Little House in the Pueblo

When I moved into this little house, I was greeted by a fireplace full of knick-knacks. Shortly thereafter, the house just stopped trying to impress me and started being its real self. That lead to a water problem culminating in The Great Toilet Smashing, which was followed by The Great Underground Rat Pool Leak, which is now being outdone by The Great Lock Misfortune, wherein the bolt lock jams if someone locks it from the inside, leaving anyone on the outside stuck. The "anyone" is usually me, and it always happens that I'm coming home just as my roommate has started a nap or crawled under the covers for the night.

Tomorrow is November, which means there are only ten days until the landlord comes for rent. Ten days until we can explain to him, in scattered Spanish and sound effects, that we need a new lock. A new door? Maybe just a new house.

Nah, it's not so bad. I'm rather fond of the little place, especially because it's so close to school. Our house may be many things, but it isn't awful. In fact, let's take a house tour right now!

This is the east end of the front patio. Please note the lovely pots hanging on the wall. They bear a strong resemblance to the many random decorations that used to be hanging inside the house--in far less symmetrical patterns--until the day we just couldn't handle looking at framed placemats and old calendar pictures anymore. Check out those inviting barred windows!

And here's the other side of the patio. It's a right friendly little place, especially now that the landlord ripped out the giant mint plant.

The entrance. Above the door is a clock with no hands. Next to the door: a rooster bell, a crusty panda, and a painted shingle. Why? There are no answers.

The front entryway, where you can see all the way to the back door. Head straight through that tasteful bright orange curtain to the back patio.

Or...take a sharp right into the living room, where we keep a hamster in the fireplace and a creepy woolen blanket in the strange corner cabinet.

This is the kitchen, where I don't do any cooking.

Here's the bathroom. Yep, that's a bidet directly across from the toilet. Yep, that's a giant water heater in the corner. Yep, that's daylight shining directly through the shower--it was installed over half a window. The other half is hidden behind cupboards and plastic flowers.

This is my room, which truly does have that amount of stuff on the bed at any given moment. As I type this, I'm surrounded by cartulina, grammar books, and sheets of paper.

The other side of the bedroom. All the earthly possessions that followed me to Camarma are stored either in that wardrobe or on that bookshelf.

The back patio. And a high-tech clothes dryer.

The other side of the back patio with a much more distinct view of the orange curtain, the plastic drying rack, and the little shed thing that we're not allowed to use.

Finally, the guest/storage room. If you decide to visit within the next six months, you can stay here, free of charge! Calming lavender walls, persianas that work most of the time, and a complete collection of delicately wrapped knick-knacks to remember Spanish days gone by--namely, the 70's. What's not to love?!

Bonus middle school quote of the day:

After being assigned to write a story about a time they felt like an outsider, one boy sat at his desk, eyes blankly scanning the room. "I don't have anything like that."

"Nothing?" I asked. "Has there every been a time you felt left out or awkward?"

"Well...I've always been the center of everything." He was quite earnest about this. Hmmm. I can think of about twenty-nine awkward instances in just one day of my middle school experience, so I try again.

"Can you think of one memory where you were an outsider? Maybe someone said something hurtful to you, deliberately made you feel like you didn't belong? Or you felt really alone?"

"Not really. I'm a sociable fellow." Baha!

Of Books and Bobcats

"How many people in here have ever had something happen to them that made them feel so stupid and different and out of place?" We all raised our hands--yes, me too. And I told them about the time in first grade that I claimed I had a bobcat living in my garage. I had meant "tomcat," except I kind of also meant "bobcat," just because I thought bobcats were cool and that everyone would think I was also cool for having one such creature so accessible.

The problem with being in elementary school is that, though elementary kids don't always see things clearly, they can be quite good at seeing straight through them. While I tried to backpedal and claim that it was only a tomcat in the garage, no one forgot. Ever. Ten years later, schoolmates were still asking how the bobcat in my garage was doing. The confidence that had compelled shy, stringy little me to profess such a blatant lie had pushed me into shame. I have no idea why that burns at me today. I haven't cared about the bobcat since at least 1999.

I shared the bobcat story with my 8th graders, then asked again, "Have you felt that way? Have you felt so very far on the outside of things?" They were nodding. "Everyone does. Especially if you're living here in Spain, in a place where you'll never quite belong."

