Look!! Ees essunny? NO! Ees essnowing!! Brrrr!!!

I find myself laughing at the smallest things here in Spain. I'm (probably surprisingly) one of those people that walks around and gets distracted easily by everything (that's not the surprising part) and often gets touched by the little details. Like my new class on Gran Via that has the gorgeous view, or the all of the Christmas lights around. Everything makes me feel so blessed and filled with happiness. I did the same thing 2 years ago when I went to London, except I sat in a few different Starbucks and started crying. Let me tell you, Katie is so thrilled to be going with me to London in less than two weeks, haha, after telling her that detail. I refuse to promise not to cry. London is touching.

Anyways, my latest amusement is how quickly my students have adapted to me. They know my teaching styles and tactics, and now use them to communicate back to me. Which is good and bad. Communication in general is good but playing dumb is not, haha. In class, whenever I want to ellicit a certain response and the class won't answer, I always give a few false answers first. So I say "What's the weather like today??" Dead silence. Crickets. Okay....is it....cloudy?? NO!! Oh, okay....is it....rainy?? NO!!! Eees essunny!!! There we go. That tactic. I didn't realize how often I do that though until recess today. Approximately ten minutes ago it started snowing. Madrid is not used to seeing snow. I will detail that later. However I go outside during the lunch break and all of the kids have gone batshit crazy running around like they were set on fire. One of my students runs up to me, gives me a hug, and says, "Chelsea!! Ees essunny?? No!! Ees essnowing!!" and runs away.

hahaha....oops. Impressionable youngsters. Meanwhile when I tryyyyy to teach them something, like fun slang, they can't pick it up to save their lives. The other day in class I was trying to teach them the word "suck". In the context of "This CD sucks" because their disc that accompanies their book is scratched and won't work. I spent 20 minutes trying to get them to say English class sucked and they refused. Somehow, actually, by the end of class instead of using the word they were confused and thought that I was saying English sucked. Oh well.

Speaking of slang.....I've also learned that while you can't teach the kids slang, they can pick it up from pop songs, news media, and Paris Hilton's My New BFF (while the show was a total failure in America, Spain MTV loves it). Sometimes this is funny, sometimes it is painful. Please reference my Halloween post about "sexy bampires" before continuing. I realize sexy is a seemingly harmless word but I wouldn't say it to my grandma. Therefore I wouldn't use it with my students to describe anything. They, however, don't have the same opinion. I like to draw vocabulary words on the chalkboard, instead of translating, so I can keep lying to the kids about me not knowing Spanish and I also like doodling. It makes my 4 years of high school seem worth something, haha. Anyways one of the vocab words in my 5th grade class was "have a shower" (once again, damn their British English) So I drew a harmless stick figure in a shower with a happy face. I like to be sarcastic with them because it keeps them on their feet. So I said "there we go, shower! See? He's super cute. I'd date him." And one of the students, always a class clown, yells "jess, Chelsea, he ees bery esexy! Esexy boy!!"

Okay, I'm sorry, what?!? SERIOUSLY? I literally threw my head back and stared at the ceiling for about 20 seconds trying not to laugh and be appaulled at the same time. How the hell do you deal with that anyways? So I decided to ignore it and move on. But he kept saying sexy boy over and over and over. Listening to one of your chubby and overeager students mutter "essexy boy" numerous times is annoying so I decided to throw it back at him, since he seemed to grasp that it was inappropriate, and call HIM the sexy boy. As a nickname. At first it mortified him. Which was good. He actually blushed and shut up for a little bit. But then the class started calling him "essexy" boy and eventually he became proud of it. The next day, I made them make nametags so I could call them out when they were talking rudely. Joan (pronounced yo-an) decided to write "Joan (sexy boy)" on his nametag. Then when I called on him later, he said "eh, Chelsea, jew meessed dees part. See? Joan, essexy boy. Ees eemportan"

As if that wasn't enough, the most annoying girl in the classroom decided if Joan was going to be sexy boy, she wanted to be sexy girl. So her nametag now says "Ikram (sexy girl)". I'm waiting for the nuns to walk by and have holy conniptions for my "essexy" 10 year olds.

