...trying not to get wet

Welcome to my special, super-secret inner circle of blog readers! I went private because I got a comment from an anonymous student on a post from way back in December, which as you remember, was not a great time for me. While I'm feeling much better now than six months ago, much of my blog is still more negative and self-critical than I'd like my students (save a few, whom I trust) to be reading. And while the material from six months ago is no longer true, I don't trust students to make that distinction or be forgiving, which is understandable. So here I am being private, and I hope some day to have any and all readers who aren't students added to my inner circle.

Anyway, it is WET in Tegus these days. It rains easily every day. Some days it rains all day (like today), but usually it's just from 4pm and after, more or less. At least the temperature has relented, so the only people running the risk of melting are western wicked witches.

I'm nearly all caught up with stuff. I still haven't kept up, even in this final quarter, but with a hard push today (which is necessary), I can be all caught up - for all of a day. On Tuesday, I get a stack of final drafts of research papers, a dozen or so of which have to be graded immediately, to verify exam exemptions. Then on Wednesday I'll have a stack of exams to grade. I'm going to try to grade those all on Wednesday. Then I'll be nearly responsibility-free until Tuesday the 8th. Nearly. And then on Tuesday through Friday, I have an hour of recuperation exam review classes to give every day (more on recuperations in the future). At some point the following week, I will be grading around 10-15 of said recuperation exams. During those two weeks, my other responsibilities will consist of preparing for next year. It's going to be a pretty smooth couple of weeks.

I leave Tegucigalpa in 19 days and perhaps 2 hours. I leave Honduras in 19 days and 12 hours. I arrive in Michigan in 19 days and 23 hours. I arrive home in approximately 20 days and 2 hours.

But the leaving, the beginning of the process, is my focus. 19 days and 2 hours. 458 hours. That sounds even better.

Edit: So the rain has seriously taken its toll. I had not realized that Tropical Storm/now Depression Agatha was headed our way. It's nowhere near as destructive as it was in Guatemala - fear not for us - but the river nearby is really swollen, rushing up against and almost overflowing a nearby bridge. I'm in no danger of flooding, but two teacher's houses have been evacuated and we have no school tomorrow. The president has declared a state of emergency (mainly for other parts of the country) and my last full day of class is cancelled. I couldn't be happier about it, but some of the elementary teachers, who, you know, literally love their kids are a bit disappointed. Bring on half days.

I do not know what to do. I guess all I can do is give it to God. When many students hand in papers that say things like, "Mistreatment have being in humans life since slavery." as their opening sentence, what do I do? There are so many things wrong with that sentence in eight words. How, in 11th grade, second language or not (since these students have supposedly been learning IN THIS LANGUAGE since 1st grade), do they not have a grasp on so many basic things? I admit I did not keep myself as prepared as I could have been this year. I admit I let things go until the last minute far too often. But how do I deal with half my students being largely incapable of writing a basic paragraph that makes sense and have to assign (and now grade) a 6-8 page research paper?

I have to have a lot to say about bilingual education and its weaknesses. But that is for another time. I already will have trouble having everything graded by the time school starts; I need as much time as I can get. It simply has been a frustrating night already, and I occasionally need to get this out of my system, but everyone else has gone to bed.

...kicking myself

I have been a slacker. Don't say "You're doing the best you can," because it is NOT TRUE. I've pushed back grading things for a month or more. I do most of my lesson planning the morning of the school day, all because I just bum on the internet for the evening before.

Now the end of the year is upon me. I have FAR too much to do, and not enough time to do it. I have barely done any of my teacherly duties on time. When I finish this blog post, I will hop in a taxi and head to a coffee shop with nothing but a stack of 50 papers, a notepad, and my grading book. I will stay there for 5 hours. Then I'll come home, work on writing the study guides for my exam and recuperation exam (more on THAT ridiculousness later), watch the LOST series finale, finish my study guides, THEN plan my lesson for tomorrow. I only have 8 more periods to plan, but after ALL of this, I have 50 6-8 page research papers to grade by Wednesday. Then final drafts of the papers I'm grading today, which I'll receive on Thursday, THEN final drafts of the research papers next week. I also have to check 60-some journals, and by next week Wednesday, I'll have 60-some exams to grade (of course, I also have to write that exam somewhere in all of this mess).

It would be crunch time even if I had stayed on top of things. But I've made things hard on my students. I have not been fair to them. Sure, many of them don't care about school or my class, but there are plenty who have been shortchanged because of my slacking. I can hope I'll do better next year, but this is me we're talking about.

...writing along with my kids again

I occasionally give my students a time to free write - eight to fifteen minutes, usually. Sometimes I have to get a couple things set up as they write, but many times I try to write with them. Last week, I joined my students in one class for most of their 15 minute free write, and I thought it was worth sharing here. It's interesting to note that this happened the morning of a Friday that later ended with a bit of a breakdown of frustration in another class that had one astute student stay afterward to tell me that she likes my class and likes me, but knows this isn't where I want to be and that if I want to go, I "should just go." How things change in the course of a day. But I think this more accurately reflects my mindset than any breakdown of frustration.

