Mr. Pony

My new Group 10 students, the highest level in the camp and arguably one of the most difficult to teach, has decided to call me Mr. Pony in an unexplainable act of utter weirdness. My Group 8, a class that I had dreaded for the entire two-week run of the last fortnight, is now filled with kids intent on learning. The draw in fevered silence for 15 minutes while I marvel at their strange, horror movie willingness to study. I put on my mean face when chastising children and surprise myself when they start to cry. The scallywags and devils from the first two weeks have gone, and in their place are meek, studious children. I warily watch these kids, waiting for the day of their revolt, when they throw books out the window and perform an unexpected coup d'etat, replacing monitors with the adolescents and English Class for Archery. They love some Archery.

Notes from Camp

Bugs sing outside my window. My roommate, Canadian Tyler, sniffles with a cold and groggily searches for something apparently lost deep within his bags. The first two weeks of our exile in the mountains, minus internet and phone service, have passed by relatively quickly. Along with Cathy and I, the English professors are Emily (Boston), Tyler (Canada) and Ginny (Virginia from Spain). Our coordinator is Maria, a Londoner who was Cathy's roommate in the Golden Days, when we three lived in Spain four years ago. Camp is as expected, negative and positive, plus a little more.

My first two weeks were filled with Spanish kids working out syllable after painstaking syllable of English, speaking to me in broken sentences and adding new phonetic sounds to my native tongue. I smiled through their fruitless attempts at the past simple, late nights in our lab (an actual science laboratory) doing lesson plans, and hostile camp counselors who think that the English Teachers have it too easy. The kids dreaded their English Classes (Student Carmen says: "Can we just skip the rest of the lesson since this is so boring anyway?"). Along with the students, there were days when I as well dreaded the idea of going to class.

But isn't there always a ray of hope? The feverish anticipation with which some of the kids would listen to story time, the days when the adolescents worked together and actually held a conversation in English, the drawing of Spiderman that little, wild-haired Pablo gave to me on the last day of class... Unforgettable moments in a fortnight of many forgettable ones, but ultimately what makes everything worth the effort.

A-Camping We Will Go

We're leaving early in the morning. Buses, filled with young Spaniards all a-blossom, will leave from the football stadium heading for the south of Spain, Murcia. In return for many, many euros, I have agreed to be an English professor to the tots. I've skinned down the website for the time being, as I won't have too much time these coming months to dedicate to the website and prefer just to keep things simple. Updates may be sparse this coming month, but please keep checking back as I at least plan on updating once a week. Wish me luck!

Goodbye to Guadalupe

We hugged tightly as the taxi pulled up. She got in, waving every two seconds, and when the taxi pulled away, she beat the back window's glass in mock despair. I laughed momentarily, but soon frowned. When will I get to see her again? Our paths, twined together for two years in Syracuse, now wind through unknown territory. She goes back to a country she's not sure she wants to be in, with a new husband looking for a job in the general vicinity of the United States. I search for a job in Spain and a Doctoral program in the North. I think over cold winters in Syracuse, sharing offices and lives with each other. I guess part of growing up and moving on means leaving moments like those behind as warm memories, and moving on to the next step. I will miss her.

If...?

If you were to perform in the circus, what would you do?

Preparations for Camp

I rapid fire questions about our summer camp to Cathy every spare moment. In return, Cathy is oddly tight-lipped and cryptic with her answers. The other day she said, "There are so many things that I could tell you about, but you can find them out when you get there." I eyed her warily. How much has she hidden from me? I was unaware that sneaky Cathy was trained by the CIA in diverting unwanted attention. The fact that I'm truly nervous teaching younger children is only now starting to dawn on me. It is also a new subject, for that matter; I may be a native speaker of English, but I've definitely never taught it before. I don't know how I string together these sentences, I don't know what each word in a sentence is called! I imagine myself in front of the kids, gaping when they ask a hard question. But these are just nerves. If I survived two unsupervised years teaching at a University, I can definitely get by in a summer English camp and an August intensive course. I have been reading my books and doing my homework for the course like a diligent student, searching for tricks and hints that might make camp a little less frightening.

A Mendicutti Sighting

I saw him before he saw me. He was just walking along the road in front of International House. Without a chauffeur! No paparazzi, no crazy fans trailing him! My heart skipped a beat, and I, in headphones and trying my best to dissimulate my excitement, strolled right past him. That's Eduardo Mendicutti! I wrote my master's thesis over one of his books! To a young literary student who has just gotten his Master's degree, seeing an author is like seeing a rock star. I began to string sentences together in my head. "I have to address him formally. I'll lie and tell him I've loved everything he's written." I turned around and ogled at him for a moment, both of us still walking down the street. "I want to give him my thesis. Why don't I have a copy of my thesis with me at all times for emergencies??" I took out my headphones, practicing what I would say. When I finally worked up the nerve to turn around and address him, he had gone, had taken a right where I took a left and was now halfway down the street. I watched my rock star's bald house bob in and out of the crowd. I considered running after him and asking directions, tripping him. Anything to stall him. In the end, I put my headphones back in. It wasn't meant to be, not today. If I see him again, that's when I'll know that I have to talk to him. Give me one more chance, Mendicutti.