In the words of Woody Allen...

You know what they say...
"Those who can't do, teach... those who can't teach, teach gym."
But what happens when you can't even teach gym???

Twice a week I have to go to gym class. I feel like I just stand around, and when I talk to the kids in Spanish their eyes get huge and they have to ask a friend what just happened. Or else they ignore me completely! It's like English is the buzzkill to any fun that gym class could have been.

Plus, think about it...when a group of children are in their play clothes, and when they have several balls available for the kicking, it can be a little chaotic, especially if they have no clue what the teacher is saying. For this reason, the gym teacher often repeats everything in Spanish, and when he yells, it's always in Spanish. And I'm supposed to pretend like I don't speak Spanish.

So, I'm not the biggest fan of gym class. I just feel pretty useless.

I thought things were going to turn around this week. I finally did some preparing of my own. I suggested ideas for the debate we're going to have in science class, and the teacher actually ended up using one of my ideas. I was pretty central to the math lessons on Wednesday. And I prepared a powerpoint about Halloween for the "English Club" that was supposed to be starting today.

Well, imagine how peeved I was when I got to school and asked about the English club, and they told me not to worry about it this week-- that we'd start next week. I was going to be ticked if I had spent all of that time putting a powerpoint together for nobody to see. But then, something happened!

My director has been sick for the last couple of days. She wasn't there Wednesday, and I wasn't sure if she was there today. For the last few weeks, I had been voluntarily going to her English class with her, so in order to find out if I should go or not, I asked another teacher if she was there. "She's not here, see who's on guardia (who is covering for her)... maybe you can still go." So we looked at the list. And guess what?! The OTHER person had also called off today. Sooooo... I'm going to assume that you are all smart enough to guess what happened.

If you guessed that I went to this class ALONE, you are right. If you guessed that it was a nightmare, you are also right.

It started out decently enough. I actually got to show my freakin' powerpoint, so I didn't feel like it was a TOTAL waste of time. But then we had a lot of time to kill. One of my American friends told me how she recently played Telephone with one of her classes, and how it turned out really well. So... I gave it a shot. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out so well for me. The first time around, all of the sentences ended in gibberish. "These are not English sentences," I said, "and I'm pretty sure they are not Spanish sentences either." So we tried again. This time? The result was 2 audible English words from the first team (big improvement!), and inappropriate sentences in Spanish from the second team. Ok, so I ended the game.
I am pretty sure I said "Be Quiet", "Sit Down", and "Listen" more times in that hour than I have in the last 6 months. It was not fun. I am pretty sure they didn't take me seriously.
I also spent half of the time telling them to speak in English. They kept asking if I speak Spanish, or if I understand Spanish, or if they could Telephone sentences in Spanish. Really, in an English class, what kind of question is that?
It was super frustrating. There are a lot of kids that barely speak English, and they are really badly behaved. For the most part, the ones that don't speak English are the most disruptive. And, having nothing to hold over their heads, I was basically powerless.

Anyway, we finished out the class with Hangman since Telephone didn't work out. It was less risky. Only about half of the class was paying attention, the rest... well, they were hopeless. As long as they stayed in their seats and remained relatively quiet (which they didn't), I didn't care. .... But please believe that I will have to tell Cristina how things went down! And hopefully they will never put me in a room alone again!

Today was definitely a "WHAT AM I DOING HERE?!" moment.

But, it wasn't all hopeless.

• On the car ride in today, I was singing songs by Elvis and ABBA with Rosa, and we were talking about how much of a stud George Clooney and Brad Pitt are. It was an entertaining ride to work!

• On the way home, I was talking about the Latin Kings with a few of the teachers, and they were asking me about gun laws in the US, and we were talking about Angelina's schizophrenic neighbors, and Monica's grandmother with Alzheimer's. You know, just normal conversations. I finally was able to add to conversations. That is a big step! I feel like I spend so much effort just trying to follow along sometimes, but it's really relieving to actually be a part of what's going on.

• When I got home, my roommates were eating lunch, and it smelled delicious. And then they invited me to eat some with them! It was awesome, and I definitely enjoyed the company. One of my roommates was telling me that she's almost 100% sure that Twilight was filmed in Pennsylvania. I don't know about that though.

• And then, tonight, I had a private lesson. It went well. I am actually enjoying the private lessons. This one went 15 minutes over before anyone noticed. But I actually didn't mind... we were talking and learning, and it was good. And then, of course, I had to teach them the phrase "time flies when you're having fun!"

Now it's way too late, and I have to wake up way too early. So goodnight all. Maybe toss up a few prayers that these children miraculously learn how to behave, or that I miraculously learn the art of classroom management. Don't people spend years in school learning this stuff?
And to all of my teacher friends (because you are many!), maybe you can toss a few ideas my way!