sorry i've been away for awhile. i don't mean to keep you on the edge of your seats. i've been working feverishly on "the puerto rico experience: the website". take a look:

the puerto rico experience: the website
or if the link doesn't work: http://esonegrita.tripod.com

BOOKMARK IT!

campaigns
perhaps the most distrubing and annoying way to run for political office is to cruise down the street in a caravan of cars and a shockingly loud speaker strapped to the roof of the car. I can feel the words of the spanish political campaign vibrating in my chest as I watch Fight Club in my bedroom in my concrete house.

The campaign is run like they're really selling mattresses and at the local muebleria and NOT convincing the public they can make life better in PR. I guess just like in college or on South Street or on 71st Street, the one with the biggest speakers wins.

pair of dice
Mood:  not sure
Topic: leisure
what i was thinking over the weekend was that it really isn't so bad here. i kept refusing to see the imagery of paradise since it was cloaked in the shroud of the fiery pits of hell. chalk that up to culture shock.

it isn't so bad.

the weekends usually wind up with me searing the skin off my body at somebody's beach. there's usually food on somebody's grill and beer in somebody else's refrigerator. so, honestly, it is a little like the vacation that all my friends in the states think I'm really taking.

it isn't so bad.

it's like that because you get this real sense of not having to do anything special on saturday. i can appreciate that. right now it just involves meandering from one grill to another.

now if i can just get a decent nights sleep.

deprivation
i'm not sleeping well. last week, i had two nights where i wole up at 2:30 and didn't get back to sleep. this morning i woke up at midnight with a sore throat and three with a cough. by five, i was running to the bathroom every few minutes to get rid of phlegm. today, i am exhausted. not like a "worked all week and took care of business exhausted" but a "if i sit still for longer than 90 seconds, I'm passing out."

the weekend was good. didn't go anywhere this time. but i was super busy. got some groceries and went to watch the opening ceremonies. a few beers later, we went to this place called tropicale. it was a pretty fun time.

it kinda does suck being a gringo out here. puerto ricans keep mainly to themselves. course, is it my responsiblity to

(that was a quick bell, more later...)

make foreigners feel welcome when i'm shakin my ass off on sunday nights? probably not. maybe i thought there would be more of an interaction. but on whose part? mine? theirs? baby steps for the moment, though. it's still soon. one dance club does make me qualified to make any generalizations about an entire culture and nationality. so i'll exercise some patience.

i'm thinking of buying a car soon. in the next month i suppose. then i can kinda mingle and do my thing with the locals. hopefully. riding around in a car full of gringos does not make it easy to find local friends and interests. i may drive up to UPR (university of puerto rico) and see what college life 'el carib' is like.

circus midgets
they have all these moods to pick from, but EXHAUSTED is not one of them. I feel like I just ran the Iron Man.

no books today. apparently administration is waiting for a team of highly trained circus midgets to materialize in our library and wheel into our classrooms on unicycles to hand out the 17 text books that we need our students to have.

no midgets as of wednesday, august 10.

it wouldn't be such a bad idea it if our classes weren't two hours long. but the two hours turns into a college lecture class cuz there's nothing for the students to read.

either that or i have to come up with these unbelievable activities (from out of thin air...or the same place these midgets come from) in order to keep the class moving. I have talked for six straight hours today. If I never say another word again it would be too soon. (Be careful what you wish for...)

I had a crummy morning this morning. Monday night I couldn't sleep. Well, I actually fell asleep being happy as a clam watching Runaway Jury on my nifty VCR at 8:30. (So good hearing somebody speaking English in my apartment finally). So by 2:30, my body was done sleeping. And plus, I was a little nervous about the first day of school an dcouldn't get back to sleep. So about four oclock, I went to the gas station to get some butter/margarine for the Cream of Wheat I was going to be eating for breakfast. But trust me when i say, don't buy cheap dairy products from Citgo. (And this is where this morning comes into the picture). This morning I decide to make a scrambled egg burrito. I have no idea how this margerine was made or where it came from, but it was just about the nastiest thing i ever tasted. so much for eggs. but, then i decided to have a pop tart. but, the pop tarts that i bought yesterdat from kMart were molded!! have you EVER had a molded poptart? they must have been sitting on the shelf for years.

so i left home hungry. that's why i had a crummy morning.

