I had my first day of teaching today and -- I actually loved it!  During the week I'll spend:

1 hour with the 2nd grade (7 year olds)

3 hours with the 3rd grade (8's)

3 hours 15 mins with the 4th grade (9's)

3 hours with the 5th grade (10's)

4 hours 45 mins with the 6th grade (11's)

Writing from Cafe de la Luz, because Carlos's apartment doesn't have internet.

My favorite kids are the third and fourth graders; they're engaged, sweet, and insecure.  (Is it weird to like them for their insecurities?)

The 6th grade is obnoxious, but I respect their teacher so much.  She's a spunky, articulate, short-haired, 20-something year-old who applied to be a teacher at a dual-language school in the U.S. next year.  Right now she's teaching her students about the respiratory system, and she's planning to bring an actual pair of lungs to class on Friday.  Next week, when they do the digestive system, she's going to artificially digest a piece of food in front of the class with chemicals.  She said the food, when she's done with it, will look just like human shit.  I want to befriend her.

To get to school in the mornings I have to take a bus through the Spanish countryside, which looks uncannily like a Munro Leaf illustration: arid hills, yellow grass, grazing bulls.  It's almost too cliché to be picturesque (Lia: "it's funny how something real can become a cliche, and then when you experience it for yourself it's more of a cliche than reality").  There's even a bull-crossing sign on the roadside.

Ferdinand, for reference:

Young Ferdinand, smelling the flowers.

Jaded Ferdinand, staring off.

I'll try to take a video of the bus ride next time.

Made it to Madrid!  In one piece.  But I want to use this post to finish my NY photodump.

Lia and I went to visit Neo at Wesleyan the weekend before I left NY.  I forgot how strange and isolated college communities feel -- like little humanoid ecospheres. 

Neo was working on a film shoot from 4pm to 6am on Saturday, so Lia and I spent the first half of the night intoxicatedly watching Elvis videos alone in his room. 

Around 10:00pm Neo texted us: "Did you guys buy an Elvis movie on my amazon account?"

Us: "We couldn't remember our passwords and you were logged in.  We'll pay you back in cash -- is that OK?"

Neo: "It's fine.  I was just surprised when I got an email for it."

Us: "We wanted you to know."

Neo: "Apparently not because it came from amazon.com."

We were caught red-handed!  Reminded me of the time I accidentally left a cup from Joe with my name on it in Veronica's dorm room.  V: "R, were you hanging out in my room again?" Me: "No."   V: "There's a cup in here that says, 'Chai, Renata.'"

After the Elvis movies, we spent the rest of the night with Neo's friend Yongsun and his identical twin Yongjin.

Sun and Yongjin in front of the grilled cheese truck.
(Note to V: Did you know that the term "melted cheese" is a mom-ism??)

We were watching Louis CK skits in Sun's room when we heard a prolonged shattering noise. It sounded like plates were being thrown at a wall for 10 seconds continually.  Lia rushed to the door and saw this scrawny hipster boy get up off the floor bleeding.  Turns out he fell through the skylight that opens into the hallway right outside Sun's room.

The boy kept saying he was OK, but of course someone called public safety.  Lia and I overheard the PSafe woman interrogating the boy, perplexed --"You were jumping? On the skylight??"

The broken skylight.

Lia assisting Sun under the "no parking" caution tape.

The funniest part was that all the people who lived in Neo's frat, Eclectic house, were completely unforgiving of the guy ("what an asshole" etc.) even though they had ALL jumped on the skylight before, including Neo.  Also: it turned out that the kid who fell through the roof didn't go to Wesleyan, so, as Lia pointed out, it seems doubtful he had the idea to jump on the skylight all by himself.  Someone from Eclectic House definitely told him it was a good thing to do.

Public Safety took forever to come.  When they finally arrived, the PSafe guy brilliantly attached some caution tape to Neo's doorhandle.  Then he shouted "clear the hallway!" -- which we thought meant "get out of the hallway," but apparently meant "remove the glass from the hallway" because when no one started picking up glass, he began kicking it aside with his giant combat boots.  Sun's door was wide open and we were standing right at the edge of it,  in the trajectory of the flying glass, but the guy didn't care.  When the he had successfully cleared  a hairline path down the hall with slightly less broken glass in it than everywhere else, he finally led the injured student out to the ambulance.

Towards the end of our visit Lia and I found some construction paper and zip ties in the basement of Eclectic House and made these makeshift Tibetan flags for Neo.

Left: Neo drinking Korean tea.  Right: Neo's favorite flag.

Neo admiring the flags.

My second to last night in NY I went out for drinks with Lia, Zaid, and Taku.  I wrote down some funny bits of conversation in my iPhone.  It's strange how the iPhone is causing me to keep tabs on my experiences in a way I never had before.

We were talking about the stigmas surrounding obesity and the politics of fat-shaming.  Somehow it came up that Taku once had a crush on his overweight barber.

Taku: I think I would do her, if she was willing to do me too.

Zaid: Oh that's nice Taku.  That's nice.  You wouldn't rape her.

At one point I ripped off the bottom edges of the styrofoam cups our beers came in and made a face, which happened to have slanted eyes and be facing Taku.  Taku gave me shit for being racist, then rearranged the pieces to make it non-asian, and came up with this:

Me: Well now it's Indian.

Taku: See!  That was racist!  I was waiting for someone to say it.

Zaid: You were waiting for someone to say it?? That's racist too.

Taku: I set a trap.  I set a trap, and she fell into it.

Zaid:  Why are you setting traps Taku?? You shouldn't be setting traps.

Update!  Just got this in from Lia:

My mom once asked Lia why she wouldn't get a tattoo, and Lia just went "too much self-loathing." That's pretty much exactly how I feel about publishing my writing.  Sooo -- I am going to reactive this blog, but primarily for photo-sharing. 

I've been saying my farewells this week -- and also, unbeknownst to my friends, documenting them.

I took an impromptu trip to Philly at 2 am on Sunday night.  Danielle still had her parents' SUV with her because she had just returned from a several month road trip, and while her partner Cole was driving us around the rear view mirror popped off the roof of the car.  

We looked in the back seat for something to stick it up with, but all we could find were some USB cables.  Danielle managed to make a kind of hammock for the mirror between the two sun visors so that Cole could adjust his view by moving the visors.

It was quite funny and backwards, using these advanced USB cables for ersatz rope.  Also probably illegal.

Danielle and Cole, nesting/house-shopping like a heteronormative couple.

We were feeling lethargic, so Danielle suggested we make a shrine to Eva's cat.

We also raided some of the Haverford basements before I left.  As Danielle put it, a liberal arts college is the perfect environment for producing useful waste: it's like a mecca for dumpster divers.  You've got all these privileged teenagers, who haven't had much experience with money and are constantly in transition between home and school, gathered together in one institution.

Carlos is gonna kill me.  This is Carlos sleeping next to Veronica's stuffed monkey, Hoo Hoo.

More to come.