Anyways, back to the snow. It's snowing!! :) I wasn't expecting snow. I'm also realllly cold right now, haha. I forgot my warm peacoat at home (intelligently) sooo I'm going to start wearing a sweatshirt and my fleece jacket. That should do. I've been secretly waiting for this moment, though, because up until now Spaniards have already armed their kids with their huge down jackets and furry hoods. I'm waiting to see what they would send with them once it got below 50. No outfit change as of yet, but total panic has stricken my school//Spanish citizens. It usually does not snow in Madrid, so the city is completely unequipped. My teacher told me last year when it snowed Madrid just shut down all of the roads, buses, and trains. Brilliant. I asked if they knew to use salt. She said they prefer to wait until it snows knee-high and use snow plows. She was also dead serious. Right now snowflakes are majestically dancing in the wind, slowly falling and blowing away. The average Madrid citizen is currently power-walking down the street unhappily with an umbrella and a scarf wrapped twice around their entire face. It's kind of like a reverse/upside-down turban. A face turban.

Meanwhile, if you take one step outside of the hustle and bustle of the city into my school, you will discover a completely new scenery from the norm. Usually, during breaks, you will find 40+ 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade boys playing soccer, completely consumed by their imaginary world where they are THE best soccer player in the country and leading Spain to another world cup victory. The girls stand around gossipping, doing hair, or playing tag. Anytime that I am on the playground, I find myself becoming "base" because they think the kids won't hit me to get to the other kids behind me. They're often wrong...a lot. Anyways today every student can be found with their tongues excitedly flying out of their mouths with their heads thrown back at a 45 degree angle and their face scrunched up uglier than a pug's. Apparently a Spanish kid's responses to snow go like this: 1. gasp. 2. scream. 3. flock to window to gawk. 4. run outside and hug your friends eagerly. 5. whiplash your head immediately as hard as possible and wave your tongue around less than gracefully trying to catch as many snowflakes as possible.

So...my playground looks like this, but times 150 students.

I'm gonna go wait and see how long they can last. My guess is about 15 minutes before their natural Spanish nature kicks in and they start complaining about how cold it is. That's my biggest pet peeve. "cold" here is anything below 60 degrees. Last night I went on a walk with Katie for Starbucks and was too lazy to put on shoes, so I wore flip flops. First of all, that's sacrilege in Spain, even when it's warm. But to wear sandals when it is below 60 in Spain is abominable. Old little bitties will literally stop you and tell you numerous things. 1. it is SO COLD outside. 2. how could you not wear shoes? 3. you young people are crazy to not wear shoes because 4. It is SO COLD outside. 5. I'm SO COLD and I have shoes on!!

I told Katie if any old ladies approached us, I was going to have to quickly figure out how to say "listen here you old bird, I know it's cold but I'm lazier than it is cold so thank you for your concert but you're not my mom."

And mom, if you're reading this, I promise I'll probably wear shoes next time. :)

I love jew!.......I deed no want to say dat.

Today is Black Friday. And while I would love to complain and say that I wish I was home, I can't. Not really. I mean......okay yeah, I wish I could be at Castleton Mall (or OOOOH maybe Circle Centre, an upgrade) with some of my best friends to people watch the psychos shop. Today is on my list of people-watching holidays. This list also is home to Harry Potter releases (books, movies, etc.), prom season, and well...now, all of Spain. I NEVER dress Spanish. Here's what I lack: thigh high leather boots with 3 1/2 inch platform heels, booty denim shorts, booty shorts in general, numerous pairs of tights of various colors, and baby doll tees with cartoon characters and/or grammatically incorrect English. Here's an example:

Please note the fashion math here: the short length (x) is equal to (y), her crotch. If x = y, then z (the outfit) is trashy. And probably drafty. Basic math.

Typical Spanish. I couldn't begin to tell you how many Spanish women thought I was checking them out because I was staring at their chest, squinting intently, trying to figure out what the hell their shirt said. In English. At first, I thought my English had completely gone down the crapper. But then I realized the shirt was like this one and didn't make any sense anyways. Translation FAIL.