We read "A Rice Sandwich," an excerpt from The House on Mango Street. Sandra Cisneros, the author, grew up always feeling a little out of place in Chicago, where she lived with her Mexican father. The story was short--a page and a half, about a little girl who wants to eat her lunch at school instead of walking the four blocks home every day. Her mother writes her a permission note, and after being scolded by the nuns who run the school, she eats in the canteen like the other kids. She eats her rice sandwich--the family has no lunch meat--in the corner, realizing that even though she's finally sitting where she dreamed she'd sit, she still doesn't belong. She isn't like them. She may never be.

I read it with the 7th graders and was fine, but something caught me the second time around. One of my boys (we'll call him "Leprechaun" for now, as that potluck quip was his) is starting to display a particular sensitivity toward the hurts of others, and a few times during the reading, he said with complete sincerity, "That's so sad." I don't know what did it, but there was just something about the way he said it. I'm discovering in him this undercurrent of compassion that I hadn't seen at first. We finished the story, and he said it again: "That's so sad." And I swear the tears coming to my eyes were, just briefly, the same ones pushing up behind his.

There's something that can happen here if we let it, something I don't really remember doing in my high school English classes, and this is it: caring. If we just read stories to pick them apart, to find antagonists and plots and irony, then we are missing the fact that kids need more than an academic vocabulary with which to describe the stuff they read. Underneath every analysis and evaluation and literary essay ever written, beneath all the layers of program and curriculum sitting on top of reading--if you scrape it all away, underneath you will find, simply, fundamentally, a heart. Books matter because they change us, they make us think, they seep into the pores of our being and don't allow us to walk away without somehow shedding like snakeskin some part of our former selves. Reading stretches us to fit the proportions of someone else's life and thoughts; even if they're imaginary, the shift in perspective isn't.

For one boy, there is a page and half that he'll probably forget about in due time--characters, location, all of that pushed behind other stuff. But for one minute, that story poked him right in the heart and reminded him--and me--that everyone fights a battle. In that, we're all the same, no matter how different we are: six-year-olds with garage bobcats and teenagers living outside passport countries and little girls eating cold, slimy sandwiches in Chicago.

Most of the time, I tangle my mind up in knots trying to figure out how to teach this kind of thing. It's daunting, and I end up stopping ideas before they start. In the meantime, we'll keep reading. Keeping stepping out of our own skin and into someone else's. Keep hoping that somewhere along the line, the story hits us just right, shatters us to pieces so we can be put back together a little less crookedly next time.

Middle schoolers say the darndest things.

After being told that they could read the story individually or with a partner

Boy: "I don't wanna be single!!!"
Others: (Laughter in large quantities)
Boy: "I mean, you know, I want a partner! Reading single!"

And from a high school kid who is not in my class...

"Can I see what books you've got? I have already read everything in the library that I am potentially interested in."

After a huge bee zoomed in the window, around the room, and back out again

"Now it's going to go write an email to its friends. A bee-mail!"

A thing I never anticipated having to say to a class

"Um, please leave the owl's pants on!"

Finally, the coordinating conjunction songs they so proudly created last week. (Coordinating conjunctions = for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so = FANBOYS.) This resulted from a conversation that went like this:

Me: "Okay, everyone's going to get a word. You're for, you're and, you're nor, you're but..."
Boy: "She said I was the butt!"
Me: "But. One t. B-U-T. You don't have to be the but."
Boy: "No, I wanna be the but!"

He most certainly did. Evidence below.

In like a lamb

Whales have thick layers of blubber to keep them from freezing in the fathoms below. Polar bears have hollow hair that somehow insulates them during their forays into icy waters. North Dakotans, well, they are protected from blizzards by both thick skin and thick skulls. These are just a few of the many useful traits handed down by Scandinavian ancestors who decided that the best place to settle in the New World was a treeless prairie with at least six months' worth of free outdoor refrigeration. (Other notable traits include a propensity for leaving doors unlocked and a bland palate requiring every food on the table to come in matching shades of white.)

Once North Dakota winter really sets in, we fall back into our preprogrammed habits: waking up ten minutes earlier to get the car running, keeping an ice scraper in the passenger's seat, groaning at the weatherman when he predicts more snow. Owning a snowblower and/or an automatic car starter is becoming a given, almost as expected as having a computer or a microwave. Every year, we feel it creeping into our bones as the all-too-brief autumn frosts over and crumbles away. We complain about how we're sick of winter, sick of shoveling, sick of watching the forecast, and we question whether great-great grandpa really found this a better alternative to fjords and mountains.

