Two weeks in...

Two weeks into the school year now...
  
As I'm coming to know my students this year, I've learned that they make up the most diverse group I've ever had in my decade of high-school teaching. Here are their countries of origin, starting with the obvious:

     U.S.A. & Mexico...

     and then, in no particular order:

El Salvador

Sierra Leone

Russia

Colombia

Iraq

China

Bosnia

Croatia

Nepal (with Bhutanese parents)

Cuba

Uzbekistan

Ghana

Guinea

Vietnam

Honduras

Congo, D.R.(Kinshasa)
Nigeria

Congo, (Brazzaville)

Ethiopia

Somalia

Tanzania (parents from Burundi)

Lebanon
Sudan

     and if I'm included,

half Korea and half Canada--does that add up to one more country?

...for a grand total of over two dozen countries of origin!

(if you include parental backgrounds...Plus, a handful of students from the Pacific Northwest, which may as well be a different country from Arizona. One of those kids said, about moving here, "I like all the good Mexican restaurants, but I don't know how to pronounce them." Ha! You'll learn, m'ijo, you'll learn...)

The past couple of years I've had exchange students from Belgium and Germany in my classroom, as well as Navajo and Tohono O'odham students, but never have I had a 'grand total' number as large as this year's.

Nepali, Twi, Kirundi, Arabic in the background of my students' brains as they learn French and Spanish conjugations...Tucson has never been more international...and the world's never had a greater number of displaced people, either.

So it's been busy, but all was going well until Tuesday afternoon, when I suddenly felt like the proverbial hit-by-a-truck victim. (Why do we say that, anyway, 'to feel as if one has been hit by a truck?' Doesn't that usually result in death?) A summer cold. Noooooooooooooo!


It's inevitable in Aug/Sept., with the sudden return of kids to enclosed spaces. No amount of antibacterial hand gel can prevent the back-to-school cold season. But it's particularly unpleasant in August in Tucson; the normally soothing therapy of soup ends up feeling more like torture when the temperature outside is ONE HUNDRED EIGHT DEGREES!!! (Even for Tucson, that was a record earlier this week.)


I can't remember the last time an illness came on so suddenly; I'd had a good run in the morning before school, a good day with classes, felt good about after-school planning, drove home in an energetic mood, and then half-an-hour later, as I finally sat on the couch to watch the news--BAM! This early in the school-year, I just CAN'T miss work, so...thank goodness for pseudoephedrine, which gave me just just enough 'control' to be in front of adolescents for several hours a day the past few days. I will admit, though--yesterday, by the end of day, I just couldn't be 'active' any more...So I popped in a DVD for my advanced class. It was a documentary; I'm not a bad teacher, I'm not I'm not I'm not.


And I did have a bit of germ-inspired juvenile vocabulary-fun with my first-year Spanish students. I'd previously showed them how they already know thousands of Spanish words already without realizing it--the magic of COGNATES! (ex. nation--nación, objective--objetivo, etc...) Now, using my cold as the segue--I demonstrated the danger of false cognates...such as: 'constipado.' No, it does not mean that one needs prune juice. It means (in many parts of the Spanish-speaking world, at least) that one has come down with a cold. Perhaps more commonly heard in parts of Latin America is the adjective 'resfriado'...At any rate, I am emerging from my constipado-ness, just in time for the weekend...

a couple of cartoons for La Rentrée

First of all: definition of "La Rentrée"--French for the post-summer-vacation ritual of returning to school/work. In the U.S., this is Aug./Sept. and mainly is 'back-to-school'; in France it's Sept./Oct. and applies to everyone, not just students...

I like this cartoon, even if might seem a bit twisted:

My wife and I have a parrot--worry not, we take good care of him. (We arrange house/bird-sitting when we go out of town, just so you know.) And, in case you didn't already know, for work, I am a language teacher. (French I, II, & III, & Spanish I this year.) I am not abusive in the classroom. And I don't teach German. (alas) Anyway...

But I like this cartoon. It's been posted on our refrigerator for a year-and-a-half now...

If only it were so simple to encourage students to become fluent speakers...

And now, something from Dilbert:

Ahh, the contemporary surfeit of self-esteem...

A recent issue of The Atlantic magazine had a lengthy article entitled "How to Land Your Kid in Therapy."

The cover of the magazine proclaims this: "How the cult of self-esteem is ruining our kids."

Indeed, the perils and unpleasant side effects of showering too much praise, cultivating self-esteem without substance--what I get to observe, in its myriad adolescent manifestations, during my workweek!

Don't get me wrong, I like my job...I mean, to a reasonable degree...

but I'm not among those overly idealistic teachers who insist, almost religiously, that 'they give their heart and soul to 'their' kids,'...those educators for whom 'financial compensation is not a concern' since 'the opportunity to touch lives' makes up for substandard wages and being the punching bag for society's complaints. 

