Soccer and weddings

Alright, so the soccer game wasn’t that exciting – that is to say, everybody behaved themselves. I did however learn a great deal of Spanish profanity. San Luis lost 2-1. There was no scoreboard and the stadium is still under construction. Everybody is frisked several times on their way in. A friend said that he’s taken in his digital camera despite their policy of not permitting anything with disposable batteries for fear that they might be used as projectiles. He advised me to do as he’s done; bank on your gringo innocence. So, I mentally rehearsed saying what I needed to say, that I’m a tourist and I just want to take pictures, etc… it worked, though I had to say the same lines to each of the three ass-grabbing cops. Lets see, the beer was 20 pesos and it comes to you, you don’t go to it – in fact, you can’t get beer otherwise.

After the game one of the guys, Mexican, asked if we wanted to go to a wedding reception. There was me, one other teacher and 4 locals. We were all scroungy and not at all prepared to attend a wedding reception. The other gringo and I said that we probably shouldn’t, but then he mentioned free food and booze. Say no more. We actually ended up having a great time regardless of how underdressed we were.

More craziness ensued. We went to some person’s house and … well, I’m not entirely sure what happened. The next thing I know, I’m at my front door at around 4am. I lost my keys again and had to wake up my roommates to let me in. They weren’t too happy about that. Eventually my keys turned up in some dude’s car.

Today the first ever anti-American sentiment has crossed my path – well, it was actually directed at me. And by none other than a Canadian! I didn't take it personally though because she doesn’t even know the name of her very own PM. Fool. Nobody takes Canadians seriously anyway (except my dad - love ya, pops!)

Politics, Aliens, and things to come

Today I went without a lesson plan for my classes. Instead, I decided that it would be useful for the students to practice speaking with some good ol’ conversation. This was easier with the older business people, but somewhat difficult with the younger crowd. Figuring that it would be easier to get and keep people talking is if it is over a contentious subject. For the adults the is was Mexican politics. For the jovens, it was the existence of extra terrestrials (the very thought of aliens gives me the creeps, by the way). My first two classes are comprised of these younger folk. I found that all of them believe that there is advanced life on other planets. I agree. Half of them believed that these same advanced little green men have and still visit Earth. That’s where we differ. Wondering if these beliefs are consistent across all of my students, I took a rough tally of the adult classes, too. As it turns out, every last student believes that there is advanced life elsewhere and half of them believe that we are being visited. I wonder what a broader survey would yield.

More interesting however were the political discussions. Fox, Calderon, Obredor, Chiapas, Zapatismo, Oaxaca, and the teacher’s strike were all at some point falling out of their mouths… but more on that later.

Tomorrow I’m going to a soccer game. You know, the kind where people go ape shit? The guys that I’m going with told me that last time they went, people were throwing rocks and flipped over a car. You can’t bring in digital cameras because they’re afraid that you’ll chuck the batteries. But that’s not all! I also have tickets for a luncha libre match on Wednesday. You know, the guys that wear masks n stuff? I had to come all the way to Mexico to go to a wrestling match! It should be awesome.

I wonder what they sell

Yum! gimme some of that!

Throughout the last few years of school when I actually gave a damn I would always scoff at the professors who weren’t able to return tests within the next few days of taking them. After all, I wanted my score damn it. Today I finished grading the last of 62 tests, and now I have some sympathy for those professors forced to score far more complicated tests and essays. I have upper-intermediate and advanced classes, so the tests are a little less objective seeing that there are more possibly correct answers to increasingly complicated grammatical structures. I feel sorry for those teachers who have to teach the mind-numbing beginner levels, but I despise them for how easy it is to grade their tests.

Today I found that the Mexican public education system teaches their youth that the world is composed of 5 continents, not 7. For a few moments I thought that I was mistaken when the entire class roared “NO!” when I said that there are 7. Never mind how the subject came up. When I began listing the continents, to substantiate my claim that there are in fact 7, they roared again at me when I mentioned North America and South America. Apparently the Mexican board of education (if that’s what it’s called) hasn’t got the news that they are planted on two entirely different tectonic plates. Moreover, they howled just the same when I mentioned Antarctica. “Why don’t you guys count Antarctica?” I asked. Because nobody lives there they said. Very interesting. This is my guess: Mexicans are gonzo Catholic. Plate tectonics entails Pangaea. Pangaea contradicts, maybe in a narrow sense, Genesis. Thus, they define “continent” to something to the likes of a large body of land populated by humans and demarcated by their respective indigenous dissimilitude. This way maybe it also allows some sort of consistency with the story about the Tower of Babble. Heh, I’m just stabbing wildly in the dark here.