Anyways...my point is that I would love to people watch at home and watch the crazies in the mall but I'm actually having multiple Thanksgivings here. Yesterday, I had lunch with my roommates and we had stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans (I made them!!!), some sort of salad, and apple crisp that was INCREDIBLE. Then today, I had my NIE appointment (foreigner identification number appointment...I like to call it my green card) at 9 a.m. So Katie & I took a little stroll up the road to the office, I got to catch up with Rebecca because her appointment was today too, and then we went to this cute place called "CH y CH" (CH and CH) for hot chocolate and churros. (I like to call it CH and CH and CH...chocolate, churros, and CHelsea!! hah!) THEN I went with Katie to the post office to get my mail, which had many prezzies from Tim and Jeri (today Katie called them Jim and Terry by accident...it was pretty awesome. I might adopt it officially) including 420 candy canes, new glasses with my actual prescription, and the best thing yet:

CANDY CANE ANTLERS!!!!!!!!!!!! YES YES YES.

I can't wait to go to school with these things on. Seriously. Can't wait.

After the box, we went to this completely American "50's diner" called Mel's near our house. It was noon, but not open. So clearly it's not that American after all. We were American, though, as we banged on the window numerous times until we caught someone's attention and mouthed "What time do you open??" 1. Well fine, we'll be back, haha. So we went home, I called our internet company because they're liars and assholes, and finally Katie and Carissa drug me away from arguing with them so we could go get our Thanksgiving lunch. Spanish hamburgers are awful, by the way. Even if you go to McDonalds, they taste horrible. But Mel's is phenomenal. We had chili cheese fries, burgers, and a chocolate milkshake. It was gluttonous like Thanksgiving should be. And all of the waitresses wore really awful pastel pink satin dresses with hot pink Converse shoes. I'm also glad that's what Spaniards think America is like. I left my pink satin dress at home. The best part of the whole restarant, though was a sign on the wall that said "If you're not served in 5 minutes.........you'll be served in 9 or 10. Maybe 12. Relax." Now THAT is Spanish.

Anyways, I'm now waiting at home (recovering)...and a friend Isaac is over making pumpkin pie. I'm not sure where he found pumpkin but I'm pretty sure it probably cost him a few fingers and his first born child. After the pumpkin pie, I'm going to pretend to be doing homework until later tonight, when I'm meeting up with some other friends to have REAL Thanksgiving. With TURKEY!! IN SPAIN. I can't wait!! It's going to be awesome. I'm not going to eat for a week after this, atleast.

So. Luckily my Thanksgiving in Spain didn't suck like I thought it would! Also, I treated Thanksgiving like I did Halloween...I played holiday Santa and gave native Spaniards themed prezzies! On Halloween, I gave my baristas at the coffee shop spider rings, Halloween pencils, and body-part candy. They loved it. For Thanksgiving, I bought 3 boxes of assorted cookies. I gave one box to this cute girl at the bank down the street (she was really, really confused as to why I brought her cookies. I tried to explain without her I wouldn't have any money and I appreciated her help. She stood up and backed away slowly, I swear I thought she was going to call security, but then came around the counter to give me two kisses on the cheek. CUTE!!) Then I wrote my teachers at my school a letter about how I love the school and appreciate them including me in their mid-day drinking at the local bar and making me feel at home. I left them the other 2 boxes. It made me so happy to share Thanksgiving here because Spaniards are really not used to saying "thank you".

This also brings me to my teaching of Thanksgiving in my classes. I only had time to teach Thanksgiving in my 1st grade and 3rd grade classes, but that was plenty for me. The 1st graders loved coloring the turkey and the 3rd graders got consumed by looking up words in the dictionary. I'm really sad to report that my 3rd graders don't know how to use the dictionary. I made them write 4 things they are thankful for on feathers to paste on their fingers for a hand turkey. They know "family" and "friends" but couldn't get past it. I kept walking around the room and I saw that 6 different students wrote "sus", "v", and "con". Come again?? One girl wrote "adj family", "adj sister", "adj teachers". That's when I realized they would look up the words, and instead of understanding that the first thing that appears is the PART OF SPEECH, they wrote that down. Sus= sustantivo, or noun, v= verb, con= conjunction. Seriously?? Also the concept of a turkey is more foreign than pants in this country. I told the kids to draw legs and a beak. One student gave his turkey 4 legs (draw it, it's hilarious), another kid put 2 feathers on his thumb and index finger and 2 on his pinky and ring finger, leaving them middle finger open and super awkward, and another little girl gave herself a panic attack because she's an over acheiver and insisted on writing 8 feathers of things she is thankful for. She drew herself extra feathers and literally almost started crying when she realized there were 4 feathers for a reason. It doesn't always pay to suck up, haha.

