...And Then I Unleashed The Minds Of Sixty 12-Year-Olds...And Peed My Pants From The Results

While I would argue forever that I'm a nurturing teacher, sometimes the most entertainment from my stay here in Madrid are the grammatical errors my students make and the hilarious shit they accidentally say in English. This blog-post will highlight the most recent shit-show I accidentally accomplished; a creative writing contest.

My 6^th graders are a little...slow. Well, actually I can't decide. Either my 5^th graders are GENIUSES and my 6^th graders are normal....or my 5^thgraders are normal and my 6^th graders are complete idiots. But they're not stupid....they're just lazy. And that pisses me off. Anyways I tried to find a fun exercise for them because they had just learned how to use the past tense. I assigned a short story writing activity that would be a creative writing competition, to see who could write the most creative story. The winner would receive a 1-day late homework pass (which is unheard of in Spain...I put some in their Easter egg activity and they tried to use them for all of their classes...haha, little jerks. They're quite conniving...one kid who got a homework pass actually auctioned it off during recess and the highest bidder paid 8 euros [which doesn't seem like a lot but it started off with “I'll give you a pencil...I'll give you a pencil and some candy...I'll give you a euro!!”....clearly it escalated quickly]). This seems like a good idea but there were a few snags. For one, creative writing and thinking is rare here. They're lapdog students. You tell them to jump, they ask how high. They do what you tell them to do and if you let them off their leashes, they stay put. It's exasperating and I'm not sure how to break them out of their shells. The second problem was that I told them to write a story, which they read as historia...or history. So I told them to “invent or create a story about a day in the life of a celebrity”...and most of them wrote a vague biography about a celebrity. And didn't invent anything. UGH.

While most of their efforts were repetitive, at best...some turned out to be the most entertaining literature I have ever read, and not due to plot. Grammatical errors, mistranslations, and general confusion are the protagonists of these stories...and it's awesome. Here we go:

From Kyla (who is from the Phillipines and speaks excellent Spanish):

Selena Gomez was a celebrity girl...She had an episode: Wizards of Waverly Place. Her name was Alex...I ed Selena Gomez and her episode. (she really put the heart...exactly like that) One day, she went to New Zealand and someone painted her face with a red paint. She looked like a clown. After that, when she was walking in a town there was a boy didn't stopped looking at her and then the boy came over her and bitted her. I was so sad when I knew that Selena Gomez died. And someone tld me that that's not just the cost of her life, a monster scared her and Selena was shocked or surprised. That's the scary and funny story of how Selena Gomez died.

From Ana Belen (who was confused about the biography/story issue)

Once upon a time in EE.UU (Spanish for USA) had one girl so-called Britney Spears. She had the oppurtunity were singer. She's the princess in the Pop. She's the best singer in the world. (I want to know where she go the “So-called”...that cracks my shit up every time)

From Raul...

One day went for street a Messi (famous Barcelona soccer player) and fell in the sewer. Then he attent up (tried to go up...)but the exit was very up. Then Messi attent to look for other exit. Then beginning to walk, walk, walk during for hour, he found a rats and cat and others thangerous animal. The end. He found and other exit, he up and he are in American. He not believe he are in the American.

From Javier...(who by the way has handwriting that looks like a serial killer...which doesn't help the overall tone and terror of this story)

Crazy story, crazy famous, am I crazy?

In the past Christmas the famous killed and was killed. I start my story:

In the Christmas of the 2011 the famous murdered other famous. They were crazy! Jack killed Messi and Paquito el Chocolatero killed Manolo del Bombo (I have no idea who Paquito is...but apparently Manolo del Bombo is some guy who goes to the soccer draft every year and is famous for his crazy outfit and playing some huge drum...) (Manolo was stupid.) Cristiano killed Iker Casillas (I don't know for what...) But the person didn't was famous laughth this. They were crazy too. I continue. Michael Jackson take her medicine and his doctor killed he. But it isn't the true. The true is Cristiano Ronaldo killed he and he gave the fault to a doctor. I think that for...I...I don't know. I know that's the story and it is the important information. I know. Or...I am crazy? All pepol are crazy.

From Lidia...

Shakira. She met a friends, there are grannies. She was ashamed, the people lagthed of she...the grannies went to a gym. They are very stronger. There was super grannies because they went to a gym. She went to a coffee shop and she had or drank alcohol...The grannies went to her house and took the dog. The dog ate gum or candies and the dog did a ball of gum. It was a bubble in the house. The dog could speak and said to Shakira “help me please”. This was disster!

From Judith...

Shakira was born 10^th April in Mexico. Came Spain and mad famous. Sang and danced alone. She was creacy. (crazy...)She broked her hips white dancing.

From Carla (who is a genius...super smart...speaks amazing English)

Silvestre Stalone did a lot of movies, one of them was “Rocky”. In the movie he played the part of an old boxing fighter. He also made some great training and worked really hard, with some other guy, that was his old trainer. His wife was really beautiful; until she decided to do some surgery on her face. He did some other movies like “Rambo”.This one was kind of dramatic, because his people died in some war, so he wants revenge (well something had to be predictable). Besides that he had a lot of friends like Arnold (I don't know if I spelled right). He was, he is, and he will always be my favorite celebrity!

