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Another cop out photo? No. (Yes. Maybe.)

More importantly, this was the means of finding out some very important news.

I had a phone interview with a school in Detroit today. Due to many technical difficulties I couldn’t take it via my internet number at home, and had to retreat to a locutorio with a shaky phone line and a woman screaming in the booth next to me. However, after several attempts to reconnect, I had a positive and encouraging interview with the administrative team, and went back home feeling hopeful. 15 minutes later I got a call from headquarters, offering me the job. (It’s the least amount of anxious waiting I’ve ever had to endure after an interview… and I am an expert at anxious waiting.)

This is a charter school system I’ve applied to and interviewed with before, and from what I’ve seen of their other schools and from my conversation with the administration, I think this may be the positive school environment I have been dreaming about. What’s more, they offer 50% tuition assistance so I can finish my masters… and the school is in the same part of Detroit where one of my best friends teaches Spanish.

Mid-Year

I feel like most things in my life recently are a little retrasado (and I mean that more in the running late sense, and less in the mentally delayed way – but who knows?)

So more than a week after the fact, I am taking time to comment upon the many impressions and inspirations that I was left with after spending several days in Valladolid for Fulbright´s mid-year meeting. This included all the English Teaching Assistants from all over Iberian Peninsula – from Valencia, Cantabria, Madrid, and Andorra – and all the research grantees here in Spain, researching everything from cancer to Antarctica to flamenco.

Hint: this is not a cheap student hostel.

Wet Paper

Back home it is probably snowing.

With unrealistic nostalgia I imagine it:
big soft flakes drifting from a silent sky.

Here it rains, where the rest of the year it never rains.
Drivers panic. Traffic jumbles. Morning commutes grind to a wet stop.
In the mountains cars are swept into ravines.
I step over the brown rivers in the streets.
Spain hunches its shoulders and advises me to wear a scarf.

In plásticas classes we make paper snowflakes.
Big soft quiet flakes melt
into the humid effort of explaining symmetry and intricate folds,
drowned in the swelling stumbling waves of English vowels.

Lopsided lace begins to drift off desks, scattering paper dust.
Children catch their breath as they creak open their creations.

My heart catches, too, somewhere among the sharp edges.
The windows have filled themselves up with blue again. I cover them in snow.

The things I’d do to crunch leaves beneath my feet

(Notes from a journey)

I am relearning how to be a passenger -
how to travel alone on slick rails or the lumbering rumble of this near-empty bus,
pointed toward Madrid.

The clouds began to gather over the Mediterranean, light pushing us inland.
We pass places I will never see up close.
An old man pokes around with a cane under an olive tree.
Broken walls drown in the brush, or circle fortresses perched on cliffs,
edges smoothed by clouds.

Slowly twirling wind turbines march in lines over the hills.
Their smooth graceful lines make me taste imagined vertigo of a dream I had once:
clutching windmills,
or perhaps it was a book I read, or some carnival ride,
hanging on and trying not to vomit.

I will watch from an unheroic distance.
My coffee trembles in its
fragile paper cup.

I am relearning the art of contentment.
I am undoing the strings that slowly tug at my ribcage.
Being un-lonely when I am alone.
Un-craving solitude in crowded rooms.
Un-missing. Un-yearning.

Input Plus One: Educational Distress

Alternative Title for Language Pedagogy Nerds: Krashen Burn – Input Plus Too Many

Things out of reach.

I learned some new things this week.

• I can catch the early, non-crowded bus at a different stop than the one I have been using, giving myself a few extra minutes to get there and get a newspaper.
• The free local newspaper, 20 minutos, is exactly the right length for my – you guessed it – 20 minute bus ride. (It probably takes 20 minutes for a native Spanish speaker to read the whole thing. I can only do it because I skip the sports section.)
• If I catch said early bus, I can arrive at school early enough to drink a cup of coffee at the cafeteria up the street, on the sunny and increasingly chilly patio.

I was feeling pretty good about my mornings until yesterday, when I got to my stop, picked up my newspaper, and settled in to read about local escapades and international demonstrations. However, in the midst of all my carefree confidence I didn’t actually catch the correct bus. I ended up in a strange remote neighborhood, wandering aimlessly and following useless or contradictory directions until I finally caught a taxi. At that point my flimsy sense of competence fell apart.

I think that is a big part of moving to a new country – the roller coaster of elation at the simplest accomplishments, like taking a consistent enough route every day to orient yourself along the way, followed by plunging depths of the despair. I have found this to be particularly true with my language immersion experience, and the resulting state of constant confusion.