In this class, though, the funniest thing happened. While the teacher was out of the room. Which left me to deal with the aftermath. Which is always bad. I was trying to write a paragraph in Spanish on the board about Thanksgiving to explain why we're making turkeys. I'm allergic to chalk, though, so I ended up sneezing pretty strongly. One of the kids in class said "Jesus", which is the response in Spanish. Another student wanted me to understand, so he, of course, said it in English. "I love jew!"
Oops. I started laughing and the worst part was there's a kid from Manchester in the class so he gasps and immediately hides his face because he's so embarrassed for the kid. Then he started "whispering" in Spanish "you said I love you!!! you told her you love her!!!!" So then all the kids know what he did and start laughing and pointing and he keeps saying "no!! ees dat...I no want to say dat!!" I told him it's okay, I love him too. I love all of my students, and you all love me too, right? This is my favorite part: when my students have no idea what I'm saying so they just nod and smile. Before I can say "awwww good" the kid from Manchester says "NO, I don't love you!!" and crosses his arms defiantly. I was insulted. No wonder people think the British are so cold. I tried to tell him you can love someone without loving them but that still didn't go over well. Oh well. Can't reach them all.

I'm also excited to say that I conquered my most annoying class. These 6th graders are so smart that no matter what I do, they're always talking and rude. I decided it was because they were a.) not challenged and b.) not interested. Therefore I had to think and figure out what could entertain them. On the way home from class one day, on the Metro, my answer came to me in the form of Britney Spears. I wrote the lyrics for them and made them fill in the blanks. To the song "Crazy".



They loved it. They loved it so much they actually changed the word "crazy" to Chelsea. And now they sing to me during recess. Also, the next week (which was the day before Thanksgiving) they worked together to change the lyrics to say "Chelsea, I'm so into you, you sacrificed to be here with us. Chelsea, you are so great. We're happy you are here with us"

Cute right?!? Next week I'm going to teach them how to rhyme, haha.

I'll leave you with this picture...me & friend Isaac trying to open the can of pumpkin with a bottle opener. Viking hat necessary. Happy Thanksgiving :)

Crack Bandz & awkward things my students say...

Today is Thursday, which means I have almost successfully survived another week in school! Each Friday at 5:00 p.m., my little heart bursts with joy because I get to take a two hour nap to welcome the weekend.

Don't get me wrong, I love my kids and teaching...it's just a rollercoaster. I have certain classes that I know will be fun & interactive, and I know there are some that are tiny little devils just waiting to cause problems. The rest, however, are like those mystery cards on Wheel of Fortune...could be jackpot, could be bankrupt. Also, you never know what is going to come out of the kids' mouths.

For example: it surprises me how many words in English, when pronounced incorrectly, sound inappropriate or wrong. This being said, I've found out most of these words because Spanish students learning English, just like English students learning Spanish, try their best to utlilize "Spanglish". In English, people usually just add "o" to the end of a word....like "car-o", or "kitchen-o", or "basketball-o". Sometimes (not often) that works. In Spanish, though, it goes backwards. Therefore kids usually just drop the 'a' or 'o' at the end of the word. A few weeks ago, when we were learning about Halloween, the kids employed this technique constantly. I showed them a picture of a bat (murcielago in Spanish) and they all started screaming "MURCIEL!!! MURCIEL!!!" ....murciel? Really? Have you really never seen Batman?? Or pumpkin (in Spanish: calabaza) "CALABAZ!!! CALABAZ!!!" or the best one yet, ghost (fantasma): "FANTAS!! FANTAS!!!" No, Fanta is a drink. The best part is I would usually give them this look that's like "are you freaking serious right now??" which apparently, in body language, translates to "scream your wrong answer louder so it will magically become correct".