"Ugh. It's amazing that my first year of teaching is almost over. After a month of long term subbing last year, I was so frightened this first year would never happen. How could I last a year? Well, I practically have, and I don't have a good explanation for it besides the grace of God. I know he's brought me here for a reason, reasons I probably won't ever even realize because it would only be through this [teaching in Honduras] not happening that I'd realize how rough it could be outside of this school. I know that having a community is important and essential for me. I have that here. Although I've struggled, how much more could I have struggled at a "better" school that didn't have a community like this one built in? Would the "better" students really have made me try harder as a teacher? Would a more whip-cracking principal really have gotten my nose to the grindstone? Or would I have been fired after the first semester for being just as apathetic as I am here and letting my students down? I wonder...

I wouldn't have gotten together with Kristin this year if I were at another school. [Rest of paragraph omitted - this blog's about Honduras, not my dating life! :)]

I am excited about next year. A new set of kids, a new set of possibilities. I'll know what I'm doing more than at the beginning of this year. Kristin and I will be together to start the year out, and adding Matt to my living situation sounds excellent. I hope my mind is in a much better state after a summer of getting help. Everything has such great potential. I just hope I can live out my excitement for it."

I now have 11 more days of classes to plan, then four days of half-days of exams. I have a TON of grading to do, including a nice stack of research papers I'll be getting this Wednesday. School is done the 4th of June, and then we have a bunch of unknown stuff that will take up two freaking full weeks. I'll be home (Michigan at least) around 10am on June 20 and will be going immediately to a Tigers game. Sleeping in my own bed again that night. Working the next day? It's possible - I have to get my planting time in! My first days back are already being planned - restaurants to hit, trip to Chicago, comforts of home to enjoy, books to read. The seven weeks (that's it...) will go so fast. I mean, I still have five weeks here. Holy yeesh.

...rooting for the wrong team

Many of my readers probably know that in Latin America, soccer is THE sport. I'll admit, it doesn't do much for me. I keep myself busy following the Tigers, following many of their games online, and up until last night, watching the Red Wings through online streams of the game. But in Honduras, soccer trumps all, and to most people, not other sport exists.

Last week Sunday, I went to a soccer game. The Honduran soccer league has two teams that are based in Tegucigalpa, a la the Cubs and White Sox in Chicago or the Islanders and Rangers in the NHL. The two teams are Olimpia and Motagua. In Tegus, no rivalry matches Olimpia and Motagua. mention either of the names in a group, and you'll get half the group cheering, half the group booing. It's craziness, though as a fan seasoned in Hope/Calvin games, it's fairly familiar.

This past week marked the end of the Honduran league's season. As is the case with most all other soccer leagues, the championship is determined by a two-game final, where the combined score decides who wins (just like tournaments in Jeopardy!). Last Sunday was the first game of the championship, and guess who were playing? Olimpia and Motagua. Big deal, for serious. A few people were going, and I had several spare hours, so I thought I needed to get in on the Olimpia/Motagua action.

The obvious problem, however, was that I was unaffiliated. The two teams were just names to me. So I went, determined to pick an allegiance early on.

We arrived at the stadium, having purchased 250 L. tickets for 270 L. from a scalper on the street as we rode in our taxi - about a buck of profit for the dude. Our seats were in the nicest section - the Sillas, or chairs, as opposed to the sections of nothing more than concrete steps in the Sombra (Shade) or Sol (Sun), moving down the hierarchy. Sillas are the safest place to be - people certainly have gotten injured at Olimpia/Motagua games.

I started taking note of things to help me make my decision. Olimpia certainly wins when it comes to fans - their section was basically chock full. Motagua's was pretty sparse, even by the time the game began. I found I preferred the look of Olimpia's jerseys - red, white, and blue, with a cool, retro-looking lion logo - to Motagua's with its blue-on-blue eagle with hints of maroon. Further examination led me to see that I also preferred Olimpia's sponsors - Coca-Cola over Pepsi, Salva Vida beer over Gatorade. I continued to ponder my affiliation as vendors hawking pizza, candy, drinks, and gum passed, being significantly more invasive than vendors at American sporting events.

The game began after a beautiful a capella rendition of the Honduran national anthem. The pulsating Olimpia fan section seemed quite unaware that any singing was going on, continuing to chant their various cheers. Every once in a while, an amoeba of open space would form in the middle of the crowd, signaling that something was going to blow up. Apparently the guards frisking people at the gates were not infallible - there were plenty of large explosives that went off throughout the game, all prefaced by the amoeba of space. Immediately upon detonation, the amoeba walls would collapse and fans would quickly fill in that space removing all evidence that anything had blown up within two seconds. It was awesome to see.

I still hadn't decided on who to root for. Most signs were pointing me toward Olimpia, but I wasn't so sure. Everything pointing in that direction made me think that Motagua was the underdog, which was almost enough to trump everything. After about 5 minutes of gameplay, when I could tell that the teams were actually fairly evenly matched, I decided I was a Motagua man. If I could see the underdog win the game, that would be excellent.

Alas, it was not to be. Motagua was possibly the better team overall, but their forwards could not beat Olimpia's defenders down the field. Olimpia struck first. Then second. In the second half, Olimpia scored a third time. Late in the game, Motagua did score a goal, and I got to cheer for that at least. I actually didn't realize this game was half of the championship, so as we left early to beat the rush, I was a bit disappointed I hadn't chosen the team that not only won, but had my favor in most every aspect besides gameplay.

The second half was played last night. For all intents and purposes it was played like a normal game, which Motagua won 1-0. But when you combine the scores, Olimpia came out as the champs, 3-2.

There's always next year. I'm a Motagua man, but if I had to buy a jersey (as I may some day), I wouldn't hesitate to betray my allegiance.