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May 16th, 2008
06:43 pm - COS Conference recap
Sunday was a party at a friend's house (the high schooler got confirmed into the church), followed by my first night of the Close of Service Conference. That ran till Wednesday night when I came home and slept, and slept.
It was the last time that everyone who is left from my training class is all going to be together. A definite cause for reflection. Even though many of the group dynamics were the same, or at least similar to Pre Service Training, I felt that I was different, more chill, more mature. It was definitely a nice feeling. Plus it made me realize how insane PST was: here we were for only 4 days together, in hotels with gloriously hot and pressure-ful showers, knowing the language and the culture, and yet by the end I was ready to leave. It was really nice to see people, really nice to catch up. I've made some really good friends there and can't wait to see how the friendships will develop once we are Stateside.
My two proudest/happiest moments from the conference are as follows:
1) When one of the training staff, during informal time when some of us were hanging out, getting a little bit of work done, well she commented on how much I've grown, and how she could see that. A pat on the back is always appreciated, plus it was a nice confirmation of what I already knew.
2) When I gave an impromptu 5 minute English class to preschoolers. I was walking back from the market, after hunting for my lunch, and I saw a preschool with a teacher and a couple students, sitting on the stoop. I said hello, and they invited me in. The kids were all sitting down for story time, so I introduced myself, and together, we counted to five a few times in English and Portuguese. It don't know why it left me with such a good feeling, but I can guess: 1) I like preschoolers; 2)it showed me how far I'd come with my language skills, being able to talk with them in their language and the such, and 3) along similar lines as 2, just having the confidence, and not being nervous in front of a large group, improvising something, to me these are tools/skills that I really gained/developed here.
Oh and I also discovered schwarmas (like the CV version of a California burrito) and mint ponche (which tastes like slightly alcoholic melted mint ice cream...it's quite good), both of which I'll have to have more of before I leave.
Okay, now it's time to stop procrastinating and grade the 200 tests I gave last week.
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06:44 pm - Giving tests to adults ain't easy
So I have two night adult school classes: these are students completing their GED. I gave what I thought was an easy test to one of the classes. I hand out the tests, reminding students not to talk, and they go to the races. After like 5 minutes, I happen to look up and see a girl looking down at the chair next to her. After further investigation, I go over and see on the chair next to her, she's put her notebook, opened to just the page she needs. Mind you, the entire test is basically a vocab test. So I take her test and tell her to leave.
This is when all hell brakes loose. She starts yelling at me (the same phrase, over and over again in Krioulu) and when I try to explain, she simply changes the phrase and keeps yelling that over and over again. It's late, I'm tired, not just that night, but in general, of people trying and successfully taking advantage of me and not respecting me because I'm not from here. So I do the stupid thing and start yelling back. She tells me that she'll leave when she finishes her test, I tell her that she's leaving now. I should have stayed calm. I shouldn't have raised my voice. I should have just kept her test and told her to leave. But I didn't do any of those things.
I left the class to get another teacher. During day school, the other teachers always have my back and have helped me to control the students a lot. They seem to understand my situation and always, always, always have my back. Stupidly I assumed it'd be the same at night.
The student's basic argument was, that since she'd only written her name on the paper, she wasn't cheating. In my head, having an open notebook sitting next to you and looking at it is cheating.
The other teacher came in, heard her side of the story, and then told me to give her her test back, without hearing mine. I was SUPER angry at that teacher. Even though I'd asked him in for his opinion, I was like "Is this your class? I saw her cheating, she needs to leave." and then he was like "Well, she says she wasn't cheating, and she DID only write her name." Since I now have no authority, I give her her test back. The other teacher leaves, I huff around for a bit (I throw her notebook at her, just in case she needs to use it (I know, another thing that even now, I'm super duper embarrassed about). I then go to the front teacher's desk and cry quietly. While that was probably the least professional thing to do, I thought that they needed to see how their behavior affects me. I'm a person too, and if you are going to blatantly disrespect me, live with the tears.
The class quieted down for a bit. After I was through crying, I got up and walked around, to try to help them. I wrote an apology in their language, and mine, on the board, saying that if I wished to be treated as a professional, I need to act like one, and acting like one does not include yelling at a student. They said it was okay. I also caught the teacher as he was leaving. I apologized for my behavior, and he said I didn't need to, but I could tell it helped a lot. Outside of class I also apologized to the girl, who still insisted she was innocent.
The next day I saw another student from the class. She'd been sitting behind the cheater and saw what happened. She said that I was right, and had I been a Cape Verdean, I wouldn't have got treated in the way that I did. It was nice to be backed up by someone who was there.
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06:45 pm - Two week recap (this plus the previous two posts)
I got back from my Close of Service a couple days ago...it was really good to be home.
The way the past two weeks were, starting Monday the 5th (Cinco de Mayo!) I participated in a 2 day training design workshop with Peace Corps. The first day was super nice: coffee fueled but after the first couple hours, we actually got to do work, on a computer. It was so nice to be working on a project, on a computer, doing something that I felt a wee bit qualified to do (I know how to work well with groups and accomplish clearly defined objectives such as the ones we were given). People also commented on my work ethic, which was nice (gosh I sound like a tool, and work ethic might be overstating it: they were like Wow, when just given a bit of direction, you really soar; but it was still nice to be complimented). The second day wasn't as productive but it was still fun. The downside of it all was that it made me waaayyy less excited to teach. It showed me what I'm lacking in terms of personal fulfillment in the job.
So Monday and Tuesday were at that workshop: I taught Wednesday through Friday(and gave tests on Wednesday and Thursday). Saturday I also went to Praia and had lunch at one of the PC staff's houses: it was super nice of her to invite us over. Plus the food was really good.
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08:18 pm - Quote of the moment
"Of all the unavoidables in life, growth is probably the worst. Far more embarassing than death, growth is more than just change; growth is the act of changing, aging. It's the in-between. A sort of biological limbo that your parents never fail to capture on film. It's a state of not belonging, of transitioning from one thing to another-yet being neither-and it causes aches in your femurs and cracks in your smile. It makes you sweat, it makes you cut ties, and most times it makes your hurt. Of course, the one good thing about growth-the scheme's grand catch that drives everyone and everything to keep on sprouting limbs and spinning cocoons-is that after it is all over and done with, you've grown." - Lesley Bargar, "Stepping out with Riley Kiley: Capital Gains, Growing Pains& Grench Champagne in Aging L.A." Filter Magazine #26, p. 49
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