Sorry about that unnecessarily long break. You'd think I was accomplishing some stuff...nope! Kidding, kidding. I have been on my official grind, per se. Since we last "spoke," not much has happened except WE HAVE A NEW PRESIDENT! Congratulations to President Obama and his lovely, First Lady Michelle! When Tuesday rolled around, I awaited it like a young child awaits Christmas Day or a birthday. *Beware, this is a long post*
I awakened that glorious morning to only wish to hit the snooze “button” (I use my laptop to wake me up, there’s no button for snooze) and skip that day of work so I could prepare myself for the inauguration. I knew that wouldn’t be right so I got up and got ready for school. I was starting my volunteer venture (one of them) that day so I also had to mentally prepare myself to meet the students during break. Needless to say, I was nervous…and excited, but mainly nervous. I met with the 4th year students to have a discussion using the book (I was feeling a little blah and didn’t want to endure more blank what-in-the-world-is-she-talking-about stares, so not too much conversation that day) and we talked about modern technology and the effects of it. Then I proceeded to music class, only for it to be canceled. While I was standing in the hall, young Raul came up to me and said, “Jameelah! What is today?” to what I responded, “Huh? It’s Tuesday?” and he replied, “No, no. It is the 20th. OBAMA!” and then I responded with, “Oh YEAH!!!!” with my classic thumbs up. Javi came over and mentioned something to me (I can’t remember) and I said “High five!” and held up my hand. He looked at it for a few seconds, put his hand up, and moved it towards mine (all so horribly in slow I-don’t-quite-understand motion that I just went the rest of the 90%). Then he laughed and ran and told one of his friends that I gave him a high-five. Those kids, I tell ya. After that, I met with Emilio where he wanted to discuss the death penalty and other subjects I am more or less confused about. Finally, my last class of 4th year brought me full circle as we did just what the other class that morning had to do. But in the middle of that day, I met with the students that were interested in my conversation class. Let me just say, that was awkward. Only because I wasn’t quite sure why I had to have a meeting. I planned on getting to know them in our class, but the meeting started to go down that direction (which worried me as my plans for the class would have to change). There were seven students, 5 girls and 2 boys. All of them are 17 except one girl who just turned 18 (on that day). We did introductions and decided on meeting every Tuesday from 5pm-6pm. Only 5 would be in attendance that day (they informed me then and there). I told them I wanted the classes to be more about conversation rather than a formal class and they were just fine with that. Great!
So I hurried home and turned on my live stream of the great Inauguration. Too bad I left before the good part (5pm here=12pm there). I would just have to catch it on video unfortunately. Let me first say that the conversation class was AWESOME. I arrived at the school around 4:40 (can’t shake that darn “early is on time” American idea) and the security guard was completely confused as to why I was there. When my students came, she understood better. Three out of the five were there and saw two of their friends. They all started chatting and the lone guy came and I told them we could go. The girls invited their two friends so I ended up having six students (not bad at all). We went to a classroom (I totally didn’t want to use a classroom, I don’t want to be viewed as the “teacher”) but the security guard said space-wise it would be a better idea to do so. I had them play the name game so I could (hopefully) remember their names. Here is what they came up with: Gorgeous Gabriel (he was proud of that one…), Intelligent Irene (I offered that one to her and she confidently shook her head as if it were the truest thing said all year), Amazing Anabel (she wasn’t so sure about that one), Romantic Rocio (she brushed her shoulders off on that choice), Noelia (can’t remember hers, at least I remember her name though, right?), and Ana (another “A” name so I forgot it as well, oops). Then we played the “two truths, one lie” game where someone says two things about them that are true and one thing that is a lie (Captain Obvious here to save the day! I.e. explain the simple game). They had fun with that but it was difficult for them to think of the three things at first. I found out that Noelia has a boyfriend, Anabel doesn’t like chocolate but loves math, Gabriel has a girlfriend and has done gymnastics, Rocio had a boyfriend but just let him go a month ago, Irene hates math, and for the life of me I can’t remember what Ana said…but that’s pretty good considering how horrible my memory often is. Our last activity was to have everybody come up with seven questions to ask the entire class, including me. Now I was thinking they would ask about favorite colors or favorite cities, NOPE. These kids (I use that loosely since they are 4-5 years younger) were asking some DEEP questions while subsequently giving DEEP answers. WhOa. I forgot I wasn’t dealing with the 12 year olds here. Here’s an example of a DEEP question: "When you love a person, what is it about that person that you love the most?" Um…er? My favorite food is mac’ ‘n’ cheese, was that what you were looking for? And here is an example of a DEEP question/answer: "If you could be anyone in the world, who would you be and why?" Answer: "I would be myself because I know everyone has their fair share of problems. Everyone has their own ups and downs and I would rather go through my problems because no one has a perfect life." GOODNESS GRACIOUS. They made me not want to answer. I asked my infamous: "If you could have/do anything in the world, what would you have/do?" And I received answers such as these: “I know this is rather corny (she used that word too, first time I heard someone use it here) but I would ask for world peace,” “I would have my grandparents living again so I could talk to them more,” “I would have my parents get back together so we could be a family again,” etc. Can we please say tearjerker? (I had to teach them that term, seeing as how I was on the verge of tears myself). But we also had some lighthearted questions/answers like my question, “What do you think of when you think of the United States?” and the one-word answer of “Traffic.” Oh yes! And how I miss that traffic because it meant that I was in my CAR! Or when I was asked about meeting celebrities and I said I met some music artists (thanks to my stint in radio) and Gabriel joked and said, “Oh yea, they had you playing your saxophone for them, right?” SO funny. I’m glad we have a comedian on our hands. (I did chuckle at it though). Overall, that hour went by SO fast.