One winter, our driveway was so jammed with snow that my car got hung up between the road and the curb. However, the curb was a 6-foot-wide snow drift, so it didn't really matter that my car was essentially sticking halfway into the street. A few years ago, there was a blizzard that rendered our family unable to be with the aunts and uncles on Christmas day. I can't name a high schooler who hasn't experienced a North Dakotan driving initiation: sliding off an icy road into a snowy ditch. And so I have become a winter hater, one of those grumbling, frozen masses. (It didn't help that the girls and I spent a few years in a rental house with no insulation. Every time friends came to visit, we handed them a fleece blanket and a hot drink to ensure their survival.)

Why don't North Dakotans just move elsewhere? Because we have good people. Because we have jobs. Because every North Dakotan is inherently connected both to the land and to one another by a long, invisible taproot that winds itself through the prairies and tangles our hearts and homes and histories up with one another in such a way that it's nearly impossible to undo. Or to want to undo. Because somehow, all of that outweighs the drudgery of a dark, windy winter.

That is why, if anyone outside makes a comment about our winters, the ice in our veins turns to fire! Living through negative temperatures flames up this odd sort of pride--like the kid who can't stop crowing about winning the national aware for the world's smelliest feet or something. No one wants the prize; no one cares that we're winning the unspoken competition for who can survive the longest in the most awful environmental conditions! But we care. I care. And while you're all shaking your heads and wondering what kind of crazy people choose to live in a tundra half the year, we are often wondering the same thing...but will never admit it to you. If you are from the South, we secretly envy that 60 degrees marks the start of your winter, but we will counter our envy by remembering our grandparents' stories about walking uphill both ways on ice to deliver babies in the middle of December in nothing but a flannel jacket! Somehow, that is inherently more enviable.

Before I moved here, I received several warnings about the cold winters, about how windy it gets in Camarma and how I'll want a thicker jacket. With two suitcases approaching the 50-pound limit, I had no desire to stuff in any sort of jacket thicker than my little peacoat make of sweatshirt-esque material. Because I'm North Dakotan, for crying out loud! On 32-degree days in April, North Dakotans pull out their shorts and walk their dogs. When the icicles are dripping beneath a pallid spring sun, we're celebrating by exchanging our coats for sweatshirts. I heard that Spain turns chilly in January, perhaps even hitting 30 degrees, and I secretly balked at all the warnings.

Autumn arrived last week and has been slowly unpacking its bag. And now I've come to a quandary! It still lingers in the 60s and 70s by day, then plunges to the 50s at night. It's chilly, particularly after our drawn-out summer. I have to swallow my pride like a bite of lumpy potatoes and remember that, even in North Dakota, I'd be shivering on a 50-degree hayride and moaning about the winter to come. I admit it, Spain friends: I'm chilly. I'm sitting up in my classroom with all the windows closed, and I'm chilly!

But I also think about how I will not have to wear a Columbia coat to go outside this winter, nor wake up early to scrape the half-inch of ice from my windshield, nor stress every time I meet a red light while driving uphill for fear that I'll start sliding backward. That will make this the best winter of my entire lifetime! It doesn't seem right to complain! Snowless, iceless, 30-degree winter, I'm not afraid of you! I embrace you! For the first time in my life, I have wished summer to an end; I've actually hoped for cardigan weather. Granted, I still don't like you, but if you're going to come in like a lamb, then I won't hate you.

(The Norwegian ancestors probably also passed on to me their own breed of crazy.)

All that said...I could really go for a cup of hot chocolate right now.

(This is a picture of last year's fall--to counteract all the awful winter images I have just conjured up. We do have grass in North Dakota! And trees! And sunny skies!)

Bonus quote of the day:

Each quarter, I give the kids a certain number of passes to leave my room (for locker runs, bathroom use, or drinks of water).  They earn extra credit if they don't use up any of the passes. Yesterday started the new quarter, and I wanted to remind them...

Me: "What do you get if you don't use your bathroom pass all quarter?"
Boy: "Bladder infection!"

Good, Better, Best...and Awkwardest.

Good thing: Handing the brand-new copy of Rick Riordan's latest book to the 8th grade boy who would have died without it. (Only 12 euros at bookdepository.com, remember?!) He held it against his face as though he was caressing a baby, then cried, "It smells so good!" and smashed his head in between the pages.

