i am beautiful! and other nonsense from school

Sorry its been a while since I posted. I have Monday and Tuesday off from work, so hopefully I will be able to get caught up on blogging, work on law school applications and relax. I have officially completed Season 6 of Criminal Minds and can't wait to get up-to-date onto season 7. I do not remember the last time I stayed in bed all day so I have really relished this.
The last two weeks have been surprisingly stressful. I had spent a significant amount of time working on lesson plans for my week of classes just to be derailed completely in class. My first Monday alone with the students, the white board FELL on me and caused the brand-new AV outlet to fall completely off the wall and sent all the students into an endless laughing spree. one of the punks that is my favorite in that class said, "hey, profe, i won't tell anyone you did it. don't worry." then he paused and thought for a second and came up with this idea, "actually, i'll tell everyone I did if you let me take you out to dinner..." The rest of that week was rough. If the lesson plan was too easy, the kids were bored and hyper and chatty. If the lesson was too hard, they were discouraged and quiet as a mouse, embarrassed to ask questions or to express their confusion. This results in me speaking for 50 minutes straight and is miserable for all of us.
    All of the teachers and my boss at both schools are wonderful. They have asked numerous times, "how are you doing?" or "is there anything about your schedule that you want to change?" and i want to say, "what schedule!?" Either due to the strike, the students having a test, or a holiday I haven't even had a full week of all my classes. Some hours, I rotate between several teacher's classes. Other hours I only have half of the class and then the other half the following week. It's amazing that between the two schools the same level is actually either better or worse English. It's just going to take a lot of time to get use to which class is which, the students in the class, their age, their level of English and what they are currently studying. I don't expect to have that down until Christmas. If my schedule changes in January, I am going to cry for days. On Thursday, a teacher at JF I have barely even spoken to came up to me and said, "you ready for class?" Trying to play it cool, I said, "yeah, definitely." I don't even know her name! I definitely had no clue we have class together. She told me that I will be in her class every 3rd week. OHH, that explains it, okay... How complicated and crazy.
    The high schools I am working out seem deprived of everything I consider to be HIGH SCHOOL. There is no football team, no chorus, no assembly area for school-wide meetings or pep-rallys (or anything to rally for other than the strike). Actually, I sort of take that back. The schools are like labyrinths and every door is locked so for all I know there is an assembly room or gymnasium behind one of those doors. I doubt it though. Even the cafeteria is about the size of a café and serves mainly different types of sandwiches, snacks, fruit and coffee. There isn't any concept of detention or Saturday school. Absolutely no dress code exists. The teachers or staff do not wear name-tags or IDs. The halls aren't lined with lockers because its the teachers that switch classrooms, not the students. There are small lockers in the rooms themselves. The rooms are bare with nothing on the walls, a chalkboard and echo horribly. At LC, Melania and I have our own room for English that has a whiteboard and projection screen (that I almost destroyed but was salvaged thank goodness) and we are working on decorating it. Anyways, I am getting use to how incredibly different it is. When I was walking to school the other morning, there was a group of kids sitting around a hookah in a circle on the sidewalk smoking it. I was like, "did that just happen?!" Apparently, one of the English teachers told Ryan (the other tutor at JF), "well, we are a public school and we don't really have any power over our students. We can't make them come to class." this was the explanation he provided when Ryan asked why so many kids just linger around outside or outside the gates of the school on the street. Can you imagine if you could have gotten away with that in high school?! The teachers even have this lackadaisical attitude. On Thursday, a teacher came by Ryan and I to tell us that she was feeling sick and planned to go home. She told Ryan, "if I'm not here tomorrow, you can just take the afternoon off early." Ryan and I were speculating, if she's not there and he's not there, what are the students going to do during that time?! It's a little crazy, that's for sure.
The students that I have that are great are REALLY great. Some of these 12-13 year olds are the cutest things you've ever seen and are so willing and eager to learn. I love it. I can see myself in some of these girls that sit on the front row wide-eyed, furiously writing down everything I say and raising their hand inquisitively the entire 50 minutes. One boy walked in class and instinctively sat down in his chair in the back. Then, he thought about it for a second, took his bookbag and sat down proudly on the front row with a huge grin on his face. as other students started trickling in, he exclaimed, "I AM BEAUTIFUL!" as I was saying, "wow, yes you are!" this girl next to him hit him on the arm and said, "you meant to say YOU'RE beautiful, STUPID!" the little boy's face turned as red as a tomato and he shrank down in his seat with embarrassment. All I could think was, "you are the most adorable thing I've ever seen and I love you." One of the other boys in this same class was chatting back and forth with some of the girls in the back. They had their English-Spanish dictionary out and after almost 10 minutes finally crafted a question for the boy to ask. This boy has long blonde hair and he read the paper the girls had given him and asked, "do you like boys with bangs?" as the girls started snickering he realized what he had asked and was mortified. It was hilarious. He had already asked if I had a boyfriend and anytime I answered something that pleased him or that he agreed with, he would shout "YES!" as if he was checking off points on our compatibility report. Oh, 13 year olds...
     The 16-17 year olds are a whole different story. The first week, they were relentless on the things they were saying. They've calmed down for the most part. It's really funny how old, decrepit and stupid they think I am. I had passed around a roll for each student to write their name down.I was passing back their homework from the week before and I called out, "Paula." The girls told me she would be there in a minute, so I left Paula's paper on the desk she usually sits in. At the end of class, she came up to me and told me she needed to sign the roll. I watched her write, "Eva..." and thought to myself, "yeah, I remember when I thought I invented the write-your-friends-name-on-the-roll-trick. yeah right." So amusing.
    Last week, as I was passing out worksheets, I had a moment when I thought, "is this seriously what I am doing?! teaching english. in spain." When I was a little girl I always thought I would be a teacher. Actually, I was registered at Bama Bound as secondary education. I wanted to be a Spanish teacher. It's crazy to think that for the last five years i have rarely thought about that dream because I've been so thrilled about chasing new dreams that I thought were better or more important. Yet, somehow, here i am passing out papers, a stack of copies, a stack of things to grade, note cards with names on each, a lesson book and lessons to plan. I sit in the teacher's lounge during break and have coffee with milk brought to me by the lady who has all the teacher's orders memorized. Between classes, I hang out in the English department and order copies to be made in the front office. It's so strange. I am not old enough to be doing this! But that doesn't mean I am not loving it!