Knowing Spanish helps me understand what they say when they do this, but sometimes these little tricks don't work. At school, there are 2 "toys" that are really popular right now. One is SpongeBob trading cards...they're like baseball cards but in my opinion substantially more worthless because they have pictures of fictional underwater cartoons (aka SpongeBob, or Bob Esponja, and his best friend Patricio [Patrick]...etc. etc.) These kids go crazy about their cards. They even have albums to keep the cards in. Nuts. The second, which is even more popular, are those Silly Bandz, the rubber bands shaped like crap in different colors. I choose to call them "crack bandz", because the kids trade and show off these things as if they were worth a kilo of heroin. If you ask them (and I have made this mistake many times now) to show you their crack bandz, they will roll up their sleeve to display 45 different colors of bands all the way up to their elbows and show you, one by one, what each bracelet is. Not only do they cut off circulation, but you usually can't tell what the hell they are. Then I look like an asshole because I'm not getting how earth-shatteringly cool their rubber band is.

Let me show you: this is an actual Crack Band.

Florescent orange and annoying, in all its glory. Tell me, do you see what the hell it is?? I don't. And I didn't at recess one day. There's this kid in one of my 6th grade classes, he's twice as tall as the other kids, and wears glasses that are as thick as coke bottles, which makes his eyes look 4 times bigger than reality. He's decently nerdy and has also recently started hugging me and telling me he loves me and that I'm his best friend. Don't be fooled though, he has tons of friends, he just like sucking up and hates when his class gets in trouble for being major a-holes. Anyways, one day he comes up to me at recess and says "He-llo Chelsea!! How are jew today? Eh, Chelsea, loo-k! Jew see? Do jew hab any of dees?" and shows me his array of 5 Crack Bandz. (P.S. only 5! I was surprised.) I said "oooh, yes I've seen those. Very nice. What are they?" (Mistake #1.) He starts taking them off and showing me..."dees one ees cat, dees one ees dog, dees one is beard--" I interjected and asked "beard?? OH, bird. B-IR-D. Not beard. Beards can't fly. Continue" He laughed, but still called it a beard by accident. "Dees one ees rabbeet, and dees one ees for jew!!"

The kid GAVE ME a Crack Band! It's the cutest thing in the world. One of the girls in my private English lessons gave me one too. She also has thick glasses and a (therefore magnified) slight cross-eye, must be a vision-impaired thing. Don't get me wrong though, that girl is cute as crap. It's kind of like this, but less Asian:

Anyways he gives me the Crack Band (see above). I say "ooooh, thank you!! It's great! Umm...what is it?" He takes it from me, tries to straighten it out, and says "Loo-k! Ees a...hmm, how jew say? Een Spaneesh ees a foca!" He said it very quickly, though, so I didn't catch the word. And I still couldn't figure out what it looked like. So I'm squinting and looking at it and trying to maintain a decent expression of overall appreciation and asked "how do you say it in English? Do you know?" (Mistake #2) He looks at it and without hesitation reverts back to Spanglish. "Ees a, jew know, ees a fock!! Jess? A fock!!"

My immediate thought was "well, if you turn it sideways it looks kind of phallic but that can't possibly be right...can it??" He was so excited with his exponentially large eyes looking all hopeful like I understood what the hell he was saying. I nodded a couple of times but decided I wasn't going to wear the Crack Band if it was really supposed to be part of the male anatomy, because that's just too far. Plus, I could just see the kids seeing me wearing it and asking what it was and me having to explain it and....yeah, no. While all of this flashed through my head I finally concluded that I should just ask him again in Spanish. So finally I said "hey, what is it again in Spanish??" "pues es una foca!!" Una foca. A seal. Duh. It was upside down, and sideways.

