and so it continues...

So this is definitely not my life calling.  That much is clear.  I may still not know exactly what I do want to do career wise in the future but I know I can mark teacher off the list.  It took all my willpower not to quit today.  Those kids are nuts.  But, sadly, my plans of quitting my job and camping out in local coffee shops while becoming the female Jerry Spinelli and creating the next great american novel isn't going to pay rent so I'll be back with the little kids tomorrow.

I do love riding the bus to and from work, oddly enough.  Maybe it's because Octavio & I had to just explore the bus routes on our own since there is no map or times anywhere to look at so I feel accomplished when I do successfully make it on the bus and to where I need to be on time.  Plus, there are sometimes a few characters to entertain on the way.  Like the guy singing what sounded to be Mexican show tunes on the way to school one day.  Or the guy who was selling educational pamphlets that claimed to teach you everything you needed to know about a subject (in what looked like 5 pages or less)

our place mats where we ate dinner.  Complete with our free shot of tequila.  Octavio didn't take his but I did, I haven't been out of college long enough to turn down free shots.

the servers were dressed up for the celebration.  I wanted a sombrero.

the government building all lit up & decorated for Independence Day.

again.

eagerly awaiting 11 pm when everyone would start shouting "viva!"

more decorations

we were right next to where the news had set up.

One of the many security guys.  We had to go through metal detectors to get into the centro and then there was security everywhere.  I tried to take more pictures but I'm not discreet enough & some were scary.

The bell the governor rang at 11pm and then all the church bells joined in because back in the day Father Hidalgo rang his church bell to signify it was time to start the revolution.  Everyone was confused because it wasn't time for mass so they all showed up at the church to see what was going on.  Little did they know, Father Hidalgo was recruiting them to fight against those pesky Spaniards.  At least, that's what I got out of the story.

They gave out free flags before the "grito"

He flew it proudly.  (and also might have hit some people in the face with it)

 I didn't take the video below, my camera died so I borrowed this one from YouTube.  But it highlights everything nicely.  Especially my favorite, the confetti canon.

And on a different note:

I pass these lovely dresses on my way to & from school.  I figured if my fashion merchandising/design friend Maggie Campbell needs a job, these dresses look right up her alley.

especially this one.  I think she has one just like it in purple. (K-State colors you know...)

and also for Maggie C, the reality tv fan, Say Yes to the Dress: Xalapa  Coming soon to TLC. (check your local listings)

Viva Mexico

This week was infinitely better than last week.  A major part of that would definitely be because it was only a three day week.  We got Monday off because of the hurricane in the gulf.  It was raining really hard on Sunday night (which, really, isn't uncommon as it rains all the time in Xalapa) and the government decided to cancel school as a precautionary measure.  They were worried the streets would be too flooded with water which, in their defense, is also not completely uncommon in Xalapa.  The constant rain and the steep mountain roads make for some little rivers where streets used to be at times.  However, Monday ended up being beautiful and dry so Octavio & I enjoyed our day off from school by decorating our house.

This week in school I got asked some interesting questions.

1) Where do you sleep?  (Quite possibly the creepiest way to ask someone where they live)
2) How old is your mom?  The answer sent them into hysterics.  (No offense Mom, they're 7, any age over 20 is old to them)
3) Do you have a baby? (No, but I have a cat that my boyfriend thinks I treat like a baby)

The other three days weren't so bad.  My preschool 3 class is by far the best.  They are good about doing what I say and can work quietly in their books while all my other classes haven't seem to master this concept yet.  My first grade class is hell on earth.  I can't get them to do anything I say.  They're just plain nuts.  They try to hide in the bathroom, crawl around on the floor, do cartwheels in my class, and all kinds of other ridiculous things.  Today I wrote out a list of rules (one being only one bathroom trip per class... no one needs to go to the bathroom every 5 minutes, little kids and elderly included)

One boy in my second grade class told me that since I was teaching them English maybe they could teach me some Spanish and we could all understand each other better.  I wanted to tell him I might not understand all his little kid speak but if he were to ask me the theme to the movie amores perros I would sure impress him thanks to my Spanish Cinema class.  Oh, the wonders of a university education and the fact that most of it is useless outside the classroom.