At the end of class I had a short conversation with the student who had the highest score on the midterm. He’s also a helicopter pilot. He wrote in an essay that a guest to a foreign country should accept their customs in order to understand them (ahem, dependency thesis). I detailed the difference between the meaning of the words “tolerance” and “acceptance.” A light went off in his head and I felt like I accomplished something.

I’ve got gas like a mutha.

One of the administrators at school invited me to go salsa dancing. I felt a little guilty turning down her invite simply because I hate (and am incapable) of dancing. I know that I should learn – you know, take in the culture and so forth – but damn, there are lines that I have a hard time crossing. She doesn’t speak a lick of English and my Spanish has a lot to be desired, so I hope that I got the message across that I wasn’t turning her down because of some other reason.

There’s a humble looking and sounding girl in my morning class whom I’ve just learned is some sort of director of “international economic development” for her company. It blew me away because her demeanor doesn’t strike me as one for somebody of this stature. It led the discussion into international political theory though, which was fun. I [think] I introduced her to the Marxist view of international politics, and being a Mexican businesswoman, I think, she has a privileged viewpoint to truly understand the theory (if you don’t know what this theory entails, then look it up (Marxist international political theory – it has to do with subordination and hegemonic dependency)).

My Spanish classes are going well I guess. The class is composed of me and two Canadians. To be honest I’m not really learning anything because we keep getting hung up on their complete lack of Spanish experience. Obviously geography has something to do with it.

We’re still looking for a furnished home to rent, but our luck hasn’t been that great. And my paperwork still hasn’t arrived from the California government, so I’m still illegal (I’m not supposed to be working, technically). Speaking of which, I just got paid. 500 peso bills look cool. Some bills have a plastic-like transparent section. I think it’s neat-o.

Christ, I’m babbling.

I’m actually sitting in class right now while the students take a practice exam. The midterm is tomorrow. Like any liberal teacher, I play nice, calming music while we do such things. For the past few classes I played some Paco de Lucia, but he’s had a pretty good run so far, so now I’m playing some Boards of Canada. There’s a student, Mauricio, a sharp little whippier-snapper who finished his practice exam far sooner than I had planned. He’s arrogant, too (as some clever bastards can be). “I’m done.” He announced in a tone like royalty, handing me his completed exam without making any eye contact whatsoever. Bastard. While I looked over his practice exam that took me a couple hours to make and him a few moments to complete, he listened to some NOFX I copied over to his ipod the previous week (he played it loud enough on his phones for me to recognize). Though I shouldn’t bear some competitive spirit when teaching, I took a little pride in finding a few incorrect answers. I, however, handed it back to him in a quite gentlemanly fashion. I had to give this guy something to do while everybody else finished their practice exams, I thought. So while he corrected his wrong answers I quickly whipped up some questions off the cuff: 1) What is the population of Buenos Aires? 2) What is the Socratic Method? 3) How many bones are there in the human body? 4) To which family does the duckbilled platypus belong? And 5) What is the name of Aristotle’s moral philosophy? I then plopped my laptop in front of him with Encarta opened. He found 1, 2, and 4 (his answer to 2 though was wrong – not his fault, but Encarta’s).

In a different class I said “shit” by mistake today and everybody laughed. What is it about profanity that they love? There have been times where I’m out ‘n’ about talking with non-students and they too want to know all the English profanity. In a fit of prudence I tell them about “damn” and “bastard.” They might get some “ass” if they’re lucky. I wonder if I tell them “schizer(sp)” they’d believe me – hell, maybe I should make up some random sounds while I’m at it.

While we were chillin’ at home today, some folks came by and knocked on the door. They asked, “you teach English?” Antonio, who answered the door, said that we do, but this isn’t the school. “That’s alright, we want personal lessons – where are you all from?” Tony said that there’s an American, a Canadian, and himself, Mexican. “May we speak to the Canadian?” I’m not bitter because the student is a 13 year old boy; more trouble than it’s worth, really. If, on the other hand, Carolyn, the Canadian, manages to land the gig at the rate she intends to table (100 pesos an hour), then I may be a bit jealous (the school pays us 45/hr).

I’m supposed to have a private class in a month with two students – the Ruski couple I mentioned in a previous post. I have yet to name my price, though I’m thinkin’ a G per month for three 2 hour sessions per week.

I’ve finished the Borges anthology I purchased months and months ago. There are some folk around these parts who have heard his name but don’t care much for him because he’s an Argentine. They hate their soccer team as well as gouchos, which apparently does not refer to the same kind of person as “vacerro(sp).”

