The Wormlips Scrapbook

Here’s a video of my teacher of my Spanish class for extranjeros. I understand most of what she says, but I can hardly produce a word myself: inconvenient when lost.

Here are two drawings done by two of my young students of their favorite deportes.

I totally blew my class last night. I had no idea what I was doing, and when you’re like that in front of a group, it shows. My only shining moment was when someone asked me about a word I’d written on the board — “tossed” — and without thinking I surprised them by translating: significa “echando.” I can’t remember words I need, but those I don’t are floating around in my brain like sewage in the ocean.

Teaching reminds me of Irish dance competitions. There are you in front of the judges and the crowd, doing a passable if rigid job, when suddenly you forget the rest of your step. You either freeze or you start doing The Pony or something, just to fill the time. All the practice and preparation in the world does not prevent a mind like mine from fleeing under pressure.

I dreamed last night that someone’s horse kept trying to sit on me and I couldn’t get away. The owner wouldn’t help get his stupid horse under control. ¿Que significa?

I’m busy trying to write lesson plans for restive 8-year-olds and rebellious, judgmental teenagers. Soon I go to my fourth intensive Spanish class, for which I just finished homework: an article about how embarrassing it is to learn another language. I can’t speak Spanish but I’m starting to speak English with a Mexican accent. When Kim didn’t perform something as I expected her to, I heard myself say, “Is that all choo can do?”

Bull- and cock-fights are common pastimes here. And soccer is huge. (Pachuca is where soccer entered Mexico). I would be disgusted by the former and bored by the latter, but I can’t help but think I should go for the cultural experience.

I looked up a new word for my homework. It’s vergüenza, which means “embarrassment” or “shame.” It’s a word that will no doubt bring about same for me one day, because if you accidentally add an innocent little “s,” it becomes “genitals.” How very Catholic.

When I came to Mexico I brought all kinds of presents to give those who have helped me here: jelly bellies and a variety of candies. I’ve already eaten most of them. The calendars are the only things that are safe.

Since I have nothing else to say for myself, here are some things my girls sent me. First, two pics YoNenny sent from her cellphone: Jason and their new dog (why do you guys keep getting dogs?); YoNenny’s new mode of transportation.

Molly and I had a brief video chat. My connection is so bad that she keeps freezing, but at least I get to see her in motion from time to time.

YoNenny: as I’ve told you, you need to get chat going on your computer, too.

Finally, here is a video Molly linked me too. It is John Cleese talking about the human brain. I think I’ll use it in class to confuse my students. Something like, “Listen to this and write me a summary of the key points.” Actually, I really could use it as a lesson in intonation. Anyhow, thank you, Saint John:

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With my eight hours of experience, this is what I like about teaching:

• Being able to tell people what to do
• To be able to say, “Your homework is…”
• To have children call me “Maestra,” “Teacher” or “Miss”
• Having people ask me if they can go to the bathroom
• When someone says, “Class is over already?”

This is what I don’t like about teaching:

• Having to be center-stage, clueless, for two to four hours
• To watch children squirm and teenagers whisper
• Having to teach from a book that is dull enough to kill an elephant
• Trying to inject interest into such material without adequate preparation

And by “inadequate preparation” I’m referring to finding out who my students will be and what their levels and books are less than 24 hours prior to our first meeting. It’s also a challenge to fly from one class to the next without time to change mental gears. And I never signed on to teach young children or teenagers, but there you have it.

All that said, some of the students are charming. They’re respectful, except for those who aren’t.

I won’t be able to keep up this blog regularly, I don’t think. Not only has teaching begun in earnest — for me, twelve hours of classes require double that in preparation — but I’ve also decided to sign up for a two-hour-a-day, five-day-a-week, six-week-long course in Spanish for extranjeros. That’s me. I am now an officially registered student at UAEH (Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo).

It’s amazing I got to the first class. For reasons too complicated to mention, I didn’t meet up with Kim, who knew the way. I didn’t have the first notion about where in this city of 200,000 it might be, except that it was at a university. There are many campuses here. Each has many buildings. I looked at a map and walked to one. Wrong place. In my skeletal Spanish I tried to find out where to go. One woman thought she knew and suggested I take a taxi there since the campus was lejos. But money is running low so I walked and walked, stopping only to ask for help and not understanding the answers. During one of these abortive conversations, a young guy got out of his car and came over to me. Somehow he’d heard (and understood) what I was asking, and offered me a ride. Seeing his equally young girlfriend in the car, I accepted, and they dropped me exactly where I needed to be. He even showed me the right building. Only in Mexico?

Turn the clock back a couple days: I had my first get-together in Pachuca with my MAT peers, Sarah, Brandon and Kim. We had ice cream and a lot of laughs. Sadly, we won’t be seeing each other much. Three of us are chapstick addicts; here are my peers in front of Pachuca’s famous reloj, and here’s Brandon and me doing a mug shot pose.

What else? On Sunday Magdalena took me to Real del Monte, a former mining town and now tourist attraction where you can get local silver at bargain prices. It’s very quaint there.

I made the mistake of wearing my dress-up, high-heeled shoes in which I trip on flat ground, leave alone steep, slippery, cobblestone streets.

I bought some presents, and doggie earrings for myself. As we left, we encountered a long line for a play of La Llorona. I want to go back in the next week or two, since I love that legend second only to John Henry. You’ve got to love a woman who goes crazy and drowns her kids, and then spends the rest of her life looking for them, stealing other people’s children in the meantime: kids like these, who are leaning against one of the pure silver turtles surrounding the central fuente.

As we departed we passed a sort of hurdy-gurdy man who, rather than singing songs of love, was holding out his hand for money.

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