March 2012
24 posts
1 tag
Question tags
Yesterday, I asked Julian, the English teacher, what he was doing in class with the 16-year-olds.
“We’re working on question tags.”
“…What?”
So apparently “question tags” are things you add onto the end of a sentence to emphasize your point, such as:
—You didn’t go to school today,did you?
—She’s tired today,isn’t...
3 tags
Brenna made a mistake by telling me she likes long...
I went to Fisterra this past weekend, or ¨The End of the Earth¨ to the Romans. It was beautiful. I´ll post some photos later.
In a moment of down-time during the trip, I vividly imagined returning home and seeing Travis, Andrea, Krissy, and Brenna for the first time in months. I gave them all hugs (twice) and then we went to the Blue Colony Diner to sit around and say stupid stuff like we always...
3 tags
The generosity of Galician people
The other day I got out of school early, and on the 50 minute ride down the mountain, I asked the special education teacher what she was going to eat for lunch that day, just to make conversation. (We are close enough for that question not to be totally stupid). Her response was:
“I’m going out for lunch with a friend. Do you want to come?”
I was so flabbergasted that I...
1 tag
Let downs.
This morning one of the English teachers invited me to a secret party in the department room during break. She said she had a surprise treat for everyone. It was flan. Dammit.
4 tags
So then what did he actually say?
Today, a kid came into the teachers’ room asking for a ping-pong paddle. (There is a ping-pong table in the hallway that these children worship as a god) One of the teachers gave him a paddle, asking what I understood to be:
“what happened to the other one, did you eat it?”
I laughed, and judging by the looks that the teachers and the student gave me, that is not what he said.
...
5 tags
More on my presentation about US high schools
A little bit more about the presentation on U.S. high schools that I did: (it is taking two class periods with the older kids and upwards of three with the babies, so I have more reactions to report)
When talking about the college application process, I tried to explain affirmative action, and why colleges make a concerted effort to accept minorities. This doesn’t really make sense to them,...
4 tags
Even though I am only a few years older than most...
I realized yesterday when a 14-year-old student accidentally spit on his desk while he was talking and dealt with it by lowering his face and blowing on the spit, that these are just children. I spend a lot of time subconsciously feeling inferior to them because they understand what the heck everyone is saying and I never do, but we are all the same. I am a stranger in a strange land and so are...
3 tags
Shakespeare for ESL students...
We had a British theater group come to the school the other day to do A Midsummer Night’s Dream. You can imagine how well that was going to go over with a bunch of Gallego-speaking children.
Well you are wrong. We were too. We spent several classes trying to explain to kids what the hell happens in that play, but it turns out we didn’t need to. The performance started with these two...
3 tags
A lesson the kids loved
I got the idea to have the kids write characters on pieces of paper (ie: politician, pirate, singer, etc), collect the papers, mix them in a bag, and have each student choose one. With their partner, they write a dialogue between those two characters. (Or they could work alone and choose 2 characters from the bag).
I’ve done the exercise with three classes so far and each of them have loved...
4 tags
Tuesday the 13th
Here, in Galicia, at least, Tuesday the 13th is the day of bad luck. When someone told me that yesterday morning, I was like whatever, my day will be fine.
It was fine, but it did start with a stroke of bad luck. As I entered the cafe where the teachers have coffee every morning, I glanced at a group of people in our usual spot, but my eyes didn’t focus on any of them until one separated...
I'm still so cute.
My roommate Silvia found my underwear in her re-useable shopping bag. I can only assume it fell in as I was putting my clothes in the washer or taking them out. She and I don’t communicate very well, so I’m not sure where the bag was, how she found them, and if they are clean or not. It is so gross and embarrassing that I’m choosing not to think about it.
1 tag
I'm so cute.
There is no system of measurements in the world that has quanitites large enough to describe the amount of nervous sweat I produce in a day. Or the amount of food I accidentally fling at myself in the lunchroom.
5 tags
I guess I should show you where I am...
Are you ready for beautiful photos? You should be. They were taken by our friend Xose Casas (pronounced like Jose but with an “sh” sound replacing the J). At least I got them from his facebook, maybe he got them from somewhere else. He lives in Sarria, which is nearby Fonsagrada, and the scenery is basically the same.
We’ll start with the plain beautiful photos and move up to...
I am so happy!
I’m so excited that my four best buddies in the whole wide world are on tumblr. Now we can get updates on each others’ lives or just be reminded why we love each other. (Without having to do the boring chore of talking to each other.)
Brenna, Krissy, Andrea, and Travis, you are the funniest and the smartest people I know. I love you all to the ends of the earth and back again.
5 tags
Continuing on the theme...
Of gendered language, I would like to talk about English, Spanish, and Italian swears. In all of them, many of the most offensive phrases are those that reference women’s or gay men’s roles: to get fucked or screwed, to take it up the butt, “blow me” or “you can suck my dick”. We use these phrases when something bad happens to us, and they are all referencing...
3 tags
Great article about recent reproductive rights...
The pro-choice reawakening
Some people say that it would have been awesome to be our age in the 60’s and 70’s because of all the energy at the time. I think that maybe history is coming around again, and another age of protests and progress is coming. So maybe our generation will get lucky too and have our anger and energy validated with real change. And while you’re reading,...
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Another reason I want to go home:
Because of this stupid language with buttloads of verb conjugations and stupid gendered nouns. The verb conjugations—ok, whatever. They are difficult, but I understand the need to know exactly who did what and when (and the need to knowifthey’ll do it, for some reason. Shoutout to you, subjunctive tense! Also, fuck you, subjunctive tense.)
But gendered nouns? Why? I ask you why, every...
I wanna go home.
Today I do not want to be here. I want to go home to the U.S. I am tired of “not understanding a dick” of what is happening around me (that is a literal translation of something they say here. Look at me, hating it here but still using and loving their phrases.) I know I will miss this place when I leave, but dammit, I want to go home.
7 tags
Entroido/Carnaval
I’m way behind on events, here. About two weeks ago (at the same time as Mardi Gras) we had Carnaval (Entroido in Gallego) here in Lugo and Fonsagrada. It was a big freaking deal at school.
I was told it was absolutely mandatory to wear a costume to school, so I scrounged around the clothes I have here and found enough for this costume:
The rest of the teachers were pirates. Classes...
2 tags
Rosemary
My roommate Silvia was cooking potato pancakes when she realized that the recipe called for rosemary but she didn’t have any. Hearing this, Francesca, my other roommate went out to the park in back of our house and clipped some off of a bush, brought it back, and we ate it. This shouldn’t have been weird to me, but it was.
That wasn’t really interesting, but it is what I have to...
4 tags
Teaching incorrect phrases
In art class with the 12-year-olds, we were looking at pictures of masks. We got to a particularly funny-looking one, and the tiniest, most adorable little boy in the class said “es un tío raro” which means “that’s a weird guy”.
I like to get them learning English that is relevant to their lives, so I asked them if they knew the translation for “tío...
6 tags
Things learned about the English language
Here’s something I found out just last weekend: English is mostly made up of short, one-syllable words. A Spanish friend was telling me about how he used to have a hard time comprehending spoken English in class because the words were so short that they all blended together. My mind was blown by the truth of the unnoticed fact that was in front of my face for 23 years.
So next time you say...