Mood:  cool
My first day of school is coming along fine. It's so fine, in fact, that there's nothing really to report on. Nothing out of the ordinary, no crazy students, everything is exactly as it should be.

Mood:  chillin'
I'm glad I have a pretty good tolerance for alcohol. It was somebody's idea to have a pool party on Sunday and I went and stayed for a loong time. The elementary teachers had students today, but the high school teachers don't start until tomorrow. Apparently, we still have to show up, which I didn't plan on. But, honestly, there's nothing else around here to do. I don't have cable so if I stayed home, I'd be stuck watching thse same four spanish tv stations. I don't have any money so shopping is out. Plus, it's HOT! I can't just be hangin out in the street. Hm. Course, I could head to the movie theatre. Movies for ladies are only three bucks on Wednesday. And, one of the other teachers sold me her VCR last night, so I could set the AC to Antartica and climb in bed and watch whatever movie with American actors my little heart desires. (There's a Blockbuster up the street).

But, if I didn't come in today, I would have missed my very first black out at the school this morning. Makes me wonder if this is going to be a frequent thing. One of the elementary teachers told me that she has her Jedi first graders to bring in their light sabers (flashlights) for just such a power surge. I think I'll have to add a battery powered camping light to my growing list of teacher supplied school items.

We're supposed to have some new generators so that black outs only lasted 30 seconds. But the one this morning was clearly longer than that. Fifteen minutes maybe. It must've sucked for the elementary teachers who actually were in the middle of class.

One of the local teachers asked what we did in the states when we got black outs in school. Hmm. Welcome to Puerto Rico.

in all fairness...
Mood:  energetic
I'm trying to figure out the best way to waste time until the prinicipal (already 25 minutes late) shows up for our 1 oclock meeting, and decide that I'd run down to the computer lab and print out a few more copies of my rules and expectations to share with my fellow gringo-teachers who are also new this year. On my way down the very precarious spiral staircase that leads you from the meeting room above the library, I notice a local-teacher and say hi. But, it wasn't just an ordinary acknowledgment of his presence. I was almost forced to sing his name as only a language as fluid and melodious as Spanish can encourage one to do. I continued down the steps wearing a slight smirk on my lips and an even slighter glide in my stride. maybe because it was Friday. maybe because la fiesta started in just two hours at one of the gringo-teacher's house. But, it might just be because after all this crap that I've waded through, i think i'm finally havin an awright time.



...but serisously, i think it's the drink fest happenin this afternoon...

escuela sucks
Mood:  not sure
So, I got my classroom yesterday. or maybe it was Wednseday...the days kinda blend together. it's an okay classroom. the color on the wall is somewhere between yellow and green. it is air conditioned, though so that's a plus. but i guess the real problem is that we have to buy all our own school supplies. thank god i had a box coming with pens and a calculator inside. but everything that you have ever seen a teacher use, I have to buy. (wait til the IRS gets a load of my receipts this year). pencils, folders, tape, glue stick, stapler, staples, paper clips, markers, dry erase markers for the board...room decorations, if you happen to be one of the wealthier teachers. i have to cruise around other teacher's classrooms, scavenging through their scraps for construction paper and borders for the bulletin boards in my room. i wanna throw a coat of paint on the walls (which i'll have to do myself). i was successfull in procuring basic supplies, though i still need a red pen for grading papers. the killer is that teachers have to pay to use the copier in the library. there is a copy room here we can use for free, but originals have to be submitted three days in advance and so on and so forth. just a lot of red tape.

making moves
Mood:  celebratory
so, after beggin my headmaster for my travel allowance that i thought i was supposed to get upon arrival in puerto rico, i hauled ass down to Banco Popular and cashed it-- and not a minute too soon either since AT&T is bangin down my door right now. At the window, the teller asked me if I wanted to open an account. I figured that it would be a good idea so i waited for one of the customer service people to hook me up with my very first PR bank account.

Of course, no body else in the branch spoke English. The rep knew about as much English as I knew Spanish, maybe even less. But, I fumbled through it and got an ATH (a todo hora or "at all hours") card. it's kinda interesting when you realize how much spanish you actually know, and how in dire circumstances you can actually use it to get the things you need. in many of the other stores, people are pretty bilingual. but then, there's not much you really need to say, either.