A mis estudiantes preciosas

Yesterday was the last day of my morning ESL class after a little over 9 months of teaching. One of my students is taking her citizenship test 2 days after I leave Philly for a bit, so I'm gonna work with her up until I leave, but otherwise, I'm pretty much done with my major duties at the Welcome Center. I will miss teaching with such frequency. And I'm so thankful for my students and how amazing they are.

To Areika: thank you for being patient with me as a new teacher, for teaching me about Honduras and how to dance like una hondureña, for your amazing pronunciation, and for that awesome meal at your parent's house.

To Amarily: thank you for your humor, opening up your home to me, being my friend, trusting me to translate medical stuff right, the constant food, and inviting me into your family's life and celebrations.

To Angela: thank you for the patience you have grown in me through your struggles in English, for your cheerfulness and bliss despite being elderly and nearly alone in this country, and for the immense joy and motivation you had when you finally understood something.

To Ana: thank you for showing up every day for citizenship and working your ass off, for trying to get prepped the best you could for your test, for the electric aquarium which intrigues all, and for accepting defeat graciously.

To Maria: thank you for your energy, your laughter, your patience and humor with Angela, my Valentine's day doll Eduvigis, and offering to take me to the gym with you.

To Edelma: thank you for your joy, showing up after working all night, for not being afraid to ask for help when you were confused, for utilizing any and all English you knew, and for the offer of a place to live this fall.

To Lucila: thank you for your diligence, kind heart, willing attitude, independent learning skills, patience in everything, and the papaya and pineapple during breaks.

To Minerva: thank you for your energy, your warm and bubbly personality, your encouragement, for the offer of a haircut, and for showing up a few times.

To Nury: thank you for your sweet demeanor, your excitement for citizenship, your offer of a vacation and hang out time in the Dominican Republic, and for that wheel of cheese. It was awesome!

To Aida: thank you for being an early bird, for letting me know when something was boring, for telling me about your family, and for being so teachable.

To Albeda: thank you for always participating, being so advanced and thus my "pet" ha ha, for your thoughtfulness and wanting to know me as more than "teacher Katie," and for the shirt I'm wearing right now.

Thank you all for making my "work" this year something so much more fun and fulfilling than I could have even imagined. Many times over this difficult year, a morning with you all was one of the only things that made me wake up some mornings. Especially on the days where you told me I could pull off latina fashion if I wanted. We'll see.

I feel so fortunate to have gotten to know you all and teach you all some English. Good lord, even though today was our last day of class, I was still trudging through the alphabet with one of you. Thank you for affirming comments like, "teacher EXCELLENT", "buen clase", "enseñanos todos días!", etc. Thanks for helping me practice my Spanish; in fact, I think I got pretty spoiled since I could translate words easily from English if you all didn't know them. I might have encouraged Spanish speaking more that way, but I was desperate. So desperate that I now have a hard time transitioning from Spanish to English when I speak w/ an English speaker. It would have been hard if one or some of you spoke Albanian or Polish or something.


(L-R: me, Angela, Hanh (another student), Areika)


Areika and me, kickin it with bachata music


Thursdays with Rosetta Stone. The man and the woman are dancing. A cat. A dog. An airplane.


My hard workers (L-R: Amarily, Nury, Aida, Lucila)


Last day, my faithful few (L-R: Amarily, Lucila, me, Nury, Albeda)

You are all great! Lesquiero mucho! Nos vemos!

Thank you, trolley ride

I am really liking Southwest Philly parce que il y a beaucoup des hommes d'Afrique qui parlent le francais. Et je l'aime beaucoup. Tres beau sont des hommes, en particulier avec cette langue. Ah, mon coeur.

A day with AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" interrupting church

can only be awesome.

This was my Sunday: I have a pan-handler friend, Tina, who has become very dear to me. She is pretty unreliable as far as making plans goes, so when I see her, it is always by surprise. I show up to church, the earlier service, and there, three rows from the front, is not only Tina, but her roommate, Rose! Totally surprised. So I make my way up there, take a seat.