Another good thing: Watching the 8th graders rap about the coordinating conjunctions. "For for / what what / and and / what what / nor nor / what what?" By the second rap, one of them had pulled out the electric guitar, and the other was using a broom as a microphone. I'm pretty sure I almost peed my pants.

Another good thing: Having the entire second quarter mapped out by topic on a calendar. I feel so much better about the world.

A random awkward thing: Ordering foods with English titles from Spanish restaurants. For instance, Burger King's version of the McFlurry: BK Fusion. During my first BK visit back in June, I was nervous and a bit perplexed. Do I say the English words the way I'd say them in the States? Do I use a Spanish accent? Do I try to translate? I tried the accent at first, asking for a "Bay Kay foo-syohn," and the man gave me crazy eyes. I tried again, this time dropping the accent.

"Oh, yes, BK Fusion?" he repeated in perfect American-sounding English.

So I attempted to acknowledge my Americanism during the next BK visit, and I got the crazy eyes again. When I backpedaled--"Uh, Bay Kay Foo-syohn"--she knew exactly what I meant.

Which brings me to the next question: Why are "chicken fingers" in English on the menu? Why don't we order "dedos de pollo"? And why are "frutas del bosque" (forest fruits) listed as one topping for the ice cream balls (or "ees creem bayuls," if you will)--but the chocolate one is simply "crunchy chocolate"?

Finally: Thursday is going to be all-reading, all-day long in all of my classes. But I will not be there to enjoy it because I'll be in Barcelona. Darn. :)

Coming soon to a teacher near you!

The Day of Productivity, otherwise known as Saturday: the day I will hold myself captive in my own house (which is getting easier and easier to do these days, thanks to the jamming bolt lock) until I have finished making extensive plans for the entire second quarter.

This will be painful--but not as heart-crushing as, say, hoping to leave school at 5:00, only to realize that you have three hours' worth of grading in the mound on your desk. At 8:30, I walked out of my room and was nearly hit in the head by a swooping bat/bird thing, which then proceeded to swoop ahead to meet me on both the second and first floors, too. And that is how I knew it was time to go home.

Thank you, Don Cristóbal, for your contribution to my sanity

When I was six, our music teacher taught us the lyrics to "You're a Grand Old Flag." You know, you're a grand old flag / you're a high-flyin' flag / and forever in peace may you wave! I really was proud to be an American and live amidst the amber waves of grain. In the throes of youthful patriotism, I composed an addition to the song--a bridge, if you will. It fit snugly between the original lyrics:

Every heart beats true for the red, white, and blue / where there's never a boast or brag
So should auld acquaintance be forgot / keep your eye on the grand old flag!

May we help the grand old flag / the children ask the president
May we help the grand old flag / the children ask George Bush

Oh, you're a grand old flag / you're a high-flyin' flag...

I bet you can't guess which ones are the real words and which ones were mine, they're so intricately interwoven and, uh, tastefully chosen. I don't understand why my version never caught on...

In that spirit of patriotism, I'd like to say thank you to Señor Columbus for searching for the New World, opening Europe's eyes to awareness of another whole continent, beginning the mislabeling of an entire race of native people, and being the inspiration for hundreds of those catchy educational songs about the Nina and the Pinta and the Mighty Santa Maria. But mostly for the big parade downtown with the King and the Queen and all the things that will close down, including our school, so that I can sleep all morning long.

P.S. Quote of the day
(from 8th grade, of course)

Me: "Do you guys know what I mean when I say 'potluck'?"
Boy: "It's where leprechauns go!"

On hating surrender

If there's anything I know about myself, it's that any worthwhile thought I have is really only something I borrowed from someone else. I think it's why I love books so much: they are my teachers. You don't have to sit through class or pay for credits or turn in homework. You just read and absorb and slide inside someone else's skin and brain and then slide out with every fiber stretched beyond its original dimensions--never to regain its old shape. (This also allows me to justify the inordinate amount of time I've spent browsing amazon.es since it opened last month.)

Jon Acuff (of Stuff Christians Like fame) has recently become one of my favorite writer/teachers. And this is as much of a prelude as I'll give; I just need to get out of the way already and share his article with you.

Why I Hate Surrender

One of Satan’s most brilliant lies is that if you surrender something to God, you’ll receive something less beautiful in return.

If you empty your hands, God will place something less amazing in them.

You’ll surrender gold and, in return, receive dirt.

This is one of the lies of pornography: That when you let go of that secret it will be replaced with humdrum, boring, vanilla, sex with your spouse.