From Josue (who never listens to me and refuses to follow directions...basically wrote one sentence about a rapper than named most of the songs he could think of)

Once upon a time one boy called Porta is sicer the rap and Hip-hop. (from what I can tell, Porta is a Spanish rapper) Born in Spain, year 1994, some the music is: Dragon Ball Rap, Aprecia lo que tienes(Appreciate what you have), Hay un sentimiento muerto (There's a dead feeling), Nueva generacion (New generation), Mi Frikimundo (My FreakyWorld), Tetris Rap, Transforme Bipolar, Querida alma gemela (Dear Soulmate), Sin Ti (Without you), En boca de tantos (In the mouth of many), Mi cuento de hadas (My fairy tale)...*

* Side note- I'm going to look up Porta on Spotify tonight because I am so curious what is music is like with such varying titles...

From Victoria...

Harper Seven Beckham...when she was four months, took tongue the paparazzi.

And finally, the best of the best...my personal favorite....Alberto. A quick note about Alberto: He is very smart. He is hard-working. He goes to the British Council for English lessons and I would unofficially name him #2 or #3 in the class. This was just a wonderful, innocent, amazing accident. Enjoy.

From Alberto...

Pepe hasn't got hair and is very good player but this week end no play and he was going to the bitch. In the bitch he had a girlfriend and very friends. He played witch his girlfriend football, bitch and witch his girlfriend to volleyball. When he was in his house he ate for breakfast an egg, bacon, milk and cereal, one apple and banana. Then he have a shower witch his rubber duchie. Then he went to the bitch and then he have a milkshake witch his girlfriend.

For those of you who are curious...bitch = beach, witch = which, and duchie = duckie. The end.

Cinco de mayo: When historical knowledge gets you free margarita refills and chicken

Hiiiiiii world...I know it's been awhile but I don't think anything too interesting has been going on in my life to report or discuss. Unfortunately. And then when things do happen I think “ooh, that's funny I'll blog about it”...then I get lazy, put it off until the next day, sleep 8 hours, and wake up not remembering what the hell I was going to blog about. I used to be good at writing it down but now...not so much. I'm going to try and be better at it, though. I promise.

This past week was awesome. Tuesday and Wednesday were holidays of some sort, so the schools gave us Monday off as well and made it a long weekend. I have Fridays off, though, so it turned into a 6-day weekend followed by a 1-day work week. I can DEFINITELY get used to that. Unfortunately it rained the ENTIRE time, practically, so it was hard to do the things I wanted to do like start running (read: jogging) and see more of the city (I know the city pretty well but I could stand to explore more...take more pictures...I forget how bad-ass it is living in Madrid since I've been here for so long).

The next fun even was Saturday, which if course was Cinco de Mayo. For all of you who don't know, Cinco de Mayo is (obviously) a Mexican holiday, celebrating the Mexican triumph at the Battle of Puebla. None of my friends were doing anything, and Spaniards couldn't care less about Mexican history...so I went with Rebecca and some of the other assistants from her school to a Mexican restaurant named Montezuma. It was a pretty classy place. Rebecca & I got there first and the first thing I noticed was that there wasn't any music playing. COME ON! If it's Cinco de Mayo, I need some mariachi music in my face...or something. Eventually they turned on some elevator Spanish music...but it wasn't meant for a Mexican restaurant (and by that I mean the American Mexican restaurants, haha...I was hoping for El Rodeo to magically appear in Spain.) We ordered margaritas and I think I confused the shit out of the waiter because I asked for sugar instead of salt. He told me he'd try...and in the end came through! We ended up waiting for the other girls a little bit (because Montezuma is located in a back alley on a hill far away from landmarks) but I didn't care. I'm always a happy little camper if I have a delicious margarita in front of my face. During the summer I swear 1/2 of the money I spent is with friends at Rodeo drinking margaritas on the patio and eavesdropping on the workers (I think I'm the only one who does that, though...haha) Therefore, the taste of margaritas=home. The waiter kept checking on us to make sure we didn't want to order and Rebecca was a little brat and told the waiter I wanted to hear some Juanes (the most cliché Mexican singer ever...Juanes is the go-to singer in every Spanish class across America...right before Shakira). In her defense I DID say I wanted to hear Juanes but I didn't feel like sharing that with the waiter. I felt the need to explain my rudeness in judging their music so I reminded him it was Cinco de Mayo and we're Americans, so we tend to celebrate the holiday more than Mexicans do...and we were there for that purpose and I just wanted the ambiance to feel more...Cinco-y. He tried to test me and asked if I even knew why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo and I quickly retorted with the Battle of Puebla. (Look Mom & Dad! That summer in Mexico served for something :) He was impressed, mainly because he had asked not because he was testing me, but because he forgot. And for this I was rewarded with a free refill of my delicious sugar-rimmed margarita. Mmmmm... Sadly the restaurant got busy and our waiter left us and was substituted by a middle-aged Asian woman. I was thoroughly amazed and confused for a little bit. Have you ever seen an Asian working at a Mexican restaurant? It's funny. Anyways by the end of the meal my intelligence and delightful personality (I like to think) scored me free margarita and free chicken...it was the best meal I've had yet in Spain! I was so stuffed though...so stuffed. Cinco is the new Thanksgiving.

Afterwards we walked to Sol, the center of Madrid, to grab some ice cream and enjoy the sun. Guess what we found....not one, but TWO mariachi bands!! I don't think anybody knew about the holiday but I was thoroughly touched. One band had an older Mexican couple watching, who started dancing (Video #1) and the other group had this old man, who I will refer to as the Energizer Bunny, who was dancing to the music on his own free will for at least 30 minutes. Then this little baby Asian girl came and started dancing with him. It was ADORABLE. (Video #2)

http://youtu.be/K7LttsOZLt8

http://youtu.be/jh44ltVpZH4

This post was supposed to be more about the hilarious things my students write, though, and not so much about my life. Prepare to pee your pants in the next post!