Stand Up with Radioface

Well dear friends, it seems that ever since September 18, Independence day, the weather has been phenomenal. There are tulips and daffodils everywhere, and we got up into the high 60's F this week. My kids have been relatively tame, so I'm a little nervous that things are going to get crazy in the next few weeks. Only time will tell though. I'd rather focus on the incredible amount of laughter and smiles my crazy kids induce.

There was a parade

3 Things that I thought were funny that I was also a little ashamed to post earlier:

1. Every time I wave at a student and they don't acknowledge my existence, a little part of me dies.
2. I may have told my students that USA national dance is the "Chicken Dance", and they may have believed me, had I not started laughing as I did the dance.
3. My English is getting worse and my Spanish is not improving. For example, I couldn't remember if days of the week were always capitalized in English. Weird. As for Spanish, see below.

Spring flowers

Stand Up
As classes progressed Thursday, I was unsure how the day was going to shake out. I woke up late, after doing a long swim workout and lesson planning late into the night. Completely, forgetting about a morning commitment until receiving a phone call. In turn, I left the house with some pretty ratchet hair and without my soccer gear.

Class one flew by. So far so good. After lunch, the students watched a video called The Origin of Job Interviews from BBC's Armstrong and Miller show.

As we approached the final hour, the day seemed even warmer, and the students were in a good mood. Flies circled overhead in the warm air, and some students were standing to swat at them. I asked them to sit down. They pointed and pleaded about the flies, to which I said, "Yes, I noticed. You guys really need to take a shower." Class proceeds to fall into uncontrollable laughter. They started telling me to take a shower. One student said the flies were there before they arrived so it couldn't be them. I proclaimed, "Yes, same for me." The other teachers happened to be standing, backs turned to me, so I jokingly threw my eyes and thumb in the direction of my teachers. Once again the kids began laughing very heartily.

We moved to the computer lab to work on some pronunciation. (Side note: This is one of the classes I feel really connected to and it has a number of really spirited kids. However, our closeness also makes it hard to keep them in line.) As we went through foods we came to bell pepper. Once we got the bell part down, a handful of my students began confidently mocking the repetition of the word. "Bell pepper," I would say. "Bell peppaa!!" they responded.

Some of my bell peppas

Being the saucy character that I can be, I turned and said, "Alright, listen up! I know this might seems strange but it's important! How would you feel if I walked up to you and said 'ho-la co-mo es-tas a-mi-go'," imagine very exaggerated gringo voice. Another uproar, not a single student kept a straight face, if not because of my ridiculousness, then because of the incredulousness of what was happening. At the end, the game I had went really well and I survived yet another day as a teacher.

 With my comedy career picking up steam, I decided to take to the airways. It just so happens that the appointment I was late to, was making an ad on the radio. The following video is the audio of the ad that will be playing around Coyhaique. PS I sound like a serious gringo, time to go practice Spanish...