This is the lie of chasing your dream: That when you let go of your plans and trust God’s, he will call you into a mission that you will hate.

This is the lie of holding on to hurts. That when you let go of your wounds, they’ll be reopened, not healed and redeemed.

Adam and Eve believed this lie when they traded Eden for an apple. Letting go of the things we think are wonderful will force us to receive the mundane, the boring, the safe, from a God who always trades down with us, never up.
 
The rich young ruler who was afraid to give up his riches believed this when he walked away from Christ crestfallen. He had too much good to trade in for so much average from Christ.

But it’s a lie.

It’s a perfect lie.

What father would give us a snake when we asked for a fish?

What father would throw a party when punishment was due?

What father would leave the flock to find the single lost sheep?

When you start to grasp this, a second lie will come and it will tell you, “I shouldn’t come to God just because I’m expecting good things from him.”

He’s no cosmic ATM, I agree. But the danger of this lie is that it quickly morphs into a joyless experience with God. Did the woman at the well say, “No thank you. I don’t want this living water you speak of. I don’t want to come to you just because I’m expecting good things”? Did the cripple who danced away healed say, “Leave me lame. I don’t want to come to you just because I’m expecting good things”? Did anyone in the Bible refuse a gift from the gracious father because they wanted to make sure their motives were pure before they accepted it?

No. They came with open hands and expectant hearts. They knew that the gift of his presence, the gift of his grace, would ultimately overwhelm anything and everything they let go of.

Surrender is not a sexy word, in part because we think it means letting go of something amazing in exchange for something average. But we’re wrong. It’s a lie.

Surrender is not the end of a beautiful life. It is the beginning.

Twelve Euros Away (A week in review)

While completing a grammar exercise

British girl: "We spell this word differently. Is it okay if I spell it the way I normally do?"

Me: "Sure."

(A few minutes later)

Girl: "I spell colour with a u. Is it okay if I keep the u in?"

Me: "Sure."

(A few minutes later)

Girl: (with a bit of a grin) "This sentence says 'my backyard,' but we wouldn't call it a backyard; it's a 'back garden.' Can I write that?"

Me: "You know what's it talking about, so just copy it the way it is."

(And another few minutes later)

Girl: "This says 'we're going on vacation'; can I change it to 'holidays'?"

Me: "Well, it is an American textbook. I know you'd say it differently at home, but just so we're all writing the same thing, please keep it the same."

Boy: "Why do you need to write it differently, anyway?"

Girl: "I just hate American English!"

-----

There is a small shelf of books in my classroom. While the school library is pretty great, I'm always recommending books to the kids, then finding out that our library doesn't have them. If I keep books in my room and introduce the titles during class, they're more apt to check them out and read them. All of that led to all of this:

Boy: "Ms. C, can we donate books to your library?"

Me: "Yes! That'd be awesome!"

The next day, the boy brings his copy of The Last Hero and proudly finds it a place on the shelf.

Boy: "Ms. C? The next book just came out. My mom was looking online, and at bookdepository.com, you can get it for only 12 euros!"

Me: "Okay, thanks. I'll check it out after class."

(Several minutes later, in the middle of a class activity)

Boy: (raises hand)

Me: "Do you have a question?"

Boy: "No, um, I just wanted to make sure that you knew that if you order that book soon, it's only 12 euros at bookdepository.com."

Me: "Right. I will check that out."


(As he walks out the door after class)

Boy: "Ms. C! That book--don't forget--12 euros at bookdepository.com."


BAHAHAHA! He has no idea that while he was doing his homework, I ordered the book from amazon.es (for only 11,32).

-----

My yearbook graphics man (the one who believes in Russian Santa) almost didn't sign up for yearbook this year; he was talked into it because he needed extra credits. However, he now takes his role very seriously. When I divided our massive yearbook club into two groups and said they could alternate weeks, he told me, quite resolutely, "I am the designer. I need to be here." Who can argue with that?!

So here was the conversation at the beginning of this week's club:

Boy: "Who are the other designers?"

Me: "Anna and Luisa.*"

Boy: "Okay. Today I am going to teach them what to do!"

(Ten seconds later, one of the girls enters the room)

Boy: "Luisa, sit down! Today I am going to teach you how to do everything!"

*Names have been substituted to ensure student privacy. All rights reserved.

-----

Finally, remember when our water went crazy and leaked under the house and the water company sent us a 438,00€ bill? And remember when I said I'd be interested in seeing how people fix water leaks underneath cement houses?

