Look at you, here to write for the third week in a row. ¡Que impresionante!
Who invited you to this blog, anyhow?
I'm in your head, dummy. It's my blog as much as it is yours.
...that's fair.
...three weeks in a row, way to go.
A rare compliment.
Don't get used to them.
I will not.
Ok, welcome back and thank you for tolerating another one of my internal dialogues. There are self-conversations much more intense than those I share here, but they are documented elsewhere and won't be read till I'm dead--if they're read at all. I think it's a valuable practice, speaking with (at least) two voices--the one with which you speak to the world and the other which doesn't often have acceptable things to say aloud. Because of this voice's candor and crass, we filter what it has to say before sharing its thoughts with the world. The voice in my head is an a$$ hole, and it's what keeps me doing what I ought to, e.g. writing when I don't feel like it. It helps me better myself by presenting contraries and alternative courses of thought or action. Maybe it's the voice of God we listen to in our heads--or perhaps just one of its spokespeople--for I believe God is within all of us. It's how often we decide to listen to that righteous voice that determines the quality of the lives we lead.
What are you talking about? Get on with it. They want to know about what's going on in Mexico, not your musings on the voices in your head...weirdo.
See what I mean, Constant Reader? Total A - hole. Moving on.
Thank you.
The first semester's classes have ended, and we are in the process of giving grades. I use a free online gradebook called ThinkWave have virtually zero complaints about it. It works just fine...if you have internet, which TEC Tepexi did not for most of last week. This lack of the connectivity I've come to rely on put me in a bit of a pickle--I needed to be in my office as a resource for students making up work, yet I also needed to be calculating final grades. So, as per usual, I did what I had to do and stayed in the office, internetless, and passed the time by reading (just started The Green Mile, first English story I've begun down here) and manually entering the data I did have into an Excel workbook. Speaking of Office, I've been without it since my license expired a few months back. Recently I got it free from my university. Now I don't have to worry so much about saving Google Slides offline and can go back to using trusty, albeit boring on its own, PowerPoint to facilitate learning. This time I won't abandon my school email like I did the Bloomsburg University one--why I lost my Office subscription in the first place.
So, how'd they do? Well, the ones that came to class consistently did just fine. The ones who didn't were the ones who couldn't afford to pay for the class--or, frankly, chose to spend their money elsewhere--thus didn't attend regularly, and not at all in the latter part of the semester. I did discover, however, that some students were attending my class even though they already had the credits, i.e. coming to class to learn rather than for a grade. I found it refreshing to know that students want to learn English that badly. And then there were the students who were in the middle--attended somehwat consistently, wanted to learn a little but mostly just pass the class, and were willing/able to pay the 675 pesos for the credits. There were only a few of them who were short of the passing 70% by a few points, and I gave them the grade becuase they paid and I'm nice. There's some kind of "pay to pass" culture here that I don't fully understand yet. Like students who don't pay, obviously, don't come to class and don't get the credits, but those who do, I don't know, I feel like it's implied that they pass despite not being as prepared as others who came to class consistently. I'm still figuring it out. I do know this, however, the students, when in class, are, by in large, respectful and attentive.
And now I'd like to share some of their work from the last exam we had. I hope it won't be a problem. Obviously, I'll omit names and even change some content to protect the writers' identities. Here's the fact of the matter: when we begin to learn a new langugae, we sound funny to native speakers of that language, invariably. Despite the level of Spanish I've acquired in...half a year, people still somestimes laugh at what I say. They don't laugh because they're like the voice in my head ;) they laugh simply because some utterances from language learners are so unusual to the native speaker's ear we can't help but chuckle. I only chose sentences that were both syntactically sound and not likely to be said by a native speaker. I hope you can find the humor in the writers' progress like I did.
I occasionally view birds.
He is always tall.
They generally don’t sleep in class.
I am kicking “Felipe’s” a$$. (Love this one, wasn't even mad about the expletive, a fine illustration of the present continuous.)
He rarely does your homework.
They will be playing hide the ball. (Didn't even teach the future tense yet lol)
I kick rocks in the morning.
Why do you have two sides for you alone? (A potentially deep question.)
He rarely comes to buy hot dogs.
Joe and Joyce hide the house.
Joe and Joyce hide their feelings.
Joe and Joyce hide a donkey. (These three Joe and Joyce sentences are all perfect examples of the subject - verb - object construction we so often use.)
Joe and Joyce, they hide.
Now for my first Mexican funeral. My cousin Chucho (the one I helped slay the snake) asked me how funeral were different in the US. I responded by saying they weren't much different. Both have a viewing where people speak, then a burial, where people speak some more. As is usually the case, funerals in the US and Mexico are more alike than different. This one was of the 100+ year old woman I held hands with once at la cabaña. I remember her then as appearing frail and lost, but before time gradually broke her body down, she was strong and aware. Now she's buried in a hole dug by hand, by one man, in one day, a hole that I helped to fill.
I arrived early at the cemetery because I was told 9 AM, but 9 AM means 10 or 10:30 or noon here. As I wandered about the maze of graves, I thought I was the sole earthly soul in the place of eternal rest. Then I met the man who dug the grave. He told me that the service was in La Colonia, my first home here in Tepexi, so I paid the seven pesos for the bus there.
The older you are the less people are surprised about your death, the less mournful your life will be, I guess. The air of the viewing was mild. I only noticed a few pairs of eyes reddened with tears, others with the smoke of last nights fire water. Words were said, songs were sung, calls responded to (it was a Catholic service, of course), and the pallbearers carried the small, ornate casket into the bed of a covered pickup. We were late to arrive, and police had stopped traffic both ways to ease the passing of our mother, grandmother, aunt, sister, friend, what have you. The crowd paused around the entrance for a reading from John (In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.) before heading for the empty Handful of earth I'd discovered earlier.
We weaved our way through the tangle of aboveground altars, streams of life following paths of least resistance, no two walking the same. The pallbearers advanced slowly and methodically towards the place prepared for her. She was lowered with ropes and covered with slabs of Tepexi marble, sealed with Cruz Azul concrete and topped with the same earth that had been removed from her final bed. You need a good reason to dig a hole just to fill it in again. Mi gran abuela fue una razón muy buena. Descansa en paz, abuela.
Just a few things for this week's random wrap-up cuz I wanna get some tacos here in a second. I bought a frisbee recently and will start a club next semester. I've already had one good throwaround with Hugo and some students. They picked it up fast and foresee a lot of interest in the club next semester. Also, I recently started hitting the weights again. It's been going great. I have to check the bench before I start every time to flush out any black widows that may be lurking within 😕
Ok, that's all for now. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time!
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