Finally relieved that it was not a penis, I wore it proudly for the rest of the day. Kids sure say the darndest things. All time time. Here's a list of things kids said last week:

1. I asked "how was your Halloween??" They all responded "good, I was a (insert decently scary Halloween related entity)!!" I tried to explain "I was a viking (and a cute one at that! [see below]) but you don't HAVE to always be scary! For example you could be SpongeBob, or a princess, or a cloud...anything!" One of my students raises her hand really excitedly and says "or jew could be a sexy bampire!! Jess, jess!! Ees on TV an dee Internet! Eeen United States people dress up like da sexy bampire!" .......great. Thanks, American culture, for subjecting me to one of the most awkward conversations of my life. "Yes, sometimes adults like to dress sexy because they cannot go trick-or-treating..." but I was cut off by my students brainstorming different outfits they could make sexy. "Jew could be a sexy mommy (mummy), a sexy cat, a sexy pirate, a sexy eskeleton..." Okay okay, you can really make anything sexy. Point, 6th graders. *sigh*

2. The same sweetheart that gave me the orange seal Crack Band struck again later in class that same day. I was walking through class while they were doing a worksheet and one of the girls said she liked my nail polish. It was black and glittery (left over from Halloween the Sunday before) so I showed her. He looks over and says "Chelsea, can I ask jew a question? Are jew gotic?" Gothic?!? ME?? Seriously? I think the appropriate, politically correct teacher thing to say would be "gothic is a stereotype that is just a social construct without any adequate foundation". Atleast, in retrospect, that seems more appropriate than my answer. Instead of approaching it that way, I simply laughed in his face and told him "am I GOTHIC? Look. I have blonde hair. I am wearing a purple shirt. I'm wearing jeans. NO, I'm not gothic just because of my nail polish. Black is stylish these days anyways". As if my affirmation of the stereotype wasn't bad enough, his classmates started telling him other outfits I had worn and other characteristics of mine that were clearly against the stereotype. Haha, my bad.

3. In my class of 4th graders, we were reading a story about Sally who wants to make a milkshake (which is, by the way, absurd anyways because Spain's concept of "milkshake" is chocolate milk...) and ends up exploding it everywhere because she was too young and needed help. I was trying to explain that her brother was laughing because she was going to "get in trouble" and it "wasn't his fault". I thought 4th graders should know this vocabulary because they could use it often. I know I did when I was little. Hell, I still do today. It's never my fault. Anyways, I wrote on the board "meterse en un lio= to get in trouble", and "no es su culpa= not his/her fault." As I'm writing in Spanish, one of the kids gasps and says [in Spanish] "OH!!! So she knows Spanish then!??" and I kind of roll my eyes while still writing thinking "yeah, duh, they've finally figured it out..". However, before I could confront their accusations, another kid literally smacks that kid in the arm with their ruler and says, "no, STUPID, she doesn't KNOW Spanish, she can only write in Spanish."

Great work, kids, haha. Keep up that believer attitude. That mindset is how kids, like my brother, end up believing in Santa Claus until they are 15. In any case that's not my brother, though, I find it endearing and cute. Stayed tuned til next time when I write about my new favorite subject: My new Master's classes.

P.S. this is me as a viking!! I inhereted the outfit from a boy one of my roommates brought home. I had to alter it a bit though...so he probably won't want it back once he sees that it now is thigh-high and has a V-neck cut into it. Hehe. Happy Halloween!!

"sex big pink fish shitting in the chi-cken!"

I'm sure that it is obvious by the fact that I haven't written a blog post in over a week (or has it been two weeks?) that life has been very stressful. Some might say unnecessarily stressful. I do.

First of all, I've started compiling a list of things that are apparently "normal" in Spain but that I'm pretty sure are going to kill me.

1. Buses. Okay in Indianapolis the public transportation is shitty, to say the least. Hardly anybody takes it because it's unreliable and whatever. Here, I find above-ground transportation more comforting than underground transportation. If a bomb goes off and I'm in a bus, I can atleast tuck & roll out the window/door/etc. If a bomb goes off in the Metro, I figure I'm royally screwed. Where are you gonna tuck & roll in the Metro? Two choices: into the bomb, or away from the bomb into a dark, damp, shit-smelling black abyss. I think I'd rather take the sparkly bomb. These are things I think about, p.s., while I'm sitting on the Metro. That, and I also sing this song in my head:



