While I am writing this I am drinking a "smoothie"....I will never order American-based food here ever again. I should have known I was in trouble when the girl asked if I wanted "all milk"...I was like um, as opposed to...? "Half milk, half water?" Right. All milk, please...
Poor decision. It tastes like half and half mixed with strawberry syrup for sundaes...and I think that's what it is, in all actuality. At one point it had ice but she blended it for 5 minutes on "puree", so...no more ice. Just foam. I literally feel like I'm directly sucking from the teat of a strawberry-ish cow. Ugh.
This week, in 4th grade, we've been discussing the topic of "What do you want to be?" with the nun...and the kids are learning job vocabulary (footballer [i.e. soccer player], nurse, doctor [cause we're sexist here...], vet [pronounced "bet"], singer, etc.). They always ask me, "Chelsea, do you want to be a teacher?" and at first I panic, because I feel like yes should be the obvious answer. And saying, "well it's my fall-back option, or Plan B" might seem a bit...you know, discouraging. But, when confronted with such things, and I feel guilty, I can't lie, so I tell them I want to be a translator. At first they're super impressed, but then become taken aback and think I'm a bit stupid to become a translator when I only speak English. I guess it would be pretty dumb to become a translator when I "don't speak any Spanish". Oh well. We crossed this bridge back when they asked me what my favorite subject was and I said "Spanish...uh, Spanish....English."
Everyone's always asking me if I want to be a teacher soon (after Spain) and quite honestly I don't think I'm mature enough. I giggle when my kids accidentally say bad words and I would rather they love me than be an authority figure. And again, I'm super immature.
For example, one of my kids came up to me today and said, "Chelsea!! Fernando said girls are stupid!"...my only response that I could think of was "well that makes Fernando stupid for thinking that." She nodded and walked off. I'm almost 82% sure that wasn't how to properly handle the situation...
Another example: at recess one day, one of my 1st graders came up indignant, pulled my shirt and said, "CHELSEA. Do you know what Marta called me?!" I thought....oh no. Please oh please do not make me have to explain something awkward, something sexual, something vulgar...like calling him names of body parts or things to do with processes of body parts...but he was SUPER upset so I was worried it'd be worse than that...and from innocent little Marta? I love Marta! Every day for 2 weeks Marta came up to me and showed me how she could bite her lip like a bulldog and blow hard enough to make one of her teeth wiggle back and forth. [Honestly I have NO idea how that tooth stayed put for 2 weeks...she could have started a small gypsy show in the metro for spare change] Little Marta?! I don't want to have to lay down the law with poor Marta...
"Chelsea!! She called me....A BEAST!"
....really? That's it? That's half of a Disney movie title, for crying out loud. Laughing in Daniel's face was probably also not the adequate response, I bet. But I gave him a hug and a pat on the head and told him if that's the worst he was called that day, he was lucky. I'm sure he felt better.
Going back to the "what do you want to be..." topic, Colonel Nun took this opportunity to laugh in every child's face who said "I want to be a teacher". Not to mention when she was explaining "jobs" she said, "Jew know, yobs. A yob!! My BABIES, yobs! What ees a yob? Jew know, a yob, a way to earn moneey in so-shitty".
*Pause*....so-shitty? Emphasis on so. SO-shitty. What the hell is.....ah. Use your context. Society. Nun-ism. *Unpause*
"HAH!! Jew want to be a teach-ah? [British accent...teach-ah.] Madre mia, madre mia!! HAHA! Jew want to be a teach-ah...when I was eleetle and I tought 'I want to be a teach-ah' too....HAH! My Gode, I was an eedee-ot!! Come now, babies...be ca-ful."
Rumor has it she wants to quit teaching and only be a resource teacher//tutor. I think I definitely believe that now...haha.
As loyal blog followers, I'm sure you'd all love to hear how my 5th grade students did on their Animal vocabulary tests. About 7 kids in each class (out of 22 kids) passed. In Spain, a 5 (or 50%) is passing. That means that about 3 got above a 70% (a C), and the other 4 got about a 5, or a 5.5 (50-55%). The rest scored below that. As a bit of educational commentary, it is completely acceptable to barely pass here. Rocio, my teacher, was told she was not allowed to "fail so many kids"...but it's vocabulary...they just don't want to study. Aggravating!!! I spent my entire Saturday two weeks ago making this presentation for the kids so they could be excited and learn. Nope. Wasted. Oh well. I'm in Spain. That's how it goes. To lighten the mood, here are a few colorful answers given on the test [they were given the word in Spanish, and had to write it in English]:
Oveja (sheep): beer
Ballena (whale): balls
Colibri (hummingbird): spazzo
...for the record, if I was the one grading the exams, I would have given each of these answers 1/2 a point for making me laugh so damned hard. Once again, another testament to more reasons I shouldn't become a legit teacher.
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