Espanol para maestros.
So I teach in an inner city school a couple hours from the border. Needless to say, the vast majority of my students speak spanish. I am learning, picking it up at a decent pace, and at the very least, I know the words I shouldn't hear coming out of their mouth. Today I had to give two referrals to students for cussing in spanish. They have had repeated warnings and were doing it on purpose- saying it quite loudly, so sure I couldn't understand them. Well, amigos, hablo espanol pequeno. No diga "chinga tu madre" o "mierda" en mi clase por favor. Then they tried to tell the assistant principal that I didn't understand. So he comes to me and asks what they were saying. I didn't say exactly what, but I said that they were cussing. "Okay," he says, "they said that they were just saying things like 'chicken'." Nice try boys. They amuse me. When asked what an appropriate punishment would be for students who throw their backpacks at my table (Mochillos DEBAJO de la mesa, no SOBRE la mesa!!!) one student wrote "Throw their backpacks at them and call them changos peludo!" Hairy monkeys. Ay.
Um, what else. Flat tire. Spanish flashcards, a roomate constantly making fires on the backporch and hacking out homemade tools with her machete (and currently loudly sitting/jumping/laying/falling on her backpack trying to pack it for tomorrw), tamale-making marathon (and enough tamales in the freezer to last us months) and one month smoke free tomorrow. Bueno.