Not the whole song, of course, just the chorus. Anyways, I digress. The buses have an easy escape route but what they lack is competent drivers. Spain drivers are crazy as hell. First of all, they know exactly how wide their car is in their minds so when there is a small gap between cars, or a parking spot, instead of advancing with caution, they jam the accelerator and head into the space at full force, Harry Potter style, as if the spot was going to magically gape open and accomodate their vehicle perfectly. That's all fine and dandy if you're in YOUR car. But when I'm on the bus, and the bus is tall, and the bus drivers pedal-to-the-metal at a 2 foot space between 2 teensy European cars...well...it's enough to test my bladder strength. They blast up to the two cars, then stop almost immediately slamming on the breaks. Then, they inch towards the space and use their mirrors to guide through. They will literally come within 3 centimeters of hitting a vehicle, and even use their hydrolics (intended for letting passengers off the bus with ease) to tip the bus back and forth to wedge between obstacles. If that doesn't work, they will sit there and lay on the horn until the owner of the double-parked car comes out and moves their vehicle. This is 23% effective. Luckily, when this makes me late to work, all of the teachers already know the bus sucks or just assumed I was sick. Ain't no thang.

This is just the tip of the iceburg though. 3 times now I have caught bus drivers reading the newspaper while driving. I mean.....okay. You're in the car, by yourself. You check a text message, maybe shoot one back while in traffic. Bad traffic. However while driving a public transportation bus, filled with 20 innocent passengers? Not in traffic? While driving at 35+ mph down the street?? Jesuscristo. The first time I was like, "well...he's at a stoplight. Maybe he'll put it awa...oh, it's green...he's moving....and...he's....still reading. Okay well, awesome..." Then I thought well not all drivers can be perfect. Then I saw 2 other ones (different ones) doing the same thing. I don't care if my bus driver is culturally up to date or relevant. I care about you not killing me in a firey crash involving a moped and 3 geriatric pedestrians. (ok ok that wouldn't make much of a fire, persay...) Whatever. The buses are going to lead to my demise, I'm certain.

2. If the buses don't kill me, the second hand smoke will. I'm cool with it in bars and during recess with the teachers...totally understandable. Here's where it starts interfereing in my life: at home and with the children. First of all, my tuberculosis-inclined neighbor downstairs (the old dude who has the nasty-ass cough) sounds like he is losing a decent percentage of his lungs everytime he coughs (which is approximately every 20 minutes, but every 10 minutes conveniently when the normal hours of sleeping approach. Murphy's law.) Anyways I've inadvertantly discovered why homeboy has his disease: he smokes. How do I know? Well, our clothes line is located directly above his window, and I've noticed that my clothes now smell like stale, nasty smoke. Not a fun bonfire smoke. An annoying, old man, coughing up a lung kind of smoke. Thanks, asshole. I don't have enough HANGERS to dry my crap inside. So now I can only wash like 10 articles of clothing at once.

I'm gonna stop popping Mucinex in his mailbox and just let him go. My clothes & sleep cycle with thank me.

Another surpring source of second hand smoke is 12 year old boys. I got lost going to class the other day (the building had changed last minute) and I turned the corner only to run into two little boys leaning against the brick wall smoking cigarettes. I literally stopped in my tracks and stared at them. Until I realized I was legitmately staring and just walked past them. Not before one of those little brats blew his smoke in my face, though. You know what makes you SUPER COOL? Burning tabacco stuffed paper, inhaling the byproduct, and blowing it at innocent people's faces as if you were breathing fire...just kidding. Hint: Your smoke won't hurt me. But my fist will bust your nose. I'm older, smarter, and ballsier than you are, little 12 year old. I'll be watchin out for you. Who the hell sold that kid cigs anyways??

Going back to my list of "normal" things that might kill me...

3. Victor. Who's victor? Well...first I'd like to admit that I hate all of my 2nd grade classes. Literally, all of them are headaches. There are, collectively, about 10 students that I love because they hug me at recess and are super cute...I mean they're all decently cute...but in general they are rotten as shit and refuse to shut their mouths for 5 consecutive minutes for anybody, including their legitimate teachers. And it's not just me. Their teachers hate them too. They've told me so. I believe it's something about the age. "Terrible 2's"...kinda.

