Author Archives: tim

sunglass hot

The above is one of the classics. There is a Mc.Donald’s (the dot is important) near the grocery store at the bottom of our hill; there is a Victoria’s Secret for you (the “for you” is in the fine print on the sign) in the Mariscal; and these Sunglass Hots are all over the place in the more expensive malls. Good stuff. We still haven’t been able to find the t-shirt that says “trash up your ass,” though.

Eileen woke up with a sore throat, so I’m not sure where we stand with our plans to go to Mindo or Papallacta this weekend for an anniversary get away. My Basic class officially ends tomorrow and we start “Intermediate 1A” on Monday. Preeti is leaving this Saturday and I just found out that I’ll be gaining about 12 of her students. It will make the next three weeks interesting, depending on which class they join. My students yesterday were already begging me to not allow a certain student named Ligia to enter the class. Students like Silvia and Gladys say they left Preeti’s class because of Ligia, who is apparently obnoxious in her attempts to monopolize the teacher in class.

I’m a little worried, mainly because Preeti had claimed earlier that none of her students wanted to go to class in July anyhow. So, I pretty much switched the June and July material for class, since June was review and July was a new grammar point (present perfect). I figured I’d want to end with review instead of something new. Anyhow, now I’m gonna get 12 students who know little or nothing about present perfect; and one of them is rumored to ask a lot of questions, especially about things she needs clarified. I may have to lay down the law, which is seldom fun.

The only consolation is that apparently nobody likes this infamous Ligia. I guess the rift is such in Preeti’s class that Ligia is not attending the going-away party for Preeti. So if she truly ends up being annoying as hell, my efforts to shut her up will probably only gain me respect from the rest of the students.

The other current SECAP headache is that we have been entrusted with the task of revising the curriculum. We were supposed to meet last Sunday, but one of the teachers completely forgot, and another claimed we needed to enjoy the sun. We have yet to meet, and as of Saturday, Preeti is leaving the country, so we lose one fourth of our ranks. In the meantime, I’ve been busy planning the Grand Finally Review and the Big-Ass Test that will be taking place within the next few weeks.

Why is it necessary to post such mundane details as the SECAP Lamentations above? I’ll tell you why. Because we only have 8 readers anyway, and judging from the amount of email and comments we’ve been getting in the record-setting past couple of weeks, 75% of those readers have either given up entirely or are on vacation. So I’m hoping the above will scare off the remaining two readers and I can finally use this site as a fan site for Piccachu.

Other news: Eileen might post a blog within the next few days!

Silvia

Silvia joined my class back in February as part of the Preeti Wedding Migration. For those who don’t know, one of the other SECAP teachers, named Preeti, went to New York and Nepal and maybe some other countries — I don’t remember — for her wedding. Yes. Her wedding. She got married, had a honeymoon and returned to Ecuador. But she missed a month of teaching, and so during her month gone, her students joined up with me and Westra.

So Silvia joined my class then, along with about nine others from Preeti’s classes. After Preeti returned, the Great Shift happened. The Great Shift was when Westra and I united classes despite our original plan of just keeping Preeti’s students. See previous posts.

Anyhow. Most of Preeti’s students went back to Preeti days after the Great Shift. Silvia was one of them. But a month later she returned to class. I didn’t inquire why. Preeti said she was close to failing, which I can understand given her habit of arriving really late on a regular basis, but she does fine in class, has the ganas, etc.

She’s actually a lot of fun. She and I tease each other almost once a day. She loves getting me to blush and then saying (in Spanish), why are you blushing? She’s also really open about being attracted to me, which is unlike women in the states. It’s not that she flirts and is trying to win me over; in fact, it’s more of a “too bad you’re already taken” sort of thing. For example, when she heard my brother was coming to visit, she kept nagging me to bring him to class. I think she even said once, “is your brother as good-looking as you?”

Unfortunately, she couldn’t make it to the park on the one day when I was able to drag Will along to a class-related outing.

I’m posting Silvia today, because it’s her birthday. According to her, she was born in 2000.

Me and Silvia

The House is threatening to slash funding for NPR and PBS. Go to the link below and sign. It takes about 30 seconds.

