Dondeques

Love me!

Sooo I should probably just ask for help when I need it, so I’m going to. Remember how when I left for Spain, I was afraid that you (my friends) would forget me? Maybe you don’t remember, but I do. I’ve been feeling like a gloopy glob of doo lately and miss my friends, and I guess honestly, a little bit, I do feel like you are forgetting me.

Now. This has absolutely nothing to do with how you have been acting and everything to do with how I am feeling. It is not that you haven’t been paying me attention (in fact, I feel like I have been receiving a lot lately. I got to talk to Andrea for the first time in forever the other day!). It is that I am super insecure and a little bit panicky in my life right now. And I want love from the people that matter most to me. So if it ever occurs to you to say something to me, or if you want to talk on skype with me (I want to talk on skype with YOU!) then, say so. I guess basically, I just want to talk to everyone on skype this weekend.

Basically, this is not a post in any way to make you feel guilty for all the time you don’t talk to me (which is most of every day, and that’s how it should be). And it’s not a post to make you feel constantly guilty in the future for not talking to me. It is just a post to ask for love, instead of withering into an unloved raisin without having reached out to anyone at all.

And when I say “you”, you know who you are.

I’m not sure how obnoxious this post is. I’m sorry if the answer is “extremely”.

Here I come!

I am coming home July 30th, in the evening. So get ready!

Now I just have to survive slightly under two months without any cats.

I have so little self-confidence and so little energy left.

15 minutes of just staring at each other.

Today I tried to do a presentation about US food for the 12 year olds. I was all by myself, without a teacher. They couldn´t be quiet for one minute. I sent some kids out of the room for throwing pencil cases, and finally, with 15 minutes left, I turned off the powerpoint in the middle of it and told them that we would sit in silence for the rest of the class. That is what we did. I folded my arms and stared at them for 15 minutes. I occasionally had to send kids into the hall or to the library, where there was a teacher on guard duty.

It was extremely unpleasant, but it gave me a feeling of competence, that I´m not just a doormat, and that one day I will be able to manage and discipline a classroom.

One problem is that the younger kids view me as a toy—someone from far away who doesn´t speak the language very well, who does fun lessons with them, and who does not give them any homework or grades, and never yells at them. They got a taste of something different today, that is for sure.

Ok, I admit

The last post I made about f-ed up ESL dialogues was not really anything special. The dialogues were pretty strange to me, but apparently you all have dialogues like that with some frequency.

This, however, is one of the most horrifying things I have ever seen.

http://www.manythings.org/b/e/2061/

Today was the last day of school for the seniors. Do you know what they did? They stood out in front of the school and played the bagpipe and drank, beginning at 10am. They had an entire shopping cart filled with alcohol and mixers, out there boiling in the sun. They took a break at 2pm to eat shrimp in the school cafeteria, then went back out and continued drinking.

When we left at 5pm, they were plugging in a speaker system, blasting “Someone like you”, and the police were driving by, but not doing anything.

On a not-relevant note, I was told yesterday by the English teachers that when I say that I am from Connecticut, it sounds “exotic”. I was actually very excited about this.

So last week I discovered that the absolute worst place to be on a warm Saturday morning is the bus station in Lugo. It is full of outrageously creepy old men.

I was picking my friend Mickal up, and I got there ten minutes early and her bus was ten minutes late, so I ended up standing there for twenty minutes total, which the men take as a sign that a girl is not there for vehicular reasons.

Two men talked to me in that time, the first one was absolutely unintelligible. He looked like that old man that Aladdin finds in the dungeon who leads him to the cave where the lamp is. All toothless and grinning. I told him I was not from here and that I did not understand. He went away.

A short time later, a less crazy-looking man, who was probably in his early 70’s, came up to me and said (all in Spanish):

“Hello good-looking girl. Where are you traveling?”

I would have talked to him and answered his question because I am an innocent idiot who doesn’t like to just ignore people who talk to me, but the “good-looking girl” put me on edge. So I just looked away.

“Do you want to come have a coffee with me?”

At this point I was grossed out and shocked and i chose a strategy other than ignoring him, which was pretending I didn’t understand.

“I’m not from here, I don’t understand,” I told him.

“Oh, you don’t understand me? but you are speaking perfect Spanish”

Here I almost told him that I’d learned enough to be able to tell people I didn’t understand, but just in time realized that would blow my rock-solid cover. So I said nothing.

“So if I asked you to come have a coffee, you wouldn’t understand me?”

“I don’t understand what you are saying to me.” Oh, fuck.

He totally realized that I was understanding every word  he said and hung around me for a while, protesting about how I actually did speak Spanish and continuing to invite me for a coffee, but I just looked really uncomfortable and didn’t answer him anymore. After a while, he realized he couldn’t force me to understand him, so he walked away.

I was left feeling totally disgusting but also trying really hard not to laugh about how poorly-executed my pretending not to understand was. It was funny because it wasn’t scary. It was morning and a lot of people were around, so it wasn’t frightening, otherwise, it wouldn’t be funny at all.

But like, what? Did he think I was a prostitute? That is more acceptable to me than him thinking I was just a regular girl who would maybe want to go have sex with him. But either way, it’s really annoying that a man sees a woman and thinks that it’s in his right to ask for sex from her—that that’s all we are for. I mean, I am just assuming he wanted sex, because why would he just want to have coffee? And why did he think I would ever say yes? I don’t know. I am not quite sure how best to analyze this event to identify the exact reasons why it’s annoying and a sign of a sexist society. Help me out, seasoned feminists. You know who you are.

The principal has given me permission to stay at the school through June. There was doubt that she would let me because she is a fanatic about insurance and legal issues. When I told the English teachers today, they made the loudest sound I had ever heard them make, in the form of “YAAAY!”.

I will not allow myself to be flattered by this. They love to get out of work, and when I am there they get several breaks each week.

But…I can’t help but think that maybe they want me there because I am doing a good job, and maybe, just maybe, they like me and want me to stay! They said they were going to go to the principal and convince her to let me stay if she had said no.

Ohhh butts.

I was just asked to participate in the project they’re doing at the school where the teachers and students are re-creating famous paintings.We are going to do some Degas dancers.

This is cool because people are asking me to do things and acknowledging my presence and humanity.

On the other hand, it is not cool becuase now I have to shave my legs. I have been growing them (my legs, that is) since November and I was really hoping to leave them unshaven. I guess all along I knew that the part of me that caves to societal expectations (which is most of me) would win out, but a little part of me hoped I could be cool and hairy. You know, like a HUMAN MAMMAL.

Although. Two other people are dressing up as dancers. One of them is a female teacher, and the other is a student who happens to be male. If a male can dress up as a female, shouldn’t I be allowed to wear a dress and have hairy legs? Maybe if I was less scared here all of the time I would propose it. Maybe I’ll propose it anyway.