Also, today was payday!  I was not really looking forward to awkwardly (awkwardly partly because I'm just awkward in most situations and awkward partly because I tend to phrase a lot of things in Spanish awkwardly when I don't rehearse them in my head first) asking the principal about when & how I get paid but luckily they were surprisingly on the ball and one of the head ladies came and found me during my first class and unceremoniously presented me with a wad of cash and the promise of a signed contract on Monday.

So after a quick trip to the tienda for a case of beer I'm home.  We have some wine in the fridge but it's Mexican Independence so I felt like it called for beer.  It's not really a wine kind of holiday.  Come to think of it, neither if 4th of July.  Or any Independence day really.  Except maybe french independence day...

So tonight we're going to dinner in a restaurant in the centro and then down to the main square across from the City Hall for the festivities later tonight.  At 11pm they start reading off the names of all the war heros then ring the city hall bell and all the churches start ringing their bells and then everyone yells Viva Mexico! Viva Mexico! I really want to go yell Viva Mexico but Octavio is kind of hesitant to go into the heart of the masses in the midst of this relatively violent time.  I'm determined to yell Viva Mexico even if I have to do it from the periphery.


And of course, some pictures:

new arrangement

Our scantily decorated living room. None of my former roommates should be surprised to see hearts incorporated in my decorating scheme.

My attempt at getting my first graders to listen to me.

Octavio's cake that I got to enjoy today.

the government building all decorated for tonight.

sparkly Mexican flag.

stages being prepared for the celebration tonight.

The boy who, on our first date, claimed he hated cats.  Look what a few years with me will to do a person!

Working for the Weekend.

My first week of work is over and done with.  I survived.  The last four days weren't as horrible as the first one.  Once the preschoolers got used to me they started repeating words and are actually pretty good with colors now.  Except there are a handful of them who still steadfastly refuse to say any words in English and everytime I try to get them to repeat something they just stare at me and say the word in Spanish with a look on their face like you can't trick me lady, I know this thing I'm sitting on is called a silla, not a chair.  On Tuesday one of my Preschool 1 students threw himself into the classroom wall/partition and tried to kick me.  One of the Preschool 3 boys pushed another boy to the ground, tried to punch him, and then kicked him in the stomach while he was on the ground.  In less agressive little boy worlds, I had one girl in my first grade class who for the life of me I could not get to stop doing cartwheels in the classroom.  Overall they're good kids but there's always that one in every class, or like in my first grade class, those four, who decide to do their own thing then lead the rest of the class astray.  Because as I've discovered, small children are very interested in what their classmates are doing and if one kid decides they'd rather do cartwheels than learn the difference between a clock and a watch, then they all want to do cartwheels.

Also, speaking of my first grade class, our book is divided into units and each unit focuses on a different country that the kids are supposed to learn about.  The first country was the U.S. but upon further inspection I decided we would skip that for the time being.  Mainly because for each country you're supposed to learn certain things the country is known for and certain random fact about the country to get a quick base of knowledge.  What did the book think were the most important parts of the United States of America?

1) cowboys 2) hamburgers 3) hotdogs 

In that order.  Nothing more, nothing less.  I decided my class was not going to learn that & we would just have to revisit the United States at a later date.  So now we're in China.  and what have we learned about China so far?  Pandas and bamboo.


I also caught a little girl writing a love note to another boy in my second grade class.  I saw the heart she drew with their initials in it and a little "te quiero" written but couldn't see the rest.  I was briefly tempted to confiscate it just so I could see what else it said but decided that would just be mean since she wasn't bothering anyone.  And then her little friend sashayed to the back of the classroom to give it to the boy (who, of course, was only interested in continuing his game of transformers with his friends).


In other news, some recent pictures:

Bread (Bolillos) Octavio baked at school on his first day in the kitchen.

Some sort of tasty pecan cake he made (and brought home!) from his pastry class

another cake (my favorite so far) I got to enjoy after his class!

The highest point in Mexico.

We went to the Interactive Museum today.  Octavio diligently read the signs and looked at the displays while I climbed up in the mast of a fake ship.

Budweiser, even in Xalapa!

The inside of a space shuttle.

Showing off my skills from my year of piano lessons when I was five, trying to play twinkle twinkle little star.

I was really into this game.

Virtual volleyball.  I scored one point.  Octavio scored none.  It was much trickier than the Wii!

