interesting...

so i just survived my first robbery attempt. of course i didnt realize it was a robbery attempt until i told the story and someone made me aware of it. so supposedly a tactic of those masterful paisa thieves is to spit on your arm, get you all creeped out to the point where you wipe it off, and then as youre distracted grab something from your bag. i was walking back from bancolombia bc there was a problem with my account when spit just flew on my arm and i felt a slight tug at my bag, thinking it was just the traffic like always and instinctively grabbing it, again like always. i get to the colombo, walk into the teachers lounge all creeped out bc someone fuckin SPIT on me when one of the teachers explained to me this wonderfully classy tactic. then i checked my bag and to my comfort my ipod and wallet were still there.

so the moral of the story is even though you think your parents are absolutely nuts and paranoid for teaching you to instinctively grab your bag everytime someone passes by you, that one in 348920 chance that theyre right you will be thankful they did.

and for the record i just bathed myself in purell.

doin' it like...fish?

turns out 380 million years ago fish got down and dirty as a means of reproducing. scientists in australia found a fossil of a female placoderm fish that was preggers and were therefore able to figure out what the strange little "pelvic bone" on the male fossil was good for. turns out organisms started doing it waaaaaaaaaaaaay earlier than we originally thought.

power of design yet again

classrooms where kids are encouraged to figit because it helps with both concentration and childhood obesity? i think so.

political correctness.

so yesterday i experienced a pretty salient culture shock. i gave a quiz to my course 12 students, and in one of the questions they had to write a want ad modeling the example want ad they had been provided. most of them were your typical subjects (graphic designer wanted, chef wanted, and so on), a few were rather witty (asian model wanted for photoshoot), and then i came across one that shocked me: sex shop worker wanted. mind you, this is a quiz at a professional english institute and is administered to adults and children, so there is NOTHING on the paper to warrant nor encourage an ad having anything to do with sex, let alone sex shop workers who need to have proficiency in "how the sex toys work". if i were taking a spanish course at a professional spanish institute in the us i would never EVER even think about writing something so outwardly inappropriate during a quiz, and i am a rather outwardly inappropriate person in my personal life. i was so shocked by this that i had to ask one of the TSs (trouble shooters...people who you talk to when you need advice on procedure or how to handle a student or where to order in food from...pretty much anything you can think of) if this was out of line and how i should handle the situation. and you know what he did? he laughed and told me that not only was it not a big deal, it just wasnt a deal.

i was in shock. i couldnt believe that in a seemingly private and reserved culture a sex shop worker want ad on a tame quiz was appropriate. i asked other teachers, and the difference was the female teachers told me it was rather inappropriate (esp because this student was male) and that he was just probably trying to get my attention, and the male teachers didnt even flinch. i never in my life considered myself a prude, or even politically correct, but here im the prude of prudes. i gave my class a little political correctness lesson today to just warn them that in the us you could never get away with talking about topics such as sex and drugs in such an explicit way in an environment such as the colombo. i dont know if they understood me, but i feel better getting that out of the way.

as for the student, i can never look him in the eye again. ever.

the most disturbing thing i've ever read.

Neighbors are witnesses to this. Many flee. Families are dislocated. Social relationships are lost. There is no more social network, village network. Not only the victims have been destroyed; the whole village is destroyed.

this article in the NYTimes is by far the most disturbing thing ive ever read. i dont even know how to react to it. im sitting here in the teachers lounge at the colombo in tears because of this article. it astonishes me what human beings are capable of doing to fellow human beings. and the worst part is i feel absolutely powerless to stop it. i wouldnt even know where to begin.

im more writing this post so that others read it and can somehow figure out a way to help these poor women, families and communities. please.

fuck.

well that sucks.

that's my daddy :)

if youre in the scarsdale area and want to see my dad's awesome (not just saying that because im his daughter...im actually one of his biggest critics because im his daughter), witty, honest and tear jerking play, visit here. 

when the shit hits the fan...

today i can actually call myself an adult. i finally did something that has made me worthy of that title. i had a problematic situation, and instead of handling it like i always do by dealing with it, complaining to everyone i know and then eventually running away, i confronted it head on. 

