No Sympathy.

I remember several times during my student career where a teacher would tell the class things like:

• "I'm behind on grading."
  
• "I'm going to have to spend the whole weekend reading your papers."
  
• "I looked all around town to find (x object) for you."
  
• "Do you know how long this took me??"
  

Do you remember teachers telling you things like this? I don't know about your reactions, but when I heard comments like this, I would think things like the following:

• It's your job. Get over it.
  
• After saying up until 2 am writing that paper, I don't really care if you loose some sleep over it, too.
• You can't complain about grading homework that I didn't want to do anyway considering you were the one who assigned it.

I was scrambling this week to get grades caught up. Yes, I was behind in grading. And yes, I actually told this to a couple of classes--but in my defense, it was more to explain why their grades weren't all current when they looked them up, and NOT to ask for their sympathy.

Having been a student myself, I can understand that I won't ever get sympathy from the students. But thinking about the teacher-student relationship, it's no wonder. I mean, teachers are to students...what would be a good analogy? God? We don't just tell students what they have to do, but we pass jugement on how well they do it, too. No wonder it's strange to see your teacher at the grocery store.

Now living life on the teacher side, though, I'm starting to realize that teachers really aren't that scary. We're just people, actually. And it seems to be that it's the ones who care the most who will get involved enough that they take papers home on the weekend or to spend their precious spare time on their students.

Not that that will change anything. Or that it should.

Meditations on eavesdropping and French

So, at the end of April, I was offered a job at a charter school about 25 minutes south of my house. When I first went in to interview for the position, one of the three conducting it made a comment (as she pulled out my resume) about how, "this is the one who does Spanish and French." When the junior high principal called, she said that I would be teaching both.

She also explained that they are on a block schedule, and that I would be teaching A days at the junior high, and B days at the high school (which were not in fact on the same campus--the high school is a 10 minute drive away, and is also not yet completely built). Since she's the junior high principal, it was from her that I eventually found out what my schedule was going to be there: Two classes of French I, one class of French II, and one class of "Study Skills."

It wasn't until I finally emailed the high school vice principal this week that I got to find out my remaining two classes. Since I wasn't signed up for any Spanish at the junior high, I had assumed the high school load would probably be Spanish I classes. But, actually, I will be doing a combined French I and II class, and then a combined French III and IV class.

I was surprised. I'm going to be a French teacher. Somehow, I didn't think I'd ever end up as a French teacher. I started college as a French major, but at some point switched to Spanish Teaching with a minor in French Teaching. I don't remember my reasoning, exactly, but I'm pretty sure that part of it was that I thought Spanish was going to be more marketable. Towards graduation, I actually had a few sad moments where I thought about all the work I've put into French, and how I wouldn't get to use it anywhere.

But it turns out, I'm going to teach French. Huh.

Thinking about Spanish, though, I've had a few moments I'd like to share. I hear a lot more Spanish around me from day to day than I do French. And one of the serious benefits of studying another language is being able to eavesdrop. (That, and being able to have your own secret conversations.) I've heard three interesting comments lately:

1. At the grocery store one day, there was a mom and a couple of kids who I started to notice. A girl was riding on that under-part of the cart, and she was saying, "Para, Mom! ¡Para!" After a few rounds of this, the frustrated mom finally said to her daughter, "I don't know what that means!" to which the girl responded, "Para means stop."

I don't know for sure, of course, but it looked like the girl was enrolled in a dual immersion program and was acquiring Spanish, but her mom didn't know any Spanish. It was an interesting exchange--it made me think of immigrant families, where the kids get English super fast, where they start to grow up as Americans. I imagine their childhood and experiences can be so different from their parents', to the point where their parents might sometimes have to stop and say, "I don't know what that means!"

2. Since graduation in April, I've been on a few trips with my family. We've been out to Sacramento and to San Diego visiting my sisters, as well as to St. Louis. Especially in California, I had my eyes peeled for materials I could use for Spanish classes. I figured places the gift shops of Cabrillo National Monument (commemorating the landing of Spanish explores in 1542) and Sutter's Fort would be great places--the history of some of these places is intertwined with Spanish-speaking people, but also so many Spanish-speaking people live around these places! There's such a huge presence of Latinos in our country, I figured places like these would be considering that by doing things like having materials in Spanish. I could hardly find anything, though.

In the gift shop at the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, I found out I wasn't the only one thinking this way. A native Spanish-speaking couple was there, looking around, browsing the huge selection of books. They were looking for something specific. The wife showed a book to her husband, and he said, "Pero lo quiero en español." But I want it in Spanish.

3. This week I was leaving the gym as a family of Spanish-speakers was coming in. The kids were young. The older sister (who was only maybe seven years old) was directing her younger brother to open the doors for their mom pushing a stroller. "¡Los puertas!" she directed her brother. "¡Los dos puertas!" The doors! she was saying. Both the doors!

I was walking past and I thought, she should be saying "las puertas." Spanish has masculine and feminine nouns, and while the little girl was calling the doors masculine, they're actually feminine. I've been intimidated by the prospect of heritage speakers who might be in my classes. There were a few when I was student teaching, and they made me so nervous. Walking past the little girl, I actually (very) briefly considered turning to her and correcting her: "Las puertas, mija." I didn't, but I walked away thinking, maybe--just maybe--I do have something to offer to those heritage speakers in my classes.

Soneto I

I was going through some papers yesterday and found a sonnet I wrote for a Spanish literature class a few years ago. I had totally forgotten about it, but after I read it I thought it wasn't half bad. So I'm putting it up here. Just as a disclaimer, though: I started learning Spanish in 2005, and wrote this in 2007. There are a couple lines where I'm not even sure what I was saying.

Also, for some context: For about two years, I lived just down the street from Rock Canyon trail head. I would go up there pretty regularly, and got to see the canyon year-round.