Garage band, Caguamas, y hotdogs

Note: The day I post is not necessarily the day I wrote. Capeesh?

So there’s this student who, for some strange reason, is infatuated with early 90’s grunge “music.” He always carries around his Nirvana bag and can usually be found wearing a shirt with Kirk Cobain. Apparently he sings in a band and he invited us to watch him practice yesterday. We met him down the street and piled into his friend’s car; three of us into a two door Ford Festiva wanna-be – there were already 4 people in it. We fit all the clowns in the car thus: Carolyn sat on the passenger’s lap, and in the back the drummer sat on one of the guitarist’s laps, I sat bitch and Antonio was smashed into the remaining seat. Without seatbelts we barreled down cobblestone streets into a rather bad part of town. I laughed out loud at the absurdity of it all the entire way there. Solamente en Mexico, guey.

We arrived at a storage yard and small garage for one taxi company or another, got a case of “Caguamas” (ka-wa-mas: 940ml bottle of beer – sort of like a 40, but smaller) and had a listen. They played some of their own songs, some Nirvana and some Smashing Pumpkins. They believed that I am somehow supposed to know all the lyrics to every English song ever. After 4 or 5 caguamas of Leon they convinced me to sing. I did that one Nirvana song off of that album with the baby in the pool swimmin’ for a dollar bill…? It goes “heeeeeee’s the one who likes all our pretty soooooongs but he don’t know what it means…” I don’t remember the title. The nice thing about their little understanding of English is the ability to make up the words without them realizing that I’m really just saying gibberish – screaming, actually (grunge, remember?).

One thing leads to another and I’m puking in the bushes. Then a taxi comes and we shuffle in. Bada-bing, bada-boom, and we’re at my house. It was suggested to me that I go to the hotdog stand down the way. So I take some orders and somehow remember what everybody wanted. Once I received the dogs and paid for them, I started to walk away when it struck me that I had a hell of a lot of hot dogs. And I paid a pretty peso for them too. I turned to the guy and said something like, ‘hey, I didn’t order this many hotdogs.’ We then exchanged contradictions for a moment; ‘yes you did.’ ‘no I didn’t.’ ‘yes you did.’ Etc. Finally I decided that I’d just deal with it and sell them to all these people that have somehow ended up at my place. I managed to sell one to some kid on the street for 15 pesos on the way back home. When I arrived home everybody was like, ‘hey, give me my hotdog.’ I told them no, because they hadn’t paid me. Emphatically they told me that, yes, they had in fact given me some money. I stuffed my hands into my pockets and sure enough there were wads of pesos. It’s a good thing I didn’t sell the rest of them to other strangers on the way back. Nobody said anything about the missing dog.

On Sunday I ended the day watching SD lose against the Pats, but it was a good game. I was supposed to be on the radio today, but I sort of blew that off.

One of my students is a stripper – I think. My Saturday class is 4 hours long, so we take lunch half way through. I joined half the class at a joint down the street. The told me that the rules were that I had to speak Spanish the whole time because I make them speak English the entire time in class. Fair enough. To make a long story short, one guy said that we should go to this place, Golden Globe, to watch this other student dance. “Dance?” I asked. Yeah, dance – and “sin ropas.” I was calling them liars, but the rest of the people there – they all know each other – kept saying that it is true, that she really is a stripper. I asked her what a dancer needs to learn English for. She said that she wants to speak English so that she may some day live in the U.S. I presume that she doesn’t want to strip in the U.S., because English speaking ability really makes to difference in that arena.

This same class mentioned to me that I am the most prepared teacher they’ve had. Awww..

I’ve covered everything leading up the midterm with 3 days to spare, including review. Let’s see… we have Taboo, scrabble, word up, … Oh damn, that reminds me: I signed up for the TV and DVD tomorrow and I don’t have anything lined up. Damn. “Prepared,” my left foot.

… I ended up showing the first half hour of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. They hated it. Fuck ‘em – it’s a good movie.

I think I remember somebody telling me when I first arrived that the Mexican pizza places are a joke – that they don’t know how to make pizza. How correct they were. And, to defend myself from somebody accusing me of some self fulfilling premonition, my roommate agrees. On the menu however was an onion and tuna pizza. I’m tellin’ ya, these guys like their tuna. Have I already mentioned the isle at the grocery store, half of which is dedicated to tuna cans? It’s that and mayonnaise; they’re addicted to them both. There’s mayo with lemon, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s jalapeño mayo. Good luck finding peanut butter though. Caramel goat milk spread is good.