I timed Octavio on how fast he could complete this puzzle of the Mexican states & their capitols.  3 minutes & 15 seconds was the winning time.

A bed of needles.

I was a little nervous

so was Octavio.

You were supposed to be able to put a bubble around you but sadly, it kept popping before it got past my knees!

Octavio wouldn't spin with me so I had to go it alone.

And last but not least, our sweet Lola lounging on the bed.

Teachers: Saints walking among us.

So my first day of work was...how to put this nicely...a mess.  Oh my gosh, I always believed that teachers were extremely underpaid and now I very firmly believe it!  If I could find another job here, I'd do it.  Those little kids wore me out!  And who's idea was it to teach English to three year olds!?  Those kids can barely speak Spanish let alone English.  They just spent an hour staring at me.  My next class was the older preschool kids, the 5 year olds.  They were pretty good.  There was about 18 of them I think and they would at least repeat after me when I said things in English.  I brought out the Buddy puppet though and they just looked at it like really lady, we're a little too old for this thing.  And the three year olds just stared at it the same way they stared at me.  So Buddy the Bear was a flop.  The first graders weren't too bad because there were only 10 of them.  They didn't really want to listen to anything I had to say though and I spent about half the class trying to get them to stay in their seats.  Then there was a lot of excitement because two girls went to the bathroom and came back shouting excitedly about a paloma, or dove, and then all of a sudden everyone had to go to the bathroom.  I didn't fall for that though.  I don't know what was so exciting about a dove but there was no getting their attention back after that.  The real test of my day, that I failed, was the second graders.  Oh my goodness.  These kids were the reason why when I got home and Octavio asked me how my first day went all I could think to say was "please don't make me go back there!"  There was 23 of them and they all wanted to ask me a different question.  My favorite was "How's Australia?"  I had just explained that I was from the United States and this kid apparently thought that meant I'd been to Australia too.  He was all disappointed when I told him I'd actually never been to Australia so I didn't know.  This class was a disaster.  A complete and total disaster.  There's no other way to describe it than that, it was awful.  They were all over the place and talking to everyone and throwing things at each other and rolling on the floor.  A mess.  There was no way I was going to gain control of that classroom.  I was doomed from the start.  So now I'm going back to the drawing boards and going to revise my lesson plans in a hope to first, get their attention, and then hopefully keep it.

Luckily today was the day we had to pay rent and water and the phone bill and all that good stuff so it was a reminder of why I need a job.  Otherwise, I might have been tempted to play sick tomorrow.

In other news, Octavio & I went to Tres Valles, his home town this weekend.  Here are some pictures.

Welcome to Tres Valles!  The city hall all lit up at night and decorated in preparation for Independence Day this month.

Brunch on Saturday morning.

Octavio's sister giving his baby niece a bath.

His quiet little niece.  She had to be bribed with juice to give me a kiss.

After the baby's bath.  Octavio's little brother and niece were watching from the sidelines.

Octavio's aunt with his new niece.

Octavio's grandma.

His aunt taking a break from the heat in front of the fan. 95 degrees with humidity feels a lot hotter when there's no air conditioning to escape in!

Homero, Octavio's aunts parrot.  He whistles at all the cute girls.

Chailo, the cute little hoppy puppy I got to play with at his aunts house.

I was in kitty heaven.

Watching a movie/taking little naps in the afternoon.  Well, I was taking little naps anyway.

Octavio's aunt & I.  And his little old man hat.

Octavio's adorable chatty-cathy niece peeking at Lola (our kitty!) in her carrier.  I think my Spanish got 10 times better just answering her questions.  She is too cute.

Octavio & his mini-me.  Better known as his little brother, Jose Maria.

Octavio's niece, Irani, and I.  She got good at rephrasing questions when she could tell I had no clue what she was saying to me.

Octavio sleeping on the 4 hour bus ride back home. 

Mountains- we've made it back to Xalapa and cooler weather!

cuddling with my graduation present from Octavio, Lola.

Lola found her own bed.

But quickly found a better bed on Octavio's pillow.

The start of Octavio's pineapple upside down cake that I get to enjoy tomorrow!

ready to bake with his teammate Rosy.  Can't wait to eat it after another long day of school tomorrow!