Kids really DO say the darndest things...

Bill Cosby could completely renew his career if he would come to Spain and try to teach English for a year. However, I'm gonna figure out a way to capitalize on it instead.

This past week has had its many ups and downs. School has treated me pretty well, but my private English classes have been brutal. I tutor the two brattiest Spanish children on the face of the planet...and their younger sister is a Little Miss Me Too, so whenever her big sister is doing something stupid, she loves to join in. Sometimes the kids are inadvertantly rude, which I can deal with. For instance Julia, the 3rd grader, was rubbing my back and touched my undershirt. She grabbed it and, very concerned, asked "What's this?!" I said "um...it's my undershirt. No big deal...see?" and I showed her the straps. She also saw my bra straps and gasped. She yelled and gasped "YOU WEAR A BRA?!" I said um...yes, everyone wears a bra. "Nuh uh, I don't wear a bra." I told her someday she would. Which udderly disgusted her. I thought the topic was dropped when finally she broke the silence by asking "so...do you have kids?" By the way, all my kids think I'm 38, at best, but usually assume I'm over 4o. I'm normally appalled and offended but I try to remind myself how I used to think at that age. So anyways I said, slightly annoyed, "Noooo......" to which she snapped "well then why are your boobs so big??"

...whatever. Sometimes I think they shouldn't teach kids anatomy so young in Spain. I didn't know how to respond to that but eventually I got in a little tiff with her and ended up lowering myself to her level and verbally arguing for 5 minutes about it. This time, though, she was just ornery and curious. Not mean.

That innocent train came to a halt Wednesday, when Julia got mad at me while we were playing a game online. It's a board game that practices vocabulary and is set up Jeopardy style. This game is marvelous except for the small problem that Marina, the little one, is just in first grade and cannot yet read...in Spanish, let alone English. To get around this little issue, I read the questions and answers out loud to her. Julia, mad that she was losing, got mad at me for "cheating" and threw a euro at me. I think a euro is probably in between the size of a quarter and a nickel, but twice as thick. And it was thrown full-force at my face. It hit me in between the eyes. I was DONE. SO DONE. I started rambling in English, Marina heard "finished" and ran out quickly, not waiting for the chance for me to recant, and Julia sat there frozen, wondering how much trouble she was in...but she didn't feel bad at all.

On the other hand, school has been entertaining, at best. My kids are inadvertantly hilarious. My favorite sources of laughter have come from the simple game of "I Spy". Each week Eva, the pregnant teacher, tells me something to do and usually suggests a game to practice vocabulary to make life easy on me. Soooo in her husband's class (the hot teacher), we had the most fun. I would pick something in the room and if they guessed it, the class got a point and that student would come up and play on my team. One girl, Liuva, came up and said "Ee spee wit my leetle eyes someting dat ees jellow". 10 guesses later (that's the limit), we got the point. She was so excited she ran to her seat after I gave her a high five and everyone is asking "what is it!? what is it?!" She says, so matter of factly, "Ees Chelsea!" I was wearing a periwinkle blue shirt and jeans...I was so confused.

Everyone (including me) goes, "..........what?!"

"Ees Chelsea...hair!!"

...and all the kids go "oooooooooooh." Meanwhile I am mildly offended because I consider my hair to be a subtle, tactful blonde. Yellow. Psh. It was really funny though. Of course it doesn't end there. Eventually another little kid, named Nacho by the way, comes up and is the Hitler of I Spy. Not only did he pick the most random, smallest, unnoticeable object in the room, but whenever anybody guessed incorrectly he would roll his eyes, shout "um...NO!!", and give this look that screamed "are you serious?! How dare you even waste my time with that pathetic moronic guess". Since he was playing on my team, I was thrilled. I went again after him, because he of course won, and I picked the cross above the chalkboard that is brown. So I say "I spy with my little eyes something that is.......BROWN!!" All the kids shoot up their hands and are all screaming "yo yo yo yo yo!!" (Yo means me in Spanish by the way.) I was trying to be fair and let everyone guess...so I was excited when one of the little boys in class who never says anything finally raised his hand. This is how that went:

Me: you! yes? It's brown
Him: me?
Me: yes you...what is it?
Him: me!
Me: YES!! Yoooooouuuuu....what do you think it is?
Him: ees me!!!

Then I realized he's black. He meant him, as in HE is brown. HILARIOUS. I laughed so hard I cried. Literally. I had to regroup. Eventually they did guess the cross but it was soooo funny. In this class there is a boy who is "special" as they say, and always a bit of a distraction. I think he loves me and always loves our games we play, even though he doesn't know much English. Eva always gives him extra help, though, and tries to help him participate as much as possible. He's just a bit slow. Anyways, after class, she told me he had gone up to her and asked in Spanish, "Eva, how do you say face in English?!" and she said "what? why do you need to say face? Is that what you mean?" and he says "Yes! Face. It's brown...like Juan's face!" Eva & I's ongoing inside joke now is "ees brown?"

That was just 3rd grade's fun. 1st grade held so much more in store. 1st graders are just now learning how to write...so each night for homework they have to write 25 copies of sentences. The teacher had written on the board the sentence for them to study followed by "Copy 10 lines". She showed me one of the student's notebooks and for his homework he had literally drawn 10 different lines across the page. Not one copied sentence. I thought it was funny but the teachers were less than thrilled. This has happened A LOT this past few weeks since Christmas. For example, in Science, the kids had a test about wild animals. For "spotted cat that lives in the jungle", one of the students wasn't paying attention and wrote "leotard" instead of "leopard". That one was so funny. A different time, the kids were told to write in their notebooks the four seaons. In Spanish, the word for "season" and the word for "station" is the same. So instead of understanding the context of weather, he wrote "Cuatro Caminos, Iglesia, Rios Rosas, Bilbao", which are the metro stops (or stations) he takes to get to school. Another kid, Martin, in one of my classes kept asking if he could go to the bathroom. Spanish teachers are really strict on behavior & policies, so they hardly ever let kids go to the bathroom. Isabel asked him "can you wait? Til after we listen to this song?" and he said yes and sat down. Five minutes later we look back to the back of the classroom and Martin is convulsing back and forth holding his crotch and looking extremely pained. Isabel said "Martin!! If you HAVE to go then go!" So finally he went.

All. over. the. floor.

So, needless to say, my two weeks back have been eventful. I haven't adjusted yet but luckily neither have the students. I'll have to update later on my older kids. As a P.S. before I go, you should all be happy to know that the 7 year old that usually molests me is now seeing a psychologist, so we're hoping he'll stop touching me inappropriately. He still stares awkwardly, and I have to monitor my hugs to him, but I'd say that's pretty awesome progress. I'll take it!