just another manic monday

It was a manic Monday today at JEB. Sixth, seventh, and eighth grade were left to their own cheering during the partido today. For once, I didn’t have to listen to the whistle thingys blarred both over the TV from South Africa and by the students, but the teachers’ absence also resulted in a massive broken window. Have a nice lunch in an even colder cafeteria!

so you think you can dance?

Yes, if you are a second grade girl, you sure can! Shakira’s got nothing on the chiquitas of JEB. They’ve truly perfected Waka Waka. We’ve spend the week learning about the World Cup in English, from the names of the participating countries, to soccer terms, to the lyrics to the English version of Waka Waka. The kids’ enthusiasm for the Mundial is literally fanatical. The entire country rallies together to support the Red – even CNN revolves around their every action. Go Chile!

a very special happy birthday from chile

Feliz Cumpleanos, Mom!

I used you as an example this morning as I talked about the future tense. I said that in ten years, on your birthday, I would make you a cake. Unfortunately for your future cake, I forgot the Spanish slang for cake and needed my students to spell it for me. The Spanish alphabet is pronounced quite differently than English alphabet… in attempting to spell what I heard the students say, I wrote “caca” on the board. Yes, caca is the same word in Spanish and English. I wrote “Next year, I will make my mom a caca for her birthday.” Exclamation point.

Happy birthday!

empanadas

Empanadas! Jacqueline (or “yacky”) taught me how to make empanadas this morning – empanadas “fritas”, yes, that’s right, deep-fried empanadas. Yesterday we made the filling of ground beef and onions, to which we added hard boiled eggs and olives this morning. The dough is straightforward – just flour and water. We kneaded and kneaded until it was supple, then cut it into circles. We placed the filling in the centre, folded the dough over, and pressed the two sides together. Jacqui boiled oil (I wasn’t allowed near the stove) and fried three empanadas at a time. Luckily, we had dough left over and made sopapillas – yummmmm.

Adios mios, were they good. As my hodad and I watched the news (Shocker! Same stories as yesterday!) because my homom and hobro were in bed, sick, I planned to only eat only three but ended up eating four and sneaking one more later.

It’s been a pretty quiet weekend. I sprained my ankle yesterday but I’m afraid to tell my hofam because they’ll fret over me and they’re already sick. Putting my hears of WEBMD medical training to use, I elected to send the weekend propped up in bed.

just another day

Wednesday’s are my shortest days so after teaching the 8th graders, I had the day free! My host mama is also the art teacher and I got to indulge my inner wannabe artist in her classes today. One of my (favourite, shh!) third graders was sitting next to me. As I was coloring, he told me: “Tia, you’re a gringa.” And promptly went back to coloring. His drawing mysteriously had the same colors and patterns as mine did. I guess being a gringa isn’t too bad!

Additionally, my host brother (aka personal live translation dictionary!) can now add freak to his already lengthy list of descriptors about me. He is probably currently looking at my Internet history. I attempted to switch the language into English so I could delete my viewing history but was unsuccessful. Additionally, the last time I relied on my Spanish “skillz” to just guess at doing complicated computer operations in Spanish, I accidentally clearly my flash drive. Carl was kind enough to remind me how much Cate and I loved reading News of the World last summer, so I spent an embarrassing amount of my precious computer time reliably updating myself on world affairs through the website. So now he probably thinks that in addition to being a moron with pathetic Spanish skills, I am a freak who reads stories such as the headliner about a man who married his former mother-in-law with the full support of his ex-wife (aka her daughter).

bloopers

Today I accidently told the first graders that they were going to get “LA VACUNA” for AH1N1, which caused them all to start crying terribly. It didn’t help that I was motioning the sign for a shot as I was talking.

In other news, my classroom has doubles as a casual snack stop! A student who would be carded at amusement parks and not kicked out of the McDonald’s Playhouse brought in a large backpack full of crummy (in both senses) snacks, his gym shoes, and pomegranates. He sold everything but his shoes in the middle of my class. I was snorting laughing. Then I decided to teach the 8th graders French. After all, I am a “language ambassador” and here on behalf of Canada!