Wednesday, October 19, 2011

"You look better in person"

In case you were wondering, my spanish students are very attentive. I said the f-word (yep..) accidently in what I thought was an under-my-breathe tone, but the whole class burst out laughing. Oops.

In that same class, that starts at 9:15, which is about 2 hours before I am even-semi awake and conscious, the English teacher told me I was UNPHOTOGENIC.  How did this happen, you might be wondering?

Well.



As I was so nicely presenting her class a power point about myself&where I come from, I pointed myself out in some of the pictures of me in a group of friends. The entire class + teacher said "that's you??? No way!! Really?" (I wasn't wearing my glasses in those pictures.)

I laughed and said yup, really. And that's when the teacher said it.
"You look so different in person, much better, much more beautiful. How do you say...when someone doesn't look good in photographs? ...Unphotogenic! Yes that's it, you're very unphotogenic. You look better in person."

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Thanks. What?
I'm just going to say that was one of those spanish/english confusion moments, just like I have all the time. But still, she speaks very good English, so how she messed up that badly is beyond me. Maybe that's exactly how she meant it, but thought that I would take it well. I'm not sure.

In that same class I also demonstrated my complete lack of knowledge of American actors/actresses and famous people. EMBARRASSING!
All the kids had written mini-biographies of famous Americans and then I had to guess who they were. Look, I'm sorry that I couldn't think of Benjamin Franklin off the top of my head when you asked who created the lightening rod. Aaaaand I'm sorry I have no idea who that actress from Disney Channel is.  Give me a break, I haven't taken history class since high school, and I don't watch the Disney Channel (on a regular basis).

It's been a rough day.

Update: But I don't want to end this on a completely depressing note...
After I wrote this I went to my second class and 2 kids gave me presents! They looked like our plastic coil keychain thingies that we have back home, so when a kid came up and said "this is for you" I think I gave him a strange look. It wasn't until a girl took one off her wrist and said "here you go" and Carmen, the teacher, commented that everybody is wearing those bracelets, that I put 2 and 2 together.
Yay :)

And thennnnnnn, I went to meet a woman who wants classes for her 6 year old daughter, and now I have 2 hours a week set up with 2 kids, and I'm about to set up another 2 hours a week with 2 more kids. None of whom speak English, so I'm getting paid to talk to myself and play games with them :) Best. Job. Ever.

3 comments:

  1. It's more of a cultural thing than a language thing. When I studied in Puerto Rico my best friends roommate told you "Ya estas mas llenita" (you've filled out while you've been here) lol I had to hold her back from beating her because essentially its culturally acceptable to make comments like that.

    Chin up :)

    ~Cat

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  2. Aww those kids probably think you are like the coolest teacher ever :) And they don't recognize you from those pictures because you keep getting more and more beautiful! It's starting to get out of hand, I mean you're already way out of my league, if you get any prettier what am i gonna do? :P

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  3. Oh wow, things like that make me really appreciate our own culture of being polite. Haha. How's your teaching experience going by the way? What ages are you teaching?

    Matt - I love you, and damn straight I'm the coolest teacher ever :)

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