Teaching in 21st-c. America--it's both better and worse than you think. When I first went back to teaching high-school (wow, a decade ago already) after being in the college/university environment for a few years, concerned friends and acquaintances would, when approaching me to say hello, lower their voices and cock their heads with concern before asking, so sincerely: "So...how ARE you?" At first I was puzzled and I wondered if I must've looked terrible or something...I mean, all these well-meaning people touching my shoulder and expressing concern--really, I was okay! This lasted about a few months, and then they realized that I had not become a target for spitballs nor were my tires being slashed...

But even now, when meeting people for the first time and answering the question 'so what do you do for work'--I still get that 'oh, wow' eyebrow-raise when I mention that I am a high-school teacher. Truth be told, sometimes in the mirror, I give myself that oh-wow-eyebrow-raise...

But I'm okay.

Monday. Back to the classroom...

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random quote:

"Without data, you are just another person with an opinion."

(quoting Andreas Schleicher...for background and the full article, click here.)

symmetry, rythym...kaleidoscopic ceiling...and a conversation with a Finnish ex-pat

As the calendar speeds toward the new school-year, I've been working on organizing/editing some of the many photos I took in Korea back in June; I'd almost forgotten about this one:

(below is a little anecdote to go with it--an attempt at summing up the photo's setting...)

"Korea--it gets under your skin," she said, with her Scando-Slavic English.

My wife and I had struck up a conversation with the only other person resting in the pavilion's shade on this summer afternoon in Seoul, in the garden of the new National Museum. She was--is--a Finnish expat, who came with her Polish husband when he got a job in the South Korean capital several years ago.

After walking all morning through galleries ranging from Neolithic to Neo-confucian, it felt so good to rest our feet. And so we sat by the pond reflecting the world's sixth-largest museum. The pavilion has an octagonal roof covered in green celadon tiles. Looking up at the symmetrical ceiling is almost hypnotic.

The last time I'd been to Seoul was nearly twenty years ago; expats, aside from diplomats and U.S. military, were rare then. Not any more. The city is full of French bakeries and Canadian teachers. Indonesians in head-scarves are common in the subways...and under an octagonal roof, with cranes presiding, a Finnish woman telling us about how she loves the 'passion' of Korean culture, and how she does not miss the spice-less-ness of northern European food...complaining about how difficult it is to "meet people here..." But then saying, "yes, hard to just make friends with strangers, unless you are introduced by somebody. Once that happens, then you're in."

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...a few more photos from the National Museum here...

talking about the weather: linguistic xenophobia and HABOOBS

"Haboob" in the headlines--perhaps you've heard the word used over the past few weeks to describe the massive dust storms that have blown through central Arizona...

(photo of Phoenix above  from abcnews.com)

Fortunately, here in Tucson, such massive clouds of choking doom are rare; the summer monsoon flow is usually from the south or southeast--thunderstorms pop up and then the winds blow out from them, often toward the north or northwest, which means that after the high grassland and mountain ranges of SE AZ, they pass over the over open desert and fallow farm fields between Tucson and Phoenix, sucking up all the debris around Casa Grande into the sky as the weather marches toward the 'Valley of the Sun.'

Back to the linguistic point, though...Today's NY Times has this article, entitled "'Haboobs' stir critics in Arizona." Really? There are people 'upset' that the term 'haboob' is used, simply because it's a word of foreign origin?! And, cardinal sin in their eyes--the word is from, gasp, Arabic!? (Here's the letter-to-the-editor of the Phoenix newspaper that was quoted in the NY Times...read it and weep.) I am embarrassed for Arizona...

(Then again, maybe the NY journalist just wanted to capitalize on the 'pick on AZ' sentiment that's been so present in the press over the past couple of years? Granted, there's been plenty of fuel for the fire...)

So...some folks object to 'haboob' because of it's foreign origins....

Hmm. This would mean that 'monsoon' needs to go, because that word, too, (so dear to Arizonans by the way), is--again, gasp--of Arabic origin! And 'hurricane' is also a 'foreign' word...And so is 'tornado!' and 'cyclone' and 'typhoon' and 'tsunami!'

Linguistic xenophobia. Silly...We think quaint, now, the usages in the past of 'Victory Cabbage' instead of 'sauerkraut'  in WWI...or 'freedom fries' instead of 'French fries' at the beginning of the Iraq War...

Silly, it might seem, but scary, as well...Ignorance, xenophobia, words...acts?

Besides--let's all enjoy our inner juvenile--'haboob' is just fun to say...

[Incidentally, a few other everyday words from Arabic: algebra, zero, pajamas and khaki.]

This morning: mourning doves...If you've read 'A Moveable Feast'...

...I thought this was too late in the year for doves to be nesting--? I was in the backyard this morning, watering plants and then looked up to notice a mourning dove and her two babies, perched under the eave, but on the outer side of the patio roof. How they've survived the neighborhood hawks, I don't know...

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If you've ever read Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, or any of F. Scott Fitzgerald, or seen any Dali or Picasso, and/or been to/ lived in/ dreamed about Paris...then, whether you are a Woody Allen fan or not (I am not so much), GO SEE Midnight in Paris. You don't have to like every moment of it, but the film is a love-letter to Paris and a series of well-intentioned caricatures of the literary and artistic giants of Paris-in-the-1920's.