so as stated in my previous post the colombo put 7 different course levels and 8 classes on me this cycle, 5 of them with teenagers. yesterday the director of the childrens program told me that they were going to give me yet ANOTHER course on saturdays, and thats when i broke. i said flat out "there is no way i can handle that", went onto my next class, kept it all together until i got home and just broke into a fit of tears. during that fit of tears i wrote a letter explaining to the academic director and the directors of the 2 programs exactly what the problem was, that i felt completely taken advantage of and would in no way be able to handle 5 childrens classes like this until june, and that we needed to sit down and work out a solution together. 

then i went to sleep (i have the BEST sleeps after crying), got up at 530 to make it to my 7 oclock class, then during the break i went up to the academic directors office to give him the letter. i explained my situation, and he said that i am completely right and that they are going to take away 2 of my childrens program classes. he then went onto explain that the reason they gave me all these courses and oh so many hours was because they were nervous that if they didnt give me enough hours that i would have taken a job at another institution. he went on to tell me that after our interview in november they liked me so much and they knew that i had potential offers at other language institutions in medellin so that is why they were nervous about losing me. he could have just been blowing smoke, but it seemed genuine enough and made me feel better about myself.

though after the meeting my day got worse and i wound up crying in the teacher's lounge bathroom, i am still really proud of how i handled the situation and am glad that it seems to be working out in my favor. 

aaaaaaaand thats the story of the day sydney became an adult. never thought that day would include me crying twice, but so the (gluten free) cookie crumbles...

im ok

so im a bit overwhelmed bc they kind of screwed me over this cycle with scheduling. my contract says minimum of 35 hours, so being a new teacher i expected them to give me the minimum to allow me to get the hang of things, explore the resource rooms at the sites i would be working at (there are 4, and i thought i would be working at maybe 2 if not 1), develop my lesson plans for the 3 or 4 different levels that i would be teaching (that i could use again in the future), and get myself situated in other ways. well they didnt do that. they put me at 43 hours, all 4 sites at some point throughout the week, with 7 different levels. i wake up at 530, get on the metro by 6, start my first class at 7, after class work on my lesson plans for the afternoon, end my last class of the morning at 1230, eat lunch (sometimes), try and finish ALL of my lesson plans for the afternoon and the next morning until about 230, then take the hour commute to the next site for my class that starts at 4, then travel to the next site at 530 for my class that starts at 620, then get home by 830, and am in bed by 930. 

my days are long, but honestly i think ill be ok. i already let the higher ups know that they pretty much fucked me, and they seem to be concerned with that and have promised to remedy it the next cycle which starts in a month. i think things will only be kind of hellish until june, bc thats when the childrens program semester ends, which is the part thats killing me softly because its 5 different courses. and by june ill have a good base, and things will be much easier from then on.

ok so thats my life. it will probably be exactly like that until about march or april, but whatever im the masochist that likes challenging myself by getting a job im absolutely not qualified for and faking it til i make it, so i really should stop complaining. 

my first class

i have 9 teenage girls aged 14-16. and one boy. how do you think it went.

back in medallo.

ive been back in medellin for a few days now and honestly i feel as if im returning home instead of FROM home. im starting to feel more comfortable with my spanish than ever. i dont even get that weird feeling in my chest before i speak, that little bit of stress that youre going to fuck up or not understand what the other person is saying and have to fake it not to look like an ass. i start work tomorrow and as much as im nervous as fuck bc im honestly probably not qualified for the job, i know i have such a great support network of teachers and administrators that are there to help me develop into a qualified teacher. 

and ive just fallen completely back in with my friends. mari is going back to brazil for a month (shes extending her visa too and seeing her family), but as much as im going to miss her like crazy, i have the comfort of other friends here. at a party at tati's house (shes an awesome aiesecer who just makes me smile from ear to ear) i was greeted with open arms and drunkin (and sober) hugs and i just fell right back into the love. it was fantabulous.

dont get me wrong, i loved being home and seeing people i love. but right now, in this moment, i belong here. for once im in the right place at the right time.