One American food that Mexico has managed to improve upon is the hotdog. Holy shit, man, they can make a dog. There’s a stand down the way that makes 9 different kinds of dogs. I just scarfed down one with jalapeños, guacamole, bacon, and Vishnu knows what else. My eyes rolled into the back of my head upon the first bite.

Tortas are good too – you can find torta places everywhere. A torta is basically a sandwich, Mexican style.

“Micheladas” are the worst thing ever. I’m not sure how they’re spelled, but they’re a drink with beer, clamato, some spices and hot sauce. BLECH! In Fresno I found some girls that liked Tapatio in their Coronas and I thought that they were just sort of, you know, crazy. Turns out there are plenty of crazy people out here bent on ruining a perfectly good beer.

Old Milwaukee is the most expensive beer I’ve seen yet. There are plenty of different beers down here that I don’t think make it into the states. So far my favorite is Montejo. They’re not big on ales. Most beer is light yellow, “cerveza clara.”

I’ve recently learned of some tradition only Mexican families observe: I don’t remember the name in Spanish, but it’s something like “3 kings day.” Among other things, a cake is made and a little plastic doll is buried in it. Whosoever takes a bite and gets the doll (it’s supposed to be baby Jesus) is supposed to make a ton of tamales to be eaten on February 2^nd. I don’t remember what that day is called. “3 kings day” is on the 7^th or something. So far, after talking to students about the holiday, I’ve heard two stories about where a family member intentionally swallowed the doll so that they wouldn’t have to make or buy a ka-zillion tamales (Mexicans have big families – and they bring their friends, too).

I have a student that stays after class to talk to me about this, that, and the other. I’m not sure if she’s dropping me hints or is just genuinely interested in English and “American culture.” We shall see. I’ve learned that it’s quite common for teachers to date students.

I enjoy teaching, more or less. It can be a pain the ass though to give the same lesson 4 times in one day. All the bugs are worked out by the last class, but my fuse is a little shorter then. The first class gets a cheerier teacher, but a lesson riddled with errors. For example, I was pronouncing “gerund” as “gur-und” when it’s “jer-und.” The next day I broke it to the class that I am a total fool. Its amazing how forgiving they are; youngsters (14-19) and professionals alike.

I’m on the Mexican, woe woe, radio – this Sunday that is. I’m not totally sure what to expect, but one of the teachers, an American, is the host. Every week he has another teacher on as a guest. All they do is bullshit. Sounds fun. Also, they play whateverthefuck they want. Copyrights? Pishaw! “did you bring any music with you?” he asked. I mentioned a hundred gigs or so of mp3s. “Perfect” he said.

I was almost creamed crossing the street two days ago. Red lights are apparently ignored late at night. So are stop signs. We took a taxi home who, by the way, took the long way home, and blew through every stop sign. Ay ay!

Tap yer toes a clap yer hands.

Whatever

Who the hell uses “Mustn’t?” Nobody in the U.S., that’s for sure. But oh no, I have to teach it. It’s like when I learned in Spanish class in high school that “car” is “coche.” Nobody uses “coche,” especially in Mexico. What happened the first time I used “coche” with a Spanish speaker? They laughed at me. I found that instead they use “carro.” Likewise, it wouldn’t be responsible of me to allow them to use “mustn’t.” I mustn’t teach “mustn’t,” but I’m compelled to by the school.

Recently I’ve been prefacing my lessons with something to the tune of, “look, I have to teach this because it’s on the test.” The test is prepared by the school. “If you are speaking with a native English speaker from the U.S. – which is why all of you are here – do not use this grammar structure (or phrase or word or whatever). Instead, say … “

Yesterday I spent the entire day for each of my 5 classes pounding into their heads the difference between “I’d” and “I’ve” when talking about a past desire that ended in the past versus a past desire that continues on into today. Later I took a look at the test. It’s not on there. It’s bullshit anyway.

Over a week into the course and they’re still admitting new students. They’re out of books and will likely not get anymore for another month. The book was written in 1994 anyway. Regardless, these new students will likely draw a blank when confronted by a few sections of the test, the material of which had already been covered (and there’s no book for them to study on their own, or to furthermore reference back to a topic yet to be taught). I suspect that they’d admit a student all the way into the last week of class. I’m beginning to see that this and other schools in the area hold the peso in higher regard than student success.