I rushed home (not really, I mean, I already missed the Inauguration ceremony so I knew I’d have to get the video anyway). I can honestly say this, I didn’t cry…at first. Wednesday, all of the teachers were coming up to me asking if I had watched the Inauguration. Then one of the teachers asked me if I cried. I told him I didn’t and started to feel a little bad about it. But I realized why I didn’t cry, it still wasn’t as real to me. I don’t know if it’s because I caught it on video instead of live stream or because I'm out of the country. I met for my three conversation hours (one of which we talked about food in Spain-very interesting topic-like the origination of the term tapas and whatnot) and one teacher took me on a “tea” (bka coffee) break where I was more than happy to get my infamous toasted bread with butter and peach marmalade (mmm…mm…GREAT!). Then I had my class with the 1st year students and Rafa. We talked about pre-history some more and then I fumbled all over the pronunciation of “Australopithecus” out of which the students (and Rafa…and I) got a nice laugh.
Now, here’s where I go back to the whole I-didn’t-cry topic. I will address the “at first.” I am oftentimes a weird type of emotional, meaning, I won’t cry because of a certain situation but if something like…music is added to the mix, then I’ll cry. Or if it’s a movie, I’ll cry. But often, I won’t cry at real life situations. So, when I first saw the Inauguration and President Obama speak, I was just in awe. I was holding onto every word, letting it all marinate and sink into my mind. I watched it a few times (so I could be clear on what he was saying and also because the loading of the video was taking FOREVER…no thanks to my entirely-too-slow internet connection). I think if I maybe watched it straight through as well, it would have affected me differently. I was just proud at the end, but it still wasn’t stuck in there that we have a new President…a new African American President. Wow. But, here’s where my weirdness comes in, when I watched the first dance of the President and First Lady, I felt that sensation in my eyes and tears started to glide down my cheeks (I luckily caught them right before they hit my laptop and caused a potential crash). I wondered if I had been crying only because I felt like I should have, because I had heard of so many other people crying, or simply because that was what I felt at the moment. Or maybe it was a combination of all of the above. Either way, with Beyonce doing that rendition of “At Last” (and as her eyes were watering up), I cried for a President I could see myself identifying with, a President to whom I felt connected. *sigh* I’m just a big ol’ baby, I guess. Nope, I’m just a big ol’ proud American. As President Obama’s face was plastered on the front of every newspaper that Wednesday, all I could do was be proud of how well received he was (still is) as the 44th President of the United States of America. I rode the bus (which is my main form of transportation, besides my nice old faithful…feet) and watched the monitors as I usually do to pass the time and catch up on the latest Spanish news. The monitors often feature little guessing games where they have the picture of some well-known (more often than not) Spanish person covered up and start showing only bits and parts of that person. They sometimes have other famous people (like American or British) but the person is usually Spanish (and hardly, emphasis on HARDLY, ever black). Well, this great day (Thursday), they started showing little glimpses of the person and I started to smile because I automatically knew who it was…First Lady Michelle Obama! I probably looked like a big goofball but I couldn’t help but have the largest smile on my face. Then, they showed photos from the Inauguration Ball of the Presidential couple dancing and then the celebrities singing. What a great time to be an American, right?
Thursday was a nice day, I had another student come up to me talking about Obama is now the President to which I responded “That’s right! And I’m VERY happy!” I had the 1st year students and we worked on the Phonetics worksheet. When I say we, I mean we. I had no clue what was going on with that worksheet so I had to use a little brain power my darn self. Then I went to the math class with the 2nd students. We had a good time laughing at the teacher…kidding. I had a good time laughing at the students laughing at the teacher. That sounds better, right? Then there was my conversation with Carmen, who, for the first 20 minutes, could not find her keys. Then she insisted on us going to get coffee/tea since it was so chilly. By now, the lady who works in the Cafeteria knows that I like tea, and I’m pretty sure she knows I like it with warm milk (sooooooo good). I’ve been to that Cafeteria so much lately. I’m not complaining though, gotta love it! Carmen is trying to get me to set up some interchange with one of her friends so she said we can meet each other on Monday. The lazy side of me says, “Please, PLEASE, don’t do it!” but the logical side says, “Dummy! You’re here to improve your Spanish. Stop ‘chillin’’ in the house and get out there and practice!” So I will be there on Monday. Ugh… After that, I got to meet with Rafa. I love meeting with him because he teaches me so much. I know we should be preparing for class but since we often just use the book, there’s not much of a point to spend ALL of our time on it. He tells me the pages, I say “ok,” and that’s that. So we started talking about art (which was related to the lesson so we weren’t completely off). And he was showing me some Spanish art and I told him it looked a lot like some African art I had seen. He told me why and said that many of the Spanish explorers that ventured over to Africa saw the art there and liked it so much that they adopted it into their own culture. One more thing Africa can be thanked for! He also told me about an exhibition that was here in the early 90s that featured art from around the world and also booths where duplicates could be purchased. That’d be nice if that came back while I was here (hopeful, I know). Sorry about how long it is, I warned ya!
By the way...I loved all of Stevie Wonder's performances! That man still has it!
No comments:
Post a Comment