The teachers here have been so friendly, despite or perhaps because of the fact that I am apparently an idiot. During the morning coffeebreak I try to keep up with and participate with conversations, but by the time lunch time comes around I am physically and verbally exhausted, and even less capable of intelligent conversation. Sometimes I can contribute a comment to a conversation, usually via some syntactical disaster, but mostly I stick to nodding wisely and laughing when everyone else is laughing, with a vague fear that someone will ask me for input, which will reveal how little I am actually able to keep up.

I know things will get better. I felt victorious this week because I caught myself understanding Valencian. My first week or so here I didn’t even comprehend the differences between Castellano and Valencian – I only could tell what language it was based on my level of confusion. (If I was totally lost, it was probably Valenciano. If I was only somewhat lost, it was probably Castellano.) Gradually I began picking out sounds and phrases of Valenciano – nouns with their final vowel dropped. Syllables that sound French to me. Then this week in the 5th grade Castellano class, one kid didn’t know how to say a word in Valencian and I was able to tell him. Later, at lunch in the teacher’s lounge, I understood a conversation between two teachers in Valencian. I was elated. I felt like a rockstar. Then (of course) someone asked me a simple question in Castellano – which I have been studying and speaking for nine years now – and I couldn’t respond.

In communicative language teaching, Krashen has a theory about the ideal comprehensible input  - language should be understandable but still challenging, for maximum learning potential. I know this because I sat in classrooms and learned about it, but also because I have stood in classrooms and walked that fine line: between letting students get the gist, or tipping them over into paralyzed confusion. The littlest ones have the least tolerance for my foreign gibberish, and the least qualms about letting me know that they have no clue what the hell I am saying. Es que… es que… es que no te entiendo. Ni una palabra. But after simplifying everything, adding a lot of pictures and arm-flailing, they are the ones who are singing number songs in English when I pass them in the hall.

It is good for me to be a language learner parallel to being a language teacher. It is good for me to be pushed just beyond my own limits.

So far my time here in Spain has been a lot of things. Beautiful. Confusing. Peaceful. Frantic. Lonely. Crowded. It is an overwhelming jumble, but even when I feel submerged I can appreciate the value in being submerged. Language immersion leads to language learning, obviously, but it’s the kind of linguistic growth spurt that is so dramatic that you ache with the adjustment. Limbs tingling. Joints creaking.

I hope to write more soon. Tomorrow morning I leave for Madrid for the weekend, to visit a friend and attend a manifestación - a protest against the educational cuts here that are similar to what U.S. schools have suffered. More on that later.

 

 

Summer Schooling

I can’t believe how fast this summer is sliding by. It’s been in the low 80′s (instead of the high 90′s) for a few days; I needed a jacket last night when I was out, and a blanket in bed. This is the time of year when I would usually begin feeling the creeping panic that heralds the return of early mornings and lesson plans. Instead, my anxieties are tied to a flight date, waiting for an elusive visa, and goodbyes.

I have been busy, but in the best of ways. I have been scraping by on babysitting, housesitting, and some photography gigs. I took the city to court (after a big towing mess) and won, which was incredibly empowering and also will help the aforementioned income. I am gradually organizing and packing and getting rid of things. Around and in between all of that, I have been able to experience a lot of Life Lessons… otherwise known as Really Good Things.

#1) Using Another Language.

This may sound like I’m pushing my own professional agenda, but I think part of the secret to enlightenment is in new languages. I have had some incredible conversations in Spanish – I am hungry for practice and I know my rusty grammar needs tweaking. A few of the best and deepest conversations I have had have been in Spanish – about God, about spirituality, about grief, about relationships, about dreams and goals. I remember when I was in Spain a few years ago, and my roommate and I doggedly tried to stick to Spanish, even in our room alone. It got exhausting, as immersion always exhausts you because it is unceasing, but also because I felt stuck in small talk. I lacked the eloquence I needed to talk about anything that really mattered. Now, I value my stilted attempts at meaningful conversation in Spanish. Talking about real, important things in a new language clarifies them in some ways, because you don’t have cliches or your own pre-packaged ideas. You have to fight through with the vocabulary you know, and rethink what you are saying, and break out of the lines you have been walking your whole life. You are forced to push through to what matters, even if you have to twirl circles around it with broken syntax.

#2) Night Swimming.
That has happened a lot this summer. We have been driving out past the streetlights, down winding roads, and stumbling along dirt paths into darkness. And when your eyes adjust and the water opens in front of you, with the fireflies and the starlight and the rubber-band voices of frogs, you become suspended between the cool water and the cool air and you won’t care about sunlight anymore. (Also, sometimes you run into other strangers who are just dark shapes in the water, and who want to talk about literature. So far we have only met cool people. Please don’t let any assholes in on the secret.)