Soneto I, o, Hoy fui a caminar en las montañas y vi que las hojas han comenzado a cambiar

17 de septiembre 2007

Cada semana a las montañas he ido

Verano, otoño, inverno, primavera

Buscando el cielo y olor de madera

Las caminatas y el tiempo han fluido.

Hace veinte años ya que yo he vivido—

Este número no cupo cuando era

nuevo en mi boca aunque una cifra es huera.

Mientras las estaciones he subido.

Es el viento que, como un cumpleaños,

cambia; viene otra estación bellida.

Me saciaría tener ochenta años;

Veinte cuatro veces hace una vida.

Sol, nieve blanca, y tiempos extraños

Cada estación es mi preferida.

And because I still think it's clever, here's the same assignment from the equivalent French literature class Well, nearly. Apparently we were assigned to write a poem in a different form and not a sonnet. (Does anyone know what it is? I don't.) Also, this time we were given a topic: food.

I've posted this before--if you've already read it, please ignore.

L’anthropophagie

Le mâle d’araignée survive pas la veuve

Et un têtard (parfois) mangerait son voisin

La version animale ce n’est pas le preuve—

Le cannibalisme, c’est aussi pour l’humain.

En Nouvelle-Guinée, ils ont la pratique

L’expédition Donner, ils l’ont fait dans le froid

Quoiqu’on préfère un cœur, le cerveau, j’explique :

C’est anthropophagie—c’est dangereux, parfois.

If it's not the best job ever, it might come close

One week into French Camp, and here are some of the things I've been paid to do:

• Get lots of practice speaking French

• Go to the opera Béatrice et Bénédict

• Spend a Saturday at 7 Peaks water park going down water slides, synchronized swimming, and listening to girls say how cool it was that all of a sudden they were the exotic foreign language speakers that you run into from time to time. I haven't had that much fun swimming since I was 9.

• Eat camembert, brie, and gruyère

• Spend lots of time with the two friends who happened to be the other counselors

• Live in an apartment where professionals come and clean our bathroom, people drop clean towels off at our door, and where I have a key that opens every door in the building

• Eat ice cream cones

• Pretend to be a snobby art critic at the Museum of Art and then end up discussing the deep meanings of this (which was actually really neat).

• Watch À la folie...pas de tout, Sabrina, TinTin

• Dance along with Claude Francois and les Claudettes (yes, this video is that amazing)

Late-night posting

I feel like it's the last day of summer.

After a month of doing nothing, I'm going off to Provo tomorrow for three weeks to be a counselor for a French camp that the university's putting on for high school students. I'll be teaching a cooking class, as well. When I get back, I'll start working for a day camp at our local rec center.

I've been trying to get things together and going to meetings the last couple of days, and while I'm excited for both jobs, I am also realizing that my retirement vacation is definitely coming to an end. Oh well.

It's probably a good thing, though. Despite ambitious plans and my best intentions, I really didn't get much done when I had all the time in the world. Maybe a little more structure will be good for that.

Also, my Korean melons are doing miserably. Even with my mom's magic green thumb touch, they have hardly grown an inch in the last six weeks or so. They're living, at least. We transplanted them this weekend--hopefully they will grow.

Grow, plants. Grow.

Retirement

When I finished student teaching, it felt like what I imagine retirement to be like: gloriously open days, nowhere to be at seven in the morning, no frantic late nights...

So here's some of what I've been doing with my retirement:

Family
My grandparents, an uncle, and my oldest sister (Emmy) and her family came out for graduation. It was wonderful to see all of them. There was a joint birthday party for my mom, niece, and nephew.
My nephew was really excited about the page of biology notes my dad found at Costco.

A couple weeks later, my parents and I went out to Sacramento for what we thought was going to be my nephew's baby blessing. Instead, it turned out that my sister ended up in the hospital, and I got some bonding time with my sweet 20-month-old niece and newborn nephew. (You can read the whole story and see some battle wounds on Dagny's blog.)

We did have a fun day before the adventures started.

My dad can fly kites! I've never really been successful--even when he got it up and flying like this and handed me the line. I still couldn't keep it up.

Here my niece and I are playing hide-behind-the-door-then-run-out-and-get-tickled. She was sad when we left, which actually made me feel really good.

My mom and I are going out to San Diego tomorrow to get some more time with Emmy, Brad, and their cute kids.

Books
I've had time to read, which has been so nice. A good book makes the gym ten times better, too. Here are some that I've finished since retiring:

When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

I was proud of myself for finally buying David Sedaris' new book. But then I realized the copyright is 2008, and that he's already on tour for his next project. Oh well.

Waiting for the Light to Change by Annette Haws

Our neighbour, Annette Haws, wrote this book. And it's addictive.

El Diario de Greg 3: ¡Esto es el colmo! by Jeff Kinney

Our local library has a tiny Spanish section, but this was fun and quick to read (more satisfying than slogging through Unamuno...). I felt like I was getting a peek inside the head of a 12-ish-year-old. Junior high, here we come.

Surprised by Joy by CS Lewis

This book made me grateful to Civilization 201 for explaining the traditional classical education--CS Lewis got the same schooling that little Roman boys did.

Please Look After Mom by Kyung-sook Kim

I haven't finished this one yet. But I love it.

TV
A friend who also went to Korea on a mission introduced me to the Korean TV show Secret Garden. Again, addictive.

Garden

The other day, I was thinking about how I missed Korean fruit: mandarin oranges, giant pears and huge apples, sweet strawberries, huge chewy grapes that need to be peeled. And this Korean melon, which was one of my favorites.

This lead me to an internet search for Asian seeds. Come August, I should have some lovely melons (hopefully!) along with some Asian-style cucumbers and carrots.