My curiosity was satisfied that day. Here's how they fix it.

The outside wall in the front, beneath my bedroom window:

Bathroom: 

Back hallway:

Kitchen:

Back patio:

There's no tile missing here, but I thought you'd like to see the column that came with the house.

Either Spaniards really like to smash things apart (see also: The Great Toilet Smashing of Summer 2011), or I haven't been hanging around with enough construction workers.

Anyway, the water is fixed, and I must be going. I'm off to a delightful rotic date with Sarah (yes, rotic; that's "romantic" without the "man"), followed by picking up my packages of 12-euro books and lesson planning for more of that dreadful American English.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

...who fluctuates the most of all? The English teacher.

From now on, I should probably not answer people when they ask, "How are you doing?" There will be a new answer every day, possibly every hour. Last week, I felt as though I were actually getting into some sort of rhythm. But then the weekend came, a storm cloud, and accusatory thoughts pelted me like angry rain: you're not organized enough; you don't have the right skills; the kids are going to suffer because you're not doing it right. Oh, look, my old friend perfectionism invited itself to dinner!

On Monday night, I left the building for an after-school siesta. By the time I woke up, the sky was getting dark. I trudged up to my classroom, a rag doll only loosely sewn together, stuffing spilling out, seams frayed and ripping. I worked in the classroom until 11:30, when tears finally pressed their way out. I cried at my desk for a few minutes, walked back home to cry in my shower and then in my bed. It took ages to fall asleep, my mind dragging itself over each piece: curriculum, building relationships, making rubrics, copying worksheets. It's clumsy work, trying to fit a zillion puzzle pieces together with oversized fingers and undersized confidence.

And yet.

On Tuesday morning, I woke up and wasn't tired. One of my seventh graders wrote in his journal that he's never enjoyed reading so much in his life. A ninth grade girl told someone that English was one of her favorite classes. We had a great discussion about Harrison Bergeron, and today, the kids actually applauded the three videos I showed in class (I like to think it means they were touched--though they applauded even louder for my little "there's no homework tonight" speech. That's how you can really strike an emotional chord with a high schooler.). My ninth graders--my rowdy, squealing, intimidating ninth graders--have surprised me lately with their depth of insight, and now that we've started discussing character and motivation and what really matters about a person, I'm excited to see what they're going to toss my way. Oh, and we had a middle school spa night for the girls, which started out quiet and ended with a bunch of nail-polished, face-masked, pedicured, hand-scrubbed happiness. I'd say that's progress.

It's just hard, you know? If I could catch the snatches of success and keep them in a jar, there'd be a handful or two. The kids are so, so wonderful. It's me who can't quite get it together. Some days, I feel like I'm dropping pieces of myself left and right, and then chunks of my brain go flying out my mouth. (Middle schoolers really love that, by the way, so it's not a total loss.) I have kids who are going to miss a few days' worth of class. I'm stoked when they are proactive enough to ask for the homework days ahead of time, yet I also want to say, "Friday? Are you kidding me? I can't tell you what we're doing on Friday because I don't even know what we're doing on Friday. Why are you so studious, kid?!"

All this to say that sometimes I leave encouraged, and sometimes I leave frustrated. Another teacher mentioned today that it takes about three years to get into the swing of teaching, to feel mostly comfortable and confident. She's an amazing teacher, so it's nice to know that everyone bursts into tears at some point or another. We cry because we care. Right? Maybe I'll get that printed on a nameplate for my desk! Teachers: We cry because we care.

My first Spanish mascota experience

Sarah bought a betta fish for her classroom tonight. I have never seen a cashier put a glass fish bowl--full of water and one fish--inside a plastic shopping bag before.

I have also never seen someone trying to purchase baby turtles--and receive a mild reprimand for wanting to take them home in a plastic fish tank.

I have also never before gone into a mall bathroom and watched a friend transfer the turtles into said fish tank, nor have I stood in such a bathroom and held the water bottle so my friend could pour her fish into it. And I don't think I've ever seen a mall cleaning lady smile at me so curiously before.

I'm also pretty sure I've never watched anyone leave a fish and turtles in a storage locker so they'd have free hands for grocery shopping. Seriously. Why wasn't all this great stuff mentioned in a brochure or something?!

Low Spot

They say that adjusting cross-culturally looks like this:

The whole living here thing has been fine. But my adjustment to teaching 4.5 preps is starting to hit the low part of that curve. I feel like I am going to break apart.