#3) Getting Some Kid Perspectives.
I’ve been happy to have a pretty Grace-full Summer. How is she four already? She was born around the time I was getting back from my study abroad trip to Spain, which doesn’t seem that long ago. And now she is old enough to call me out on being too silly. I have also been babysitting a six year old girl this summer, which has been pretty great. Six is an age that is generally very creative, very excited, very silly, and very wise in surprising ways, and this girl has a special dose of all of the above. Spending time with one six year old is different then the necessary orchestration of approximately thirty creative, excited, silly, and wise six year olds (and is 99% less stressful, as it turns out.) We went swimming last time I was babysitting her (during the day, in a public pool – night swimming is not for the young) and she kept yelling for me to go further and further out, so she could swim to me – splashing towards me with water in her eyes and a smile so big that it was probably holding her up on its own. She always told me to stay put so she could swim on her own, and I always followed her anyway, and she always screamed “Catch!” as soon as she got afraid, but as soon as she felt my hands on her waist she wanted to push off me and swim out further. Then we got home and instead of the usual bedtime story I let her help me wreck my journal. We poked holes in it, wrote down some signs, chewed on a page, and threw it down the stairs. She was captivated, and went right to sleep after.

#4) Live Blues.
My boyfriend’s parents gave us their tickets to go see Taj Mahal play in Ann Arbor last night. We didn’t know anything about him – other than some last-minute research – and at the show I felt a little embarrassed to be completely clueless among a crowd of people who had obviously been loving his music for decades. As it turns out, he is an amazing musician who puts on a very dynamic live show. Live music always makes me very happy… though currently I am on my porch with coffee and a very long Taj Mahal playlist, and that isn’t half bad either.

I always have some half-cooked ideas about what I want to write about, and usually it trails off into caffeinated rambling. My apologies.

I leave the country in three weeks.

Empty Step

Today in the hallway a little sixth grade boy stopped me and asked me if the world was going to end on Saturday. It took me aback. “Are you worried?” I asked. He nodded his head. I said that there has always been someone predicting doom every year, and that I thought it was a bunch of baloney… [insert reassuring teachertalk here]. “On the other hand,” I joked, “maybe I should wait to grade all these papers, just in case.” His eyes got really big, I felt like an asshole, and more reassuring teachertalk ensued.

Well folks, if a bunch of numbers really is more apocalyptic than humanity’s own stalwart mission of destruction, then at least this blog shall not die unblogged.

A lot of things have happened since I last bothered to write.

• I finished my graduate program.
• I was a bridesmaid (never a bride)
• I decided to get back into dancing again.
• I decided to stop biting my nails.
• I sold some more photos.
• A crazy drunk (?) guy crashed into my car.
• I was attacked by a kindergartner, threatened by an 8th grader, and braved a plethora of other insanities.
• I got my rejection letter from Fulbright.

That was rough. In the middle of a big tangle of final projects, all-nighters, and exams, I got the letter I have been waiting for since Fall.  I am on the alternate list – which means if a primary candidate backs down, I may still be offered the grant – but as it stands I have to cross off the possibility of a teaching job in Spain for a year.

We are keenly aware of the pressure that is upon candidates as they wait…

I had a few very weepy days, which included my final exam in Tai Chi. We had to demonstrate the concept of the empty step: keeping your weight steady and grounded. Moving forward onto new ground but not putting too much weight on your step until you know it is not misguided. I felt my balance waver and tears prickling. I have not been empty stepping into my future. I tried to reach out all the way across the Atlantic with my short leg, and I pushed too hard into my hopes of landing on old roads, new horizons, adventure, public transportation, airports. I was misguided and I fell on my face.

I am a quick learner. It took less than an hour of crying before I started looking for other jobs. I was excited about the opportunities of a Fulbright, but with the growing instability of my job and my state, I was also just hoping for the assurance of viable employment. Gas prices are rising and my salary is being cut. Everything is uncertain.

I love being a teacher, but it has been very hard to like being a teacher. Everything is a struggle. Recent construction has screwed up my commute and this week my usual nine hour days have been stretched to twelve hour days. I grit my teeth and fight to push my own anxieties out of my classroom. I feel ineffective, burned out, exhausted, and whiny. I know I will survive, and I am surviving, but bare-bones survival is depressing.

On the bright side, in these last few grey days I got to dance at my best friend’s wedding, eat ice cream with a man I love, and hold a newborn baby. And it looks like we may have at least one more gorgeous Spring day before the apocalypse. Party like it’s 1999.

