Feliz Cumpleaños Abuelita!

Grandmother hates it when I call her Granny, but I just did in the title!

:)

The issue is that she is the ultimate "Grandmother."  So much so that when Turner was born, there was no way Mom could be Grandmother.  There is only one.  She's no Nana, Mimi, Granny, CiCi or Honey.  All those are great, but she's Grandmother.  End of story.

Grandmother's birthday was yesterday, so I decided to call.  I waited until 8:05 (her time), giving her time to get home from church.  I caught her right as she walked in the door.  We talked for 6 minutes and 17 seconds and then my phone cut us off.  Any other time I would just think, "Oh, I ran out of minutes!" but I had JUST checked and had $12 US in credit.  I just spent two dollars per minute and got cut off mid-sentence!

UGH!

Frustrated with TelCel.

Give my wishes and apologies to Grandmother, please.

Wet Food

I had eaten lunch already when Mabel got home yesterday (it was 4!) but she hadn't, so I sat with her.  She had dropped Cosette off at Jazz lessons and hadn't eaten since she left for teaching at the university at 11.  I sat down while she prepared her salad.  I laughed when I saw the Mil Islas dressing and thought of Jack, who never uses any other dressing!  Anyway, she piled her salad high with croutons, cheese dip (I mean what we think of as garlic dip) and dressing.  She then cooked some chicken patties that have been frozen prepared with Italian seasoning.  She ate it and we talked about the day.  She has been offered an extra afternoon teaching job in an elementary school just down the street from our house.  She'll do that in the afternoons when she doesn't teach at the university.  Within this conversation, she mentioned that she hadn't yet received a paycheck.  Um, we've been working six weeks.  She should've had two or three paychecks by now...

We continued our discussion and she asked me why I didn't eat the chicken she was eating.  We get it every week.  It seems so processed to me, which is how she eats most everything.  I didn't know how to explain that without sounding snobby.  She told me to try it and I did.  It's good.  But I would eat it on a bun once in a blue moon, not every week and not on a salad that has been ruined by millions of calories!

She asked me why I never put anything on my food.  The way she said it (the Spanish phrasing) was SOOOO funny.  I explained that I have a simple taste to begin with, and that since I don't smell very well, I probably don't taste very well either.  Maybe because of that I don't need much on my food.  Moreover, why add bad things to something to make it taste better if I like the taste to begin with?  Why learn to like something unhealthy, basically.  I tried to explain this, but it was NOT sufficient!

She talked about the chips from the baseball game and how I had liked them (I ate one and didn't gag which equates to loving them).  I didn't hate them, and actually liked them a little, but again, why ADD to unhealthy things?

I told her that everything in Mexico was wet: cakes, chips, bread, etc.  We laughed about that for awhile.  Friday she's going to take me to some restaurant where they serve you (I have pictured in my head) a chicken pot pie except with beef and Mexican insides (Mexican ingredients, not insides of Mexicans!  No Sweeney Todd for this chica!) and they serve a sauce to pour on top of it.  I don't like gravies, I don't like sauces, but she said it's optional and delicious.  I can eat wet food for a year.  Who knows, I may even come home with a palette for lemon juice and wet food!

I've got mail...again!

I got home from school yesterday and Mabel had put a letter on my bed.  REBEKAH S. MULLOY it said in the return address.  What a sweetie.  Rebekah is Emily's highly sarcastic, celebrity obsessed little sister who graduated from Rhodes in the spring and has moved to Nashville.  She's shamefully thinking of grad school in another state, foiling my plan to get all 6 Mulloys to Nashville.  At any rate, thank you, Rebekah.  She mailed it on September 29 (at least that's what the USPO stamp said) and I got it on October 15.  It's looking like 2.5 weeks for delivery, folks.  Just in case....

It is well... With my soul.... Or the Hallelujah Chorus, whichever you prefer.

