MY BABIES! What is your favorite clothes?

It's that time again...time for an update on my 4th grade classes, also known as "Colonel Nun dominates 4th grade." In my head.

I see it's been quite awhile since I've posted...so much has happened. So so much. I'm going to just start in and see how far I get, haha. Starting with the nun.

From reading my blog and all of its absurdities, you probably think that I have class with Colonel Nun about half of my classes or more, right? Guess again! She only teaches 4th grade English. I only have three 4th grade classes. So basically, she is only 1/6 of all of my classes, but 90% of all of the crazy I endure in Spain in general. General Nun.

Last week she was on a roll. In each of the classes I had with her, I had no voice (because I got sick and just completely lost it. Instead of letting me go home, on Thursday they made me yell over the students and by  Friday I couldn't even squeak. That's right, mark your calendars...October 15, 2010, Chelsea could not talk at all.) Therefore, in the classes when I couldn't talk, I observed. Curiously. Here's what I noticed: Colonel Nun likes no nonsense. No erasers on the desk. No rulers. No fidgiting with glasses, school supplies, papers, books, or body parts. If you fidgit, and she catches you, you will be yelled at. Like this:

MY BABY!!! WHAT ARE JEW DOING?? WHAT EES DAT? POOT DAT OUT. YA!! POOT DAT OUT!! AWAY! AWAY! *insert yelling in Spanish where she compares student to a dumb animal* Jew know dat I love jew but jew are being eemposseeble!!

Great. So then the kids are scared shitless, but then the moment she turns around the get out their erasers again, or "rubbers" as they learn from British English (yeah awkward central) and their rulers and start stimulating baseball. If I was an 8 year old, I'd be terrified of the conservative nun and her incessant yelling. Hell, I'm 22 years old and I'm terrified of her.

She had another shining moment, though, later that day. Sometimes you get to a point and you learn how someone is crazy but you adapt. There is no adapting with Colonel Nun because she has a whole slew of new crazy she saves for rainy days. She was asking one of the girls in class a question (because the girl does not understand English hardly at all) and expected the rest of the class to sit quietly while she waited for the answer. It's quite overzealous, if you ask me, to expect the most rambunctious 4th grade class that has ever existed on Earth to sit quietly and patiently while one student cannot remember how to say "my name is ______." So it started.

MY BABY!! Look at me, my baby!! Look. What ees jour name? Tell me! What ees jour name? Jes, jew. JOUR NAME. My name ees Maria Jose. What is JOUR name?? JOUR name? Come on, baby, come on. Tell me.

Little impatient boy: pssst....your name is Natalia. Say "my name is Natalia."

SUT UP!! SEE EES SHY. SEE EES ONLY ESCARED BECUZ JEW ALL ESCARE HER, OKAY?? So tell me, baby, what ees jour name? [p.s. I'm pretty sure the other students are not the ones scaring her. Final answer.]

Little impatient boy: pssst....Natalia! Say "Natalia!"

JEW. SUT UP. AY SAID SUT UP!! Go out een da hall and theenk about what jour name ees, where jou come from and who are jour parents so jew are not confused about stealeeng de personality of dis leetle girl. GO. GO. My God, my God, we have got such a problem weeth double personalities here!!!!!

In case you didn't guess, the little girl never actually said her name, or anything at all. Maybe because she thought her "personality was stolen" by the other kid?? What the hell!?


In a different class, Colonel Nun was practicing clothes & vocabulary with the students. So she would go around quickly and fire off questions at random. This day, however, she developed that weird 's' thing like last time where everytime she would say an 's", she would instead say 'sh'. I'm not sure what brought it on, but I like to call this her "Sean Connery Syndrome"....or, well, "Sean Connery Shyndrome." Sho classh went like thish: "JEW, what ish jour favorite pet? JEW what ish jour favorite food?...

JEW, tell me baby, what ish jour favorite clothesh?
Boy: My favorite clothes is sart.
Bery good, bery good, jour favorite clothesh ish shart!

...........................why??????? WHY. Como se dice "shart is not an article of clothes" in Spanish? I don't even know how to say shart in Spanish to explain how it's inappropriate. Then again, I'd be talking to the Catholic institution that uses a doll named Poopie to teach culture and Spanish. That's right, all of my classes through 4th grade use this blue alien doll (he's cute) named Pupi (like pupil...except in Spanish you pronounce it "poo-peel") but Pupi for short. Imagine my surprise when, whilst playing an innocent game of "I Spy", I say "I spy something blue...what do you think it is Miguel?" POOPIE!!!! EES POOPIE!!! POOPIE EES BLUE!!!