Below is an excerpt moveon.org:

Sign the petition telling Congress to save NPR and PBS:

http://www.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/

The House of Representatives is about to vote on whether to slash funding for NPR and PBS, starting with “Sesame Street,” “Reading Rainbow” and other commercial-free children’s shows. If approved, this would be the most severe cut in the history of public broadcasting, threatening to pull the plug on Big Bird, Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch.

The cuts would eliminate more than $200 million for NPR, PBS and local stations immediately, with more cuts likely in the future. The loss could kill beloved children’s shows like “Clifford the Big Red Dog,” “Arthur,” and “Postcards from Buster.” Rural stations and those serving low-income communities might not survive. Other stations would have to increase corporate sponsorships.

The House will vote on the cuts as soon as Tuesday. Can you help us reach 1 million signatures calling on Congress to save NPR and PBS?

Ivan

Ivan has been in my class since last October. He was one of the original “civilians,” the four non-police in my morning class. He’s an architect; recently, he has missed a lot of class because of his job. In fact, he missed over half of the last cycle. He’s pretty advanced in his English. His sister, Ana Maria, is also in the class; the two of them usually arrive late together.

Ivan makes the occasional great joke and laughs at himself. He is really gung-ho. Today, I was explaining the big-ass test that will be coming up on the 13th of July; Ivan said, “excellent. I love it!”

He is a very sincere guy. At the end of class, at the end of our post-class conversations, he has a habit of saying to me, “okay, man” and offering his hand, and then saying “see you,” or “nos vemos, no?” In fact, now that I think about it, he also has a habit of saying “chao, no?” Which I’ve kinda picked up.

olga’s apartment

This past Saturday, one of my students, Olga, invited us to her apartment. It’s way the heck in the south of Quito. Took us about an hour to get there. In the picture above, Olga is the one on the left. Her sister Marta was also there. Olga enjoys cooking; she made us a shrimp ceviche (ceviche is the cold soup that is really popular in Ecuador, especially on the coast — it often has seafood), some fried fish, fried shrimp, rice, orange juice, and aji. We started with the ceviche, and when Olga brought out the main course, Eileen’s first thought was that it was for all of us. But then she brought out two more plates.

After lunch, we walked in the backyard a bit. It had grass! And it bordered on a ravine with a river running through it. We then walked to a nearby park. It’s as far south in Quito as we’ve been and it was almost like a different city. Much more residential, not a lot of tall buildings, hardly any gringos at all.

Olga is in my night class and she’s the only one who arrives on time every day. She’s very dedicated even though sh’e told me that there’s no pressing reason for her to learn English. Her sister is a high school English teacher, so she can practice with her every once in a while. I haven’t had Olga in class all year. She began with Westra, but then when we made the Great Switch back in February, I gained Olga as one of my students.

On Saturday, she was telling us about how when she was in college, she had to take a year of English. Well, one day she got there and they were taking a test. She arrived late and had missed the directions. She worked on it for a while and finished, but then found an “answer sheet” which she hadn’t been aware of. She happened to be sitting next to a friend who knew English very well, so she copied her friend’s answer sheet . She ended up with 48/50.

It’s funny, cuz Olga would be one of the last ones to cheat in my class.

During our lunch at her place, we were talking about Colombians. They have bad reputation in Ecuador, and I have a tendency to blow off people’s complaints as prejudiced talk. But Marta actually said, “you can’t generalize everybody, but.” That one concession made me listen to them a little more. They were explaining that if you were invited to someone’s house in Colombia, they would have a motive. It wouldn’t just be to be nice and generous. It would be cuz they want something from you.

I thought, “hmm. That’s pretty much how things work in the states for the most part. It’s important to ‘return the favor.’ People are seldom nice just because.” They went on to explain that if you need something taken to the states by a visiting Ecuadorian who lives there, he’ll take it even if he has to pay the extra cost. If you need something taken to Spain by a visiting Spainiard, however, they’ll charge you the extra fee.

I don’t know. But maybe Ecuadorians are just aware that they’re nicer than most people in the world.