Esperanza

I’ve been looking too much through lenses, and the bright sun on the bright snow makes me squint my eyes and I want to twist a dial or refocus something against the glare. And the cold air is full of light, and the blue sky and the vivid shadows of black branches on white houses makes me want to open the bedroom window, but as soon as the blinds are open the light is full of cold air.

February is finally over. In the occasional balmy days (or hours) in between the blizzards, I can see a light at the end of tunnel. It’s still dark when I leave for work, but the sky is pink as I follow a concrete arc onto the Southfield freeway, with the streetlights winking out into the horizon. If I leave work on time, it’s still light out. I find myself craving bright colors like a fix. My mouth waters for the color red and open windows and the sound of melting snow and the landscape pushing brown curves up through tattered grey lace.

I am allowing myself a small morning space (though it’s technically no longer morning) to write here, drink a(nother) cup of coffee, and listen to Radiohead’s newest. I planned to finish my taxes this weekend, but it didn’t happen. I planned to unclutter my car/room/inbox/to-do list, but those might not happen, either. I am trying to open up small spaces in busy days where I can rest, because days off (or even full night’s sleep) don’t really exist on my horizons, at least not for a while.

This past Friday I took approximately 40 middle school students to the Detroit Institute of Art. The art teacher and I organized this joint trip to see a tour of “Art in the Spanish Speaking World” – but was also a good excuse to go to one of my favorite places in Detroit. I have been very anxious about this trip, which lucky for everyone turned into meticulous organization and planning. I had to cancel the first scheduled trip, due to low numbers, but then I got a grant from the museum. We filled up nearly every seat on the bus, found replacement chaperones at the last minute, squeezed in a few last-minute students, and waited over an hour for our delayed bus the morning of the field trip. Once we were finally in the museum, I turned into a hyper-aware, nervously-organized version of myself, until my dear students in my tour group learned to recognize my eye-shifting and list-clutching and reassure me: “I’m right here. We’re all here.”

I was so proud of our students. They were respectful and engaged, and mostly restrained their giggling fits (omg, boooooobs everywhere!)

Diego Rivera's mural - my favorite part of the museum, and the primary inspiration for this field trip.

Not part of the Spanish tour, but still one of my favorite pieces in the modern wing.

Seeing dead people.

I want to go back to the DIA soon, perhaps by myself – I have a free educator’s pass. Four years ago during the fateful weekend that I spent in Not-Barcelona, the hours I spent alone in Madrid’s art museums were one redeeming factor. It was also the most deeply emotional experience I have had with art – perhaps because I was loopy for lack of sleep or a roof over my head, but also because I could put music in my ears, wander the galleries and look at any one painting for as long as I wanted. I think this may be one of the Quiet Spaces that I so desperately need these days.

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Top Eight* Things That Grouchy People Can Enjoy About The Holidays

*If I were a real blogger I would probably be able to come up with two more to even it out. Sorry.

I get cranky about holidays. Mostly they feel reminiscent of driving long distances by myself.  Shopping stresses me out. The surrounding masses of people trying to drive, shop, and stress out themselves do not add to the cheer.

But it is really refreshing to have two weeks off, and I have to begrudgingly admit that there’s a lot of quality stuff going on at this time of year.

1) Family

That’s my grandpa, who died in 1998. My mom’s oldest brother sent her this “treasure box” for Christmas this year – an old cigar box that he kept his compass in, along with pocket knives from several generations. That side of the family has been tangled up in a lot of turmoil recently, and so this means a lot on quite a few levels.

This was the first Christmas that my family was not all together. But we had a Skype conversation with my sister and her husband in Kansas City, and went to evening prayers at the convent the next day where we got to speak to my other Sister Sister for a few minutes.

Inching along

Hello, almost-April. I’ve achieved some of my goals already for the year, which is surprising and relieving.

• get a reliable vehicle
  • It’s fully insured! It has a bumper! It was made in this decade!
• pay off my credit card debt
  • Though I think it’s cheating to pay it off with student loan money, but still…
• garden a lot
  • I helped lug around cinderblocks for the raised-bed gardens, so we’re off to a good start…
• write more seriously
  • I read at another poetry reading
  • I’ve researched some freelance sites, if nothing else
• learn more about photography
  • I upgraded slightly to a new digital camera?
• travel: Chicago, Pennsylvania, and/or New Orleans
  • Went to Pennsylvania!
  • Planning on Chicago over break!

“Be a better teacher” and “make a positive impact” are a little more nebulous. Sigh.

Many things to say but too scattered to say them. This is a normal state of mind.

remember remember

(My journal is full of lists like “things you need to figure out” or “things you need to do” or “things to think about this week” or “things to write about when you have time.”)