Sisters, Stress, Other Synonyms

Exam Week

Organizing pencils, sharpener, and erasers

clutching last shreds of order

Staring at exam

Shuffling feet

Nervous pen tapping

Irritated piercing glare

Tapping stops.

Lip biting

Wandering eyes, begging for answers

Or anything besides lettered bubbles on an answer sheet

Sigh of hopelessness

Pen out of ink

Shit.

Santander, roughly.

Been a hectic few weeks down here at Tibati. So I won’t waste more screen space than necessary. At the end of July we had Colombianidad, the festival at our school celebrating the different cultures of Colombia. Each grade was assigned a region to represent, tasked with putting on performances that demonstrate the distinctive character of their region. The sixth graders, for whom I’m a homeroom director, were given Santander. A region north of Cundinamarca (where Bogota is), Santander is known for its extreme sports, blunt, sassy, no-beating-around-the-bush citizens, and the huge canyon of Chicamocha. More importantly for the intentions of this blog, Santander is also home to a unique delicacy: hormigas culonas. More interesting than their consumption is their name. Hormiga means “ant”, while culona literally is an adjective to describe “a large derriere.” So together, hormiga culona means “ant with a big ass,” and these bad boys are baked and then scarfed down like peanuts.

Josue, the elected king of Santander for
  the sixth graders. Each grade selected a
king and queen to represent their
department in a way that brings back
awkward memories of homecoming for
everybody. Oh, and the
royal garb is supposed to be made of all
recycled material.

After eating some ants with junk in their trunk, the performances were given. Think of it as a series of high school plays and skits with about as much preparation involved as American high schoolers giving a group presentation for their Spanish class, and you pretty much are feeling the vibes of that day. Some skits, like those of the sixth graders, were adorable and funny in how nervous the kids were yet their excitement showed through. Others were hilariously risqué, like those of the older kids that made ample references to alcohol and sensual dancing. You know, things that schools in the states would freak out about (or, more likely, the parents). Naturally, everyone here loved it! As fun as school events like this are, however, they are equally as exhausting, having to run back and forth from snot-nosed eager kid to stressed out preteen, either keeping kids still or giving pep talks to those who were about to perform. But we won the performance part! And you’re right, the pep talks were an integral part of the victory.

Macjainer, Saray, and Diego giving a sassy performance.

Like most educational institutions during exams, last week hit the students of San Benito with a brick wall of I-told-you-so. But I won’t bore present reader or future JJ with anecdotes about students asking what they can do to raise their failing grades ("What can you do? Study harder next trimester." I make lots of preteen friends this way).

My favorite parts were indeed my English exams, but not in a sadistic, “mwahaha feel the wrath of my quiz” sort of way. Just the listening part made me happy. For the listening comprehension component of my exams, I like to make my own audio recording instead of just finding something online like most teachers (not their fault, they’re not native speakers). I also like to add a guitar into and outro to the audio. You know, for those precious melodious seconds where a student's brain works as fast as it ever has, frantically trying to remember what was just said in order to properly bullshit these taunting bubbled answers. Additionally, I prefer using female voices since the only native voices these kids hear day to day are mine and the other volunteers’, all of which are male. So not only is variety the spice of life, I believe it’s also helpful in developing their listening skills if they have to focus on different accents, intonations, speeds, etc. For the first trimester exams I had my friend, Amber, record her voice. But, in characteristically JJ fashion that raises no eyebrows, I had forgotten to ask anyone before exam week started this time around. Having only four days to come up with a recording, I turned to the one who would best understand my procrastination talents, mainly because I learned them from her.

I emailed my sister, Molly, with a Bill Lumberg-esque request of essentially “Hey if you could get this done soon, that’d be great.” But having heard nil by Wednesday – my Exam being on Friday – I decided to check in with the other sister. But by the time Thursday afternoon came around neither Michaela nor Molly had responded. So with an emotional mixture of shit and serves me right I opened my computer to record the damn things myself before seeing that they both had sent me their recordings within fifteen minutes of each other. Unable to choose between the two, I chose Molly’s voice for my sixth graders and Michaela’s for the seventh grade demons. I hope all my kids know, though, that as I smiled when I played the recordings for the listening part of their exam it wasn’t because I was enjoying my sisters’ voices stressing them out to the point of tears, but that I sure as hell could relate!

Spanish word of the day: Today's nugget of near-useless wisdom isn't even a word, but more of a prefix. The placement of the prefix "re" in front of an adjective seems to suggest a meaning of emphasis, kind of like the word "muy" (very or really). So something like se puso rebravo would mean "He got really mad. Or, more cognate-y, reprofesional would mean "very professional". 

Song in my head recently: I frequently go through City and Colour binges, sometimes putting one particular song on repeat as I get ready for school in the morning. Harder Than a Stone has been that song on more than one occasion. Even if you're not a fan of the dude's high, perfect voice, you can still appreciate his guitar licks and hammer ons.