Monday, October 29, 2007

Fancy Meeting You Here

As I posted earlier, Friday I was 'told' I'd be teaching an English class starting today. The more I thought about it the more my nerves took over and by Sunday night I could barely hold my food down. I know this isn't a huge deal, but the thought of walking into a classroom full of teenagers that speak a language I only half understand makes me a tad, ahem, witchy.

The teacher's guidebook was no help. One example of possessive pronouns stated: this is my parrot and that cage is its. And we wonder why kids don't learn to speak proper English in school.

By the time we went out I'd flat out told him I wouldn't do it. Something about me taking a stand against him making committments for me without discussing it first. As soon as I said 'No' the nausea was gone and I felt more like myself, but that didn't mean we'd resolved our problem.

Anyways, last night we tried a new bar to watch Game 4 and while we were chatting with the owner, in walked his Candian wife. Blond hair, blue eyes, my color skin. I leaned over to Ibis, "She could teach the class." I meant it as a joke, but we started talking with her and before long Ibis popped the question.

Turns out she's lived here five years and has taught English all over town. She seemed almost happy to help, just like that. Go figure. We chatted during the game, even watched the last couple innings on her cell phone (being Mexico, they turned the channel for a futbol game) and I think I can say we have new friends.

Olé!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

No fair!! That's cheating :)

But anyway, it's good that you managed to sort out your problem. Life's funny like that, eh?

Melanie Hooyenga said...

Turns out she's not going to teach the class. She went with Ibis but when she found out she'd be responsible for grading, etc, she backed out.

Then the director says, "Oh, we have someone we can use, so that's fine."

Why did they say I had to do it? They wanted to give me a chance. I guess that's nice but I we could've avoided this mess if they'd told us that in the beginning!

Janna Leadbetter said...

Wahoo! Melanie's off the hook.