I’ve begun looking for a place with Carolyn. Bev, the older one, is showing her age: Lots of suggestions about, well, everything we should and shouldn’t do. Uninformed decisions really. She’s also proven to be a pathological liar. Image a 50 something year old Canadian woman telling you that she was married to a 20 year old obese hockey player just a few months before she moved here to Mexico, after getting a divorce. She makes up the most bizarre and unimportant white lies simply for .. what? No reason at all. So strange. I can’t wait to get the hell away from her and whatever the hell disorder she suffers from.

.. this post is unedited. If there are errors, oh well.

so far so good

So I’m into my first week of teaching and so far it’s pretty fun. I am teaching 4 classes of “upper intermediate” students, and one four hour class of “advanced.” The classes that are the most fun are those comprised completely of younger students, which is really only one of them; 5 students, all between 15 and 20. With them I can have a little fun and they’re more forgiving. There is another class, 15 students all of whom are older business types, that is a bit serious and a little demanding. I’m the youngest person in the classroom. On the first day one of the students decided that she disagreed with some sentence structure or another (it had something to do with using “was” instead of “is”). Because she was flat wrong and arguing about it would have detracted from the focus of the lesson, I was sort of short with her about why I was right and she was wrong. When I got home it dawned on me why she believed what she did, so today I made a short point about her confusion – detailing to her and the class … well, you get the drift.

When I get home and start chatting with my roommates, I have to force myself to stop annunciating and avoiding slang in my speech. I use a lot of four letter words just to shake the trend. For the first hour or so after work I tend to sound like some sort of automated over-the-phone menu system.

I haven’t held my “advanced” class yet. It’s only one day a week, but as I said, four hours long. There’s another teacher who has the same level 5 days a week. I think I’ll enjoy this level the most because the first few lesson plans involve argumentation. Shit, finally a practical application of some good ol’ fashioned philosophy.

I wonder what my students thought of me when for a moment I thought that the English alphabet has 26 letters and that “satellite” is spelled with one L. Ah well, I corrected myself later and there were only 2 students there.. one of them probably didn’t know what the fuck I was saying anyway.

Does anybody know the difference between “speak” and “talk?” It’s the first day, and some damn punk is already stumping me.

new years, etc.

Oh my Vishnu. What happened? Where am I? Today is January 1, 2007 – I think. Mexicans do things a little bit differently for New Year’s Eve. As it turns out, they spend time with their families and even exchange gifts, much in the same fashion as in Christmas. The real fun doesn’t begin until some time after 12. Until then people are lighting off fireworks in the streets and in their front and back yards below power lines and trees; next to cars and houses. It was really a war zone walking from the house to the club. A helmet and a flack jacket wouldn’t have been entirely inappropriate.

This teacher’s girlfriend has some connection at this club called Tonic. She used said connection to get a hold of a few “VIP” passes. If it weren’t for these passes, we wouldn’t have been able to enter. I felt like a rock star. There was a band and the place was packed. Mixed drinks were 35 pesos. Lots of dancing and lots of pretending that I understood what the pretty girls were telling me … I think you all get the picture – it’s a “fancy” Mexican club on New Year’s Eve. Use your imagination. This girl I was dancing with (yeah! I’ve been dancing!) said that she wanted to pick me up and take me to dinner the next evening at 8pm. She never showed. Whatever.

5:30 AM rolls around, the lights come on, and people start to leave. As I was walking down the street I came across some guys around my age hanging around their car that was blasting some kind of Mexican music or another. They asked if I liked tequila. I told them that of course I did. So the booze kept flowing, but now street side. Their English was unintelligible so, well, it was interesting. I got home at about 7am.

Tomorrow is the first day of work. I really hope that my brain recovers enough by 6am in order to teach how to use … past continuous reflexive pronouns or whatever (I totally made that up, but really, I’m going to be learning this grammar shit moments before I have to teach it). I’m not a religious man, but if you’re out there somewhere, save me Superman.

There’s one last thing that I’m still struggling to come to terms with: Mexican time. That is, whatever equation is used to translate a length of time when spoken to the real amount of time that is observed. For example, 10 minutes is something like 45 minutes, “right now – orita” is something like 15 minutes, and “tomorrow” never comes. Teachers tell me that although class may start at, say, 9AM, students will start arriving around 9:30. We’ll see how this goes.

… this is how it went: my 7am class doesn’t have enough students enrolled yet and my 9am, which has 7 students enrolled, was totally vacant. I have 3 more classes today, but I’m not expecting much of a turn out. I’m told that people will start showing up a week into the term. I’ve been advised to not teach any lessons and instead just bullshit around with them for 1 and ½ hours. Otherwise, when students start showing up, I’d have to repeat the lessons.