Tina wants to talk. In her normal voice. While we're praying or something quiet. Rose is insistent on rummaging through her PLASTIC grocery bag during the sermon in this small sanctuary, which was distracting to pretty much everybody. Oh God, help her find what she needs QUICK...We stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down... and Tina starts to nod off and fall over. She has low blood sugar, poor soul, and her legs are hurting due to MS. So every 10 seconds or so, I try to inconspicuously nudge her to keep her upright.

After one of these noddings-off, she wakes up to my phone ringing in the middle of church. Of course, one of the few times I forget to silence it. SO, I'm digging, trying to find and silence it. She doesn't understand what I'm doing, so she grabs one of my hands (which, I was using to locate the phone) and tries to shove a ring that looks like this on my finger, while my phone is still buzzing, ringing, annoying... yes. It's all beat up but really sweet of her to give to me. She starts to tell me the entire history in a pretty loud whisper. Then starts to nod off again.

She wakes up, some time later, and starts rummaging through her purse. She whips out this huge, butterfly hair clip. Like the size of my hand, and it's pretty ridiculous looking. I'm prepared to receive it and just whisper, "thanks," but she wants to see this thing on me. She tugs on my hair, twists my head 90 degrees (still in church) and starts to wrestle getting this thing in my hair, which she does in record time, thank God. Back to the service to which I'm paying no attention (nothing new there).

A few more minutes follow of more of the same: falling asleep, nudging, pastor YELLING. I look over at Rose to see how she's doing and... she's totally conked out. Practically laying on her side on the pew, but at least not snoring.

Tina awakes again after yet ANOTHER nodding off and gives me yet ANOTHER gift: Half-empty. Smells kinda sick. Shove it in my bag along with my other two gifts in the last hour or so. Tina falls back asleep.

I'm at the end of my rope when all of a sudden, Rose doesn't just stir, but totally snaps awake and makes the largest amount of noise that anybody has ever made with this plastic bag of hers. I caught myself before I laughed out loud. But believe you me, it took all I had to not. I tilt my head down, my whole body convulsing minorly in laughter. Service still going on.

I think about how ridiculous and HILARIOUS everything is, how the pastor is making semi-snide remarks at the falling asleep of my friends ("I know we're all tired, but let's try to stay awake and respect the Word of the Lord."), how this woman with so little is constantly giving me things and saying positive things ("I feel so great here. I'm so glad I came." etc)... and I am so grateful for the diversity of the Body of Christ. I'm so grateful that we are all gritty ragamuffins and that God loves us regardless. I'm so grateful for surprises, for friends, for love.

I'm getting better at this.

The scariness of making decisions has dwindled considerably. Today I found out I got into Temple, so I wonder if that is what's helping in part. Even though I'm not super stoked to go, I at least have one more thing that would hold me here. I'm feeling very non-committal and have been for a while here now. But that too is lessening.









"god sometimes I hate life, and other times it makes perfect sense. so unfair."
-Shane Curry

I'm realizing that

life is too good, too complex, too busy, too much of everything to contain on the internet. Which is what makes committing to writing on here hard for me.

Peace.

another day... must... post... something!

In the Inquirer this morning there was an article about blackberries. It said their Latin name was "(something) alleghenis" or something close. The second word is essentially the street I live on, so I thought, "Sweet- my street means 'blackberry'!"

Turns out, it actually means, "strong river."

And this is why I don't blog because the posts consist of inconsequential things about which I'm usually wrong. How about that?

Scary things I've done today

I have sent an email to somebody with potential financial aid connections at Temple.
I have written a little essay for financial appeal.
I have translated for a Spanish-speaking friend as she has tried to set up a doctor's appointment, get referrals, and work through red tape therein.
I have tried to finish THE DAMN FAFSA.
I have been in communication with a potential new housemate, e.g. HOLY CRAP LIVING INDEPENDENT.
I have tried to figure out budgets (again, HOLY CRAP LIVING INDEPENDENT)

And I'm about to call somebody about a job offer.
resting heart rate: 945,885 bpm

no es justo

My good friend Amarily and I were watching some kind of Univision program kind of like Regis and Kelly (it was called "El Gordo y la Flaca" for those of you who are interested). They were talking about how the celebrity Thalia sold something or got money from something sold for a lot of money @ Christie's recently.

Amarily turns to me and says something to the effect of, "Hmph. She sells something so she can get richer, when you have to stress out about paying for school and I have to buy a school uniform for my son."

Yep.