Example of why I hate them: (actually this isn't their fault, it's just funny as hell)

Last Friday, in 2nd grade, I was supposed to teach each class the sound "i"...the short 'i' as found in the words 'sick', 'fish', 'bit', 'stick'...etc. This sound does not exist in Spanish. The 'i' in Spanish sounds like a long 'e'...like 'beat', 'meet', 'ski'...this is why, when you hear a Spanish speaker trying to say the word "fish", they say "feesh" instead. So I did my best to help them learn this sound. In their book, they were supposed to say "Ingrid insect" and "six big pink fish sitting in the kitchen". We started practicing with just Ingrid insect. It went like this:

Me: Repeat! "Ingrid insect!"
Them: Ingrid insex!!
Me: ..........not quite. Inse-c-t. In-sec-t. T. Okay let's try again! Insect!
Them: insex!!
Me: ...........uhh, yeah. Good. Insect. Let's move on to the next sentence.

Now, before starting this sentence I figured one of two things would happen. First, they would probably just mumble the rhythm of the sentence without pronouncing anything. Or, if they were determined, they would try their best to pronounce some words but at best would probably still say one or two of the words with the "ee" sound. No harm, no foul. So we started practicing 4 words at a time, at first, so they didn't get overwhelmed. Here we go:

Me: six big pink fish....
Them : seex big pink feesh...
Me: no no!! remember, there is no feesh. Siiiiiiiiiix. Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiish.
Them : six. fish.
Me: Great!!! Okay, ready? Sitting in the kit-chen.
Them: sitting in the keet-chen.
Me: Close! Kiiiiiitchen.
Them: kitchen!
Me: great!! SO GOOD! Think you can do it all at once?
Them: Yes!! yes!!!
Me: okaaaaaay....let's repeat after the CD. Here we go!
CD: Six big pink fish sitting in the kit-chen!
Them: sex big pink fish shitting in the chick-en!!

Here's an amateur sketch of what I looked like:

Yup. The worst part is they were all looking up at me with those innocent eyes waiting for positive feedback and amazement at their epic English skills. What the hell was I supposed to say?? In the end, after thinking and biting my tongue, I decided that really the textbook set them up for complete failure and just wanted a cheap laugh because it was dumb to have them pronounce fish and sitting together and...just....total failure. I had them try it 3 more times with the exact same outcome. Sex big pink fish, shitting in the chick-en. Sigh. I officially don't care if they pronounce 'i' wrong anymore. At all.

Anyways, sidetracked again. These 2nd graders, though, are clearly a handful. However, in one of the classes is this little boy named Victor. He's borderline albino, with bright bright blonde hair, and I have been told he is a "special boy"...although I have yet to figure out if special means slow, troublesome, or something different. Spain's vague. Anyways Victor is one of those kids in class who usually chews on his crayons, has random outbursts trying to get attention, and somehow always manages to have snot coming out of his nose of awkward and nauseating colors. Because I don't speak Spanish, Victor stays clear of me. Usually. Sometimes he comes up and says hello, stares at me, and then sits down. Sweet kid, really, haha. You won't catch him yelling about taking a crap in poultry like his classmates.

Anyways, at lunch one day, he started talking to me! I was so excited. I said, "hello Victor! How are you?" and he started talking to me in Spanish and then randomly saying "Chelsea! hello!" So we talked back and forth in our odd language combination, and then eventually I told him to eat his soup and tried to walk away. He then said "Chelsea!!" so I turned around and said what? with my hands in the air acting confused so he'd know what I meant. He looks me dead in the eye, holds up his hands in the shape of a gun, pretends to cock his thumb, AIMS, and then "shoots" me. With his hand gun. (See above for an amateur sketch of my reaction.) I said very firmly "Victor, NO. Guns are BAD." He started laughing and said "no, no, no..." so I said "good, no guns. NO." He repeated "no, no, no.................................yes, yes, yes!!" And then held up his hand gun to shoot me again. Twice this time.

I get that kids don't understand the severity of playing with guns, but there's a fine line between a simple, one-handed L-shaped thumb and forefinger gun, and a two-handed bazuka-esque gun that includes cocking a barrel, AIMING, and a strong recoil. Seriously. I hope Victor's parents are pacifists. And I'm glad we're not in Texas.


Phew. I was hoping to blog about all the crazy in my school but it looks like I'll have to wait until next time. And blog more often. Guess this is ta-ta for now!