy products) and drop off his resume sometime this week. He really needs a job because it’s only a month and a half until the cold current and sharks leave the area and he needs to buy a new surfboard! Also, there’s the added benefit of insurance for him, Petra and me! And money for food and all that good stuff, too. But primarily it’s the surfboard, who are we kidding?

Alright, I apologize for the jumpiness of this blog, I’ve been on cold medicine for about 4 days now (and mescal). I’m going to do some quick lesson planning and then hop in a taxi to make tacos with Lorena and spend the day playing with puppies and painting my nails. It’s a rough life, but someone’s gotta live it! (Language note: gotta and gonna really irritate ESL teachers because while we want students to use them when pronouncing words because of their true value in conversational English, it’s rather annoying to see it pop up in a formal book report – and they say academic English can be learned in 2 years? Don’t even get me started).

Oh, one soapbox moment before I go. Recently the newest anti-constitutional bullshit (pardon me, but that’s what it is) that Arizona is calling a “law” has brought immigrants and immigration to the forefront of everybody’s mind, including mine. Now, I realize that everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion (let them write about it on their own blog, this one is MINE), but I would remind everyone that immigration is NEVER an easy process. Pako and I are not even married yet and we’re already checking requirements and getting ourselves ready for what is sure to be a year long (minimum 6-8 months, if we’re uber-lucky), expensive process. The United States grants 50,000 alien resident visas a year, total. When considering that more than 50,000 people around the world apply for that particular kind of visa every day, the number seems absurdly small. I am not advocating that the US open it’s borders completely, I’m just stating facts. The process is difficult and expensive and if my child was starving or the drug violence was too much to take, I’d do what I needed to do, including crossing a border illegally. Let’s not be too quick in judging people because of their choices.

ALSO, and even if you didn’t agree with me in the last paragraph, please take a moment to read this one carefully. Arizona is no proposing a law (SB 1097) that would require teachers to report any children they believed to be in the country illegally. This not only targets innocent children, who probably had little to no choice in immigrating to the US, but it puts teachers in an impossible position. If students can’t trust their teachers, they cannot learn. This is a simple fact. Ask Maslow, he’s got this hierarchy of needs that explains what students need in order to be able to learn in school (safety - see pyramid). If you feel that your rabid sense of “patriotism” (cough * racism * cough) compels you to target any adult on the street because the “look illegal” that is one thing, but let’s not target the children. They have enough on their plate. I will never report a student, regardless of the laws that govern the state where I am teaching. Never. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.