Few places in Tucson are cooler on a summer mid-day (already at the century-mark outside) than a popcorn-scented movie theater. First-showings-of-the-day are even cooler--five and change versus almost ten bucks...And so S. and I  have spent a couple of recent mornings, enduring loud previews and forgetting that 'pretzel-bites' at the movies are always a bad idea.

A week or so before 'Midnight in Paris,' we went and saw 'Tree of Life.' There is a thin line between sublime visual poetry and overly-long self-indulgent cinematographic silliness. Brad Pitt acts well, indeed, in it...and Jessica Chastain looks like a Boticelli painting come-to-life... It has its moments... At the end of the 2hr+ film, I was glad to not have paid full price, but also glad to have seen it on the large screen. Really, there were moments of 'sublime visual poetry.' And how often does a Hollywood-released film allude, seriously, to the book of Job? But...

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The monsoon is back. After a hiatus of almost a week (the 'gone-soon,' the local press has dubbed the dry weather), afternoon thunderstorms have returned. Driving home from an errand this afternoon, the wind kicked up and as the drops began falling, the temperature dropped from 105 to 75 in less than ten minutes. Gonna go see, now, how the mourning dove family fared...

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...and an essay from our local paper's editorial cartoonist on "The sunburned pains of growing up too pale in Tucson."--a bit of local color...or lack thereof.

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(...and I've had to deal with some administrative changes--

so, the little photo-blog I started a while back

has had to change addresses: 

exoculis.blogspot.com no longer exists;

just add a dash--it is now:

 http://ex-oculis.blogspot.com.)

Korean food coming to you via PBS--documentary to air nationwide this summer

I've been back for almost two weeks...and the flavors of Korea are tenacious; I've enjoyed tacos and salsa since returning, but Seoul-food tugs at one's soul...

...fortunately there are several Korean grocers here in Tucson and a couple of decent restaurants...

And then I find out that on PBS, a new documentary/travelogue/food show will be playing soon:

"The Kimchi Chronicles!"

Here's a preview:

This article from the NY Times explains more...

As does the LA Times...

The actor Hugh Jackman does some of the narrating...

why "Wolverine" is in to Korean food, I don't know...

Korea got the summer Olympics back in 1988; the 2018 Winter games were just awarded to the country as well...perhaps now it's time for this peninsula's in-your-face cuisine to become more widely known outside of the coastal cities....Bon appétit & Jahp-soo-seh-yo!

why the new blog?

After almost five years of blogging at afternica.blogspot.com, this is now home.


Why the move? Why the new name?


After spending a month in Korea, I decided that I no longer want le blogue to be defined by our ‘year-in-Nicaragua,’ which has now receded well into the past…five years ago (already?!) to be exact…S. and I still think of things as being ‘Before Nicaragua’ or ‘After Nicaragua,’ and we still treasure that year of la vida centroamericana as being one of the defining experiences of our lives…but time moves on, and living takes us elsewhere…


Now, why the title of this new blog?–why “allophile?”


I like learning languages--as in other languages...I like traveling--as in going elsewhere...I enjoy conversing, reading about viewpoints--as in other viewpoints...And 'allophile' literally means 'liker/lover of the other.' You know--'francophiles' like all things French...'cinephiles' enjoy the movies...


And growing up biracial, I was always 'the other'--in elementary school I was always 'the Asian kid,' whereas when going to Asia, I was 'the foreigner.' The only cities where I've felt truly 'at home' have been the coastal places where multiracial families are 'just part of the scenery,' instead of being 'odd'...


But even in Seattle--here's an anecdote. A few years ago, my wife was introducing me to an acquaintance. After the name-exchange, instead of the usual 'nice to meet you,' I was asked, "Where are you from?"


At this point, I'd lived in the NW for years, so I just said "oh, from here in Seattle.'


This wasn't good enough--"No, where are you FROM?"
So, I replied "well, I moved here from Georgia."


My response then elicited this question: "No--I mean, WHAT ARE YOU?"
I suppressed (with some difficulty) my desire to be snarky ("Umm...I'm 'human?' how about you?!")
I realized that this acquaintance needed to know my ethnicity--obviously, I wasn't 'like her'--I was 'Other'...


Anyway...
Not to get too academic--but the idea of 'liking the other'--being interested in 'Others'...that's the point of 'allophile.' If you do want to go down the academic road, here a couple of links:
--a Harvard professor has taken the word and run with it...
--an article from a Boston paper that summarizes it...


And as a teacher who works with teenagers--they are so often 'the Other.'

So, blogwise...
Can I write without undue verbosity? post photos without inducing slideshow-yawning?
Ah–showing just enough–therein lies the poetry–of prose and of images.
…not that a blog needs to be ‘poetic,’ but concise, when needed, is nice.

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(the previous blog is copied below, incidentally...)