....what?? So I just look at him horrified (awkwardly) and because I'm not agreeing with him, he just keeps shouting POOPIE!! POOPIE!! LOOK POOPIE EES BLUE!! Chelsea, look!! POOPIE! Luckily the teacher laughed and said "Pupi is the doll we use for our textbooks...I know it sounds odd in English...yes, Miguel, Pupi is blue. Stop shouting Pupi.

Sigh. So back to Sean Connery. While practicing food vocabulary and questions, the students started asking me about my favorites. So they ask me "Chelsea, what is your favorite food??" So I told them "well, I really miss Chinese food...there is this restaurant, called Panda Express...like panda bears? yes, panda...and they have amazing food that I miss here."

Ready for Colonel Nun's response? "Chinese food?? Jew like Chinese food?? Wang!! Where ees Wang?? Wang, jew hear? Chelsea....liiiikes....Chinese food....jess....just like where JEW are from. China. Can jew make Chinese food??


............it was awful on so many levels. I couldn't decide which was worse: the fact that she called out the Chinese kid for being Chinese, the fact that she assumed and asked him if he could make Chinese food, or the aftermath of the question where Wang did not understand so his face lit up because I was simply talking to him and he nodded his head vigorously without understanding what was going on at all. Sorry Wang :/ maybe sometime I'll cook you some of my eggrolls as a peace offering.

I can't remember if I've mentioned before, but Spain is really racist towards everybody. Especially the Africans and the Asians, though. Especially especially the Chinese. Chinese racism appears on TV on hugely popular shows and even in the basic language. I haven't had to deal with it in the classroom though (except for the Wang incident).

Wednesday, though, was a special day. Last Wednesday was impossible. First of all, during recess, 4 random boys walked up to me and asked "Chelsea, tienes novio??" (do you have a boyfriend?) ....why do you care? You haven't even hit puberty. Call me in 15 years. THEN I was talking to my 6th graders who adore me (it's cute, they write me letters in English...I'll post one sometime soon, it's hilarious) and they told me that this kid Alvaro has a crush on me. Except all they could say was "he...uh...he...he likes you. But you know, likes you. I like Joaquin, because he is very handsome. He looks like Justin Beiber." Quote, unquote. I died. About JB, not the kid who is 12 that has a crush on me. Although I will brag that the kid is super cute. Atleast he's not one of the weird ones. He's very smart and has adorable blue eyes. But, being 10 of course, he's not quite my type.

Anyways, after lunch, I go to Alvaro & the girls' English class. At first we were going over a flyer in the  book that says "Competition: design a computer game that helps people and win a computer." I asked the class "what type of person would do this?" looking for the vocab word that was "computer programmer". Instead, Alvaro pulls his eyes back and says "someone Chinese!!".......................Christ. So I looked at him with my angry eyebrow and said "Alvaro...1. that's racist. 2. rude." Didn't matter..

The teacher in that class just wants me to speak with them in English so we were going over the words "always, never, I like, I'm good at"...etc. So I ask "what is something you always do?" Alvaro raises his hand (he always has to answer and he's always a smartass...we get along well...) and shouts "I always play tennis!!" (P.S. this is the kid who lied to me and told me that over our 4 day weekend he was travelling to the U.S. for a tennis camp...) I told him that was impossible and to think of something more specific so he wasn't lying. I love this class because I can usually be really sarcastic and witty and most of the time they pick up on it. So anyways we go on and I say "what is something you like?" Alvaro, of course, has to answer. "I like tennis!!" I said "no crap you like tennis, Alvaro, everyone knows that. Tell me something different." He says "I like (insert the name of some famous tennis player that I didn't know)" Who?? "uh, he is a famous tennis player" So I decided if he was going to be annoying I'd throw it back at him, so I say "oh, okay, so you like men?" and he goes excited "yes!! yes, I like men"

HAH. I died laughing and winked at him and said "ah, great Alvaro, you like men. Good", gave him the okay sign, and moved on. Approximately 3 seconds later he goes "CHELSEA CHELSEA, no!! eh, uh....I like men, yes, but no like men, no? How you say...uh....it's not what you think, see...". Haha. Gotcha, sucker!! He never did figure out how to say "I'm not gay" but, unfortunately for him, he didn't know that gay is gay in Spanish and English. Alvaro: 0. Chelsea: 1. Congratulations, Chels, you are smarter than a 6th grader, haha. This is what my world has come to.