Leaving school today, Wednesday, I realize that Maribel and Ana Luisa are not going to like the proposed schedule change.  I could already tell when they were at school.  But during recreo, I chatted some with Prof. Roberto (principal) and he asked what I thought about this (I thought it was great, by the way): I would teach four afternoons from 1:30-5 grades 2-6, and I would teach one morning a week to cover first grade, one hour per group.  I would basically have Mondays off, afternoons Tuesday through Friday, one full day (I would bargain for Thursday) and Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings available for yoga!  Life is PERFECT, yet no way will it go down.

On my bus ride home, Maribel called to see which day I had decided on for Casa Achoy.  I still had not heard back from office in Mexico City, and I couldn't hear her well, so she said she would call me later.

I had sent an email to Lucas, the former Fulbright teacher from Mexico to the States who now teaches here and works with Comexus (and was in DC, etc) to ask him what I should do about contacting Maggie and Jess because they were out of town on business and I didn't want to interrupt, yet needed an answer.  His advice was to text them and let them know it was urgent and to tell me a time I could call.

I followed his advice once I got to Forum today (the mall).  About thirty minutes later, I got a call from Jess.  She's in Guanajuato with some other group with Comexus and can't do anything for me now, but she listened.  I explained.  And she offered the solution.

A) Since I don't want to do Casa Achoy, I don't have to.  If I had wanted to, they would make a way for that to work.  Since I don't, I'm not obligated.

B) If the schedule changes at my school, I will not be moved to another school.  I will stay with the same kids.  I will not have an extra job to make up the hours.

LIFE IS AS IT SHOULD BE.

C) I'm to give her Maribel's contact information so she can call, email, etc as soon as she gets in the office on Monday.  

All praises be....

If the change goes down, I'll have 3 day weekends every week.  I'll have yoga 4-5 times a week.  And I'll stay with my kids.

I'm a lucky gal.

I think this will be it on blogs for the week.  I will try to keep good notes so next week when I update, it will be creative, funny, and entertaining.

Thanks for reading!

HORMIGAS!

Word of the day.  Ants.

This morning, I got to school early because I wanted to take some pictures for my presentation in DC.  I arrived around 8:15 and went straight to the Computer room to drop off my things.  When I entered, however, there were already 4 other teachers.  They were preparing for our meeting.  Great. 

The principal was meeting with parents in classrooms to discuss the upcoming possible change in schedule (to full day, where PE, computers, and English are in afternoon only, 1:30-5) and feel out the parents.  Meanwhile, the teachers were in the computer room discussing worries, thoughts, etc with the authorities (of the zone, not the school system- this is an unofficial change done only on-site as a pilot trial basis) and the students, you guessed it, in their classrooms "working" on homework left by the teachers.

We were there for over an hour, but we got lots discussed.  Basically, we have to have more meetings with parents to get them on board.  It's complicated, but that's the basis.

What does any of this have to do with ants, you ask?

In the middle of the meeting, my arm is itching, so I scratch it.  It continues, so I look down.  I have an ant on me.  I kill it, and focus back on the mouth of the person talking.  Only to feel another.  And another.  I try to get them off and see that there are some on my shirt.

Yikes!

I excuse myself and head to the office for some privacy where I hop about like an idiot.  I finally see the HERD of them on the back of my jeans.  I don't know if I stepped in something, or what, but there were millions on the back of my jeans carrying little pieces of food.

UGH!

I swatted them off and they scattered.  Then I hopped about some more, took off my shoes and hit them together.  I finally got to a happy place and went back to the meeting.  As I went to sit down, I saw the pseudo-anthill at the base of my chair and chose a new seat.  I'm not one to judge who does their job and who doesn't, but my thought is this...

If the custodian's requirements were to clean each room more than once a week (this is his literal requirement), we might not have ants!  And if he spent more time in rooms cleaning instead of chatting with teachers and attending meetings about schedule changes...

I'm just sayin'.

Language people

This entry is for you.  No one else will care.  

I am fascinated by the differences in what I've been taught, and how language actually works here.

One of the things that I loooove is their use of -ito/-ita.  I was taught that it's to make things smaller, or cuter.  For example, grandmother is abuela, but Granny is abuelita.  Or a house is casa, but it's my cute house, casita.  I have found that EVERYTHING here uses the ito/ita ending.

