Oops!

It seems that I have fallen behind on my blogging duties.  So said the Grouch, anyway.  So I looked at the blog’s archives and it turns out I have fallen behind.  I last wrote on January 5^th of this year.  Shoot.  I hate it when the Grouch is so right.  Oh well, here goes.

I survived my first year in Minneapolis Public Schools.  Some of my friends did not.  Not because they’re not great and dedicated teachers (they are those things and more), but because MPS is a large urban district that doesn’t always do a lot to support its incoming teachers.  Luckily, I had a principal who happened to be my 6^th and 7^th grade teacher from Emerson, an extremely knowledgeable, helpful and extremely likable coworker who guided me through every moment of this past year and a great group of kids. 

That is not to say that I didn’t have my moments of ‘OHMYGODWHATAMIDOINGHERETHEYDON’TPAYMEENOUGHFORTHIS.’  I had my fare share of those moments.  I also had some more colorful moments, but for the sake of our more cultured readers, I’ll keep those to myself.  Mostly, my days were fast-paced, heartwarming, frustrating and humorous, all at the same time.  Once, a kid came to show me that there was no glue left in the bottle by tipping it upside down and dumping an entire bottle of glue down my computer monitor and keyboard.  My jaw dropped.  Literally. 

My favorite moment of the school year came during a spoken word poetry performance that my 7^th graders were working on in their English class.  Frank Sentwali, a local artist, came in and worked with the kids for a week, with the idea that on the last day he was there, the kids would stand and perform a piece they had written.  One of my guys in the class, who, fingers crossed, will graduate ESL this year, has a pretty prominent stutter when he gets nervous.  He had me as a stand-alone teacher and as a co-teacher in his language arts class and we had a pretty good relationship.  He pulled me aside 2 days before he was set to perform and asked me to mention his speech issue to Sentwali and see about the possibility of a private performance.  I mentioned it, but Sentwali wanted my guy to give it ago in front of the class.

My guy and I practiced his poem during class and at lunch throughout the week and by Thursday, I was as nervous as he was.  I was supposed to be out of the school on the performance day for professional development, but I snuck out for an hour to catch the show.  When it came time for my guy to perform, he looked at me and went to the front of the room.  He took a deep breath, stuttered once on the first word and then TOTALLY. ROCKED. IT!  His poem was two and a half pages or a minute and half and he DID SO GOOD!!!  I teared up and totally wanted to hug him, but knowing how embarrassed he would have been, I gave him a fist bump and did a little happy dance in my head.  This might not seem like a big deal, but it’s hard enough to get up in front of middle schoolers to perform something you’ve created without being an ESL student (shouldn’t be a stigma, but it is) or having a speech issue.  I still get a little teary just thinking about it.

Now we’re on the verge of my second year in the district and while I can’t say I’m thrilled to go back to working 7am – 6pm, Monday – Friday (because if you’re one of those people who thinks teachers have the summers off – you should check out the lesson plans, curriculum guides/maps, research projects and classroom props I’ve been working on) again, I am excited to get back in the classroom!  I know it’s crazy, but I missed the kids about a week after school was out and I’m excited to see them all and hear about their summers.  I’m also excited to meet my newbies and see what they bring to the table.  This year I’ll be teaching 2 stand-alone ESL classes (that’s where I’m the only teacher and we’re in my classroom), 2 co-taught English Language Arts classes (I go into a mainstream ELA classroom and bring Academic English to everybody – because native English speakers need it, too) and one section of Immersion Language Arts.  Language Arts in Spanish.  No, I’m not a Language Arts teacher, but I am a Spanish teacher and Language Arts will be the medium through which I impart my Spanish knowledge.  We’re expecting a really high number of incoming 6^th grade immersion students, so I’m helping out the actual, official Immersion Language Arts teacher.  I thought I was getting fired when the principal called me into her office, but it turned out she just wanted to talk to me about getting back to my immersion roots.

I’m nervous and overwhelmed (and I haven’t even started yet), but I’m SUPER excited to get to use my Spanish in a professional setting (which will up the Spanish ante, that’s for sure!) on a regular basis.  I really fell in love with ESL during my student teaching and don’t think I’ll ever want to leave it completely, but a Spanish class here and there sounds great to me!  Teachers head back to school on the 20^th of this month (August) and the kiddos show up on the 27^th – well, some of the kiddos… lots of them still wait until after Labor Day (smart kids) to come back to school.  Before the official beginning of my school year I plan to: 

·      finish a summative assessment rubric for the Holes unit I’m working on for my level 3 ESL class,

·      develop some extension activities for my super super-fast-worker kids,

·      make some parts-of-speech posters for my classroom,

·      write syllabi for my 3 stand-alone classes,

·      finish reading a book on classroom management,

·      organize my year 1 portfolio stuff,

·      figure out what the heck to do for my first unit as an immersion teacher if I can’t get the resources I need in time for the unit I have planned

·      find some good texts for my Biography unit

·      iron out the details of my Families unit

All that plus playing soccer everyday, seeing lots of friends, spending time outside everyday, turning 27, going to the fair and organizing our basement abode… Well, that’s the plan anyhow.

Pako is quickly approaching 1 year in the Uniteds (as many of our Mexican friends like to call the US)!  I can’t believe it!  Seriously, how the time flies!  I know that’s cliché and all, but unfortunately, as I get older, I’m noticing the truth behind all those clichés I used to roll my eyes at.  Oh, another thing middle schoolers do regularly: remind you of how crazy-old-you-are-and-how-come-you-don’t-have-any-kids-yet-you’ve-been-married-for-more-than-a-year-what-are-you-waiting-for?  Anywho, back to Pako – we’ll have been married a year an a half on August 26^th and he’ll have been a resident of the good ol’ US of A for one year on September 17^th.  He says he’s getting used to it and likes a lot of things about Minneapolis.  I think that he’s much happier now that he has a part-time-ish job that gets him out of the basement and moving around. 

Through the wonder that is facebook, a friend of a friend from Zihua contacted him and invited him to his house in Golden Valley, MN (20 minutes from our house).  Turns out, there are 4 other guys from the Zihua/Ixtapa area (all married to gringas, 3 of which are blond, go figure) that live in the metro area of Minneapolis and who all hang out together.  CRAZY!  One of these guys is married to the Immersion Social Studies teacher at my school.  SMALL WORLD!  The first guy who invited us to his house has a construction and remodeling company and Pako has been working with him in the role of ‘grunt.’  Luckily, he really likes all the grunt work and is learning all sorts of valuable stuff for when we buy a house and want to fix it up (next spring/summer, fingers crossed!).  Also, these 4 guys and their wives have all gone through what we’re going through with immigration, starting from scratch, living in parents/parents-in-law’s basement, etc, so it’s really nice to hear their stories and get to know them all.  One of the guys recognized Pako from surfing over 10 years ago!  He even remembered the color of Pako’s first surfboard!  When we all get together, they put on old school Mexican music and sing loudly and reminisce about their childhoods.  It’s quite cute, actually.

This July, Pako and I went to Zihua for 3 weeks.  We told Lorena (Pako’s sister) that we were coming, but not his parents.  Both of his parents were really surprised and happy when we got there and his mom spent the rest of the day calling us ‘sneaky.’  It was SO nice to be back home (which is what I say about both Minneapolis and Zihua) again and to get to spend time with the family.  Our niece, Leah Elizabeth, is 10 months and just about the cutest dang baby I have ever laid eyes on.  Man, that girl is cute!  She is pulling herself up and crawling all over the place and keeping Petra, Eliseo and Lorena hopping!  She was shy for about the first 12 seconds with Pako and then decided that he looked like a good jungle gym and proceeded to climb all over him for the next 3 weeks.  Adorable.  Almost made me want my own baby.  ALMOST.  We’re still on the 2 more years plan.  House à Dog à Baby.  In that order!  Pako and I ate all the foods we had been dreaming about since December, went to all of our favorite restaurants, went to all Pako’s favorite surf spots and spent a lot of time with the family.  It was lovely.  We also took a super quick trip to Morelia and I got to see the colonial center of town and the cathedral, which is, of course, beautiful.  It still blows my mind to think of how much older things are outside of the US.  Historically speaking, we’re still some of the younger pups at the party!

Lord, she's cute!

Jungle Gymming on Tio Pako

Beach Babe!

Cathedral in Morelia, Michoacan

Doing what he loves :)

Hanging out with Tio in the hammack, listening to Marley

Our last night in Zihua for awhile :(

We came back and Pako went right back to work (ha!) and I headed up for a too-short couple of days at a cabin in Northern Wisconsin with some of my mom’s side of the family.  For the 3.5 days that I was there, we had beautiful weather and I spent my time going on walks, hanging out on the deck, eating outside, spending time with the fam, kayaking, riding on my uncle’s boat and attempting to water ski.  All of it was really fun, except for the water skiing.  That was frustrating.  And painful.  Not so much at the time, but for the following 3 days.  Holy sore muscles, Batman!  I stood up for a total of 17 seconds and then couldn’t hold it.  It had been about 15 years since I had water-skied and unfortunately, my muscles have gotten smaller and my butt has gotten bigger.  Also, it turns out that you use all sorts of muscles when you water ski that you don’t use otherwise.  OW.  I’m currently in training so that I can stand up for 30 seconds and only hurt for 2 days afterwards.  Good luck, me! 

Hanging out with the Fam :)

The view from our deck was not bad, not even a little bit!

Kayaking with my Mama!

Butt-Skiing is not recommended!

Kris and I! (Picture stolen from her without permission)

Making S'mores on my final night :) (again, pic stolen from Kris)

We used to spend a week during the summer at a cabin when my cousins and I were younger and it was really, really nice to do it again!  It was great to watch my cousins’ kids and relive some of my favorite childhood memories.  Also, though we agree on almost nothing (…), it’s a great feeling to just be with family, up at a cabin on a lake, removed from the grind of normal adult responsibilities.  I had to leave before the week was up for some technology training and curriculum writing days, but I truly enjoyed myself while I was there.

I do believe that is it, not so briefly.  It’s sort of depressing when your dad has way better stories to tell, but then again, I’m not half as crazy as they were at my age, so it’s to be expected.  I’ll try to write before another 8 months pass, but I’m not promising anything!



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