Even words that are not nouns!

In yoga, Cristina tells us to keep our legs or arms or whichever body part derechito, straight.  I have never heard the ito on the end of an adjective.  Another teaching (or learning) moment.

Yoga conversation

When I got to yoga last night, Cecy and I caught up (love her!) and she told me that if Umberto didn't show, she and her husband would take me home.  Love these people!  Another man who had been there last week asked me how my students were doing, etc.  I explained that it was different, and hard, and involved lots of "loud talking" but that I loved teaching and loved children, so I was loving it!

He asked how I was doing with the weather.  I told him I was ready for the "cold."  Then I asked about the hottest month and they said September.  But, they said, this September had been very mild because of all the rain.  Great.  If this is mild, who knows what '09 brings!

The 14th

Yesterday was the 14th.  Why teachers got their paychecks on the 14th instead of the 15th, I don't know, but they did.

After recreo, I had a test to give to third grade.  They struggled but soldiered on.  The grades are pretty mediocre, but such is life in a new setting with a new teacher and lots of new English words.  That's not the point to this blog.  The test took longer than I had anticipated, so I didn't start walking to 6th grade until right at 12 instead of 11:45.  No biggie, we're in Mexico.  I get TO THE DOOR and the bell rings.

Great.  

Class lost.

On the bus ride home, I ask Geno what happened, and she said since it's payday we got out early.  All we need is a reason, people.  No, really, most teachers work the double shift.  They leave their morning school, grab a quick bite and start at their afternoon school.  Since it was payday, they needed time to go stand in line at the bank.  Makes sense to me, and since I have direct deposits in the ol' US of A, I just enjoyed my extra thirty minutes!

The World As We Know It....

may come to an end.  Hell may freeze over.  Etc.

Yesterday, Mabel and I HAD to go to the super to get groceries.  We didn't go on Sunday because we were beat from the trip to Celestino.  We had nothing, and I mean NOTHING in the house.

So we went to the super.  We stocked up and headed home.  Cosette, of course, did not stop talking from the moment we left the house until the moment we dropped her at the playground (and I'm sure she actually continued there!).

At some point, I interrupted her and said "Mira" which is look.  It's used the way we use it, to look at something, but also look, as in, I need to say something.  After I finished my sentence, Mabel PAID ME A COMPLIMENT!!!!!!

She said that my "R" had gotten a lot better.  That when I got here I had rolled it too much, and that now it sounded right.  Hooray!  

Here's the deal with the r.  Every American knows it's hard to do.  I remember when I finally did it after years of Spanish class.  I was in Honduras with Señora and suddenly it just happened.  The problem is, there are two different trills.  The single r is just a trip up of the tongue- still sounds rolled to us, but isn't really.  The double r and r's that start words are rolled a bit more than the others.  Americans who can roll the r, tend to overroll.  Or maybe that's just me.  But, poco a poco, I'm arriving!  And I think part of my dream last night had some Spanish in it.  Give me time.  I'm almost there (well, it's a journey that has no end, so I'm farther along, how's that?)...

Who knew?

Monday was Columbus Day.  Mexicans couldn't care less.  Work as usual.  I only remembered when I looked at my agenda (first time in weeks, honest) and saw the words there.  It made me laugh.  When I was in college, this girl in Pi Delta came in to the Student Center one day and said, "It's Columbus Day, who knew?" and in such a sorority girl way.  It was a very funny moment that Claire and I relive now 8 years later.  It's funny because I think every year since then, I've needed to go to the bank or Post Office on that day.  In Nashville, it's typically parent-teacher conferences, so students have the day off, but teachers work.  Since it's a different day, I usually take my lunch time to run errands.  And every year, I get to the bank or Post Office and realize it's closed...and why.  It's Columbus Day, who knew?  I think of Bogle every year and I laugh about that statement.

Even funnier, in chatting with Ashley that day, she said she had gone to the bank and it was closed, so she texted two people to ask why.  Neither knew.  She realized later that it was Columbus Day, so she texted them to let them know.  One of them responded, you guessed it, "Who knew?"