insults and injuries

so three days without a computer and internet(obviously) has changed me somewhat. i am, at my core it seems, quite lazy. not lazy in the sense that you might think, but lazy in the sense of which someone like my papa might think. i like to read. a lot. i like to read in english. a lot. thus, much of my day is spent on mcsweeney´s (there have been some hilarious entries these last few days by the way). i do not DO so much as i SIT if you know what i am saying. think of someone who has a manual labor job. when you stop for two minutes, people look at you and ask you what you are doing. why did you stop. when i stop and look out the window for five minutes, i am ¨collecting my thoughts¨or ¨arranging my day¨ or any of the other twenty ways i have learned through years of schooling to explain my lack of activity. is education a means to justifying a lack of doing? do those who can, do, and those who cannot, teach? i have always hated that phrase. perhaps it strikes a bit too close to home. kind of the like the old joke, ¨what did the english major say to the engineering major? -would you like paper or plastic?¨ yet i digress.

i am changing this habitual inactivity. slowly.

every morning i check my email, but i make at least 45 minutes available for reading one of my books in spanish. i am cutting out a lot of the screwing around on the internet that i do.

and what do i have to show for it? lesson plans. wow. who knew those were a good idea? i have been planning my classes more diligently. this has not revolutionized anything, the students are the same, but i FEEL more productive. am i? debatable.

this is an ongoing experiment, i will let you know how it works out.

i was telling a prof the other day about a book i was reading in spanish and she recommended another to me. to my, and her, astonishment, i had read the book in spanish. (pause for dramatic effect) (lots of space for dramatic effect)

i know. what are the odds of that? i have read 3 books in spanish. she said it was one of her favorites, la frontera de cristal by carlos fuentes, and we had a brief chat about it. shocking. two days later i was talking to a student about reading and translating from another langauge. i was telling him my strategies, etc. i pulled out my book, los años con laura díaz by carlos fuentes, and showed him a paragraph and explained that i could not translate every single word but i knew the gist. he then reached into his bookbag and pulled out the same book.

so now you are thinking, wow, will, great. there are five books in mexico and you have encountered 2 people who know two of those. thanks smartass. but no.

i started a journal the other day, in spanish, and my friend oscar is helping me with my grammar. i cannot believe i have been this lazy for so long. my last entry was in october. lazy. oh well, i have begun again so that is good news. for me. really all of this is good news. for me. not really for anyone else out there, unless you like to live vicariously through other people. in which, case, woooooohoooooooooo! we rock!

i am also 550 pages into my most recent spanish book, la guerra del fin del mundo (roughly- the apocolypse in english). it is starting to get a lot easier to read. still have problems with understanding certain people´s accents, but then i started thinking about how many people i have not understand who speak english. lots. i cannot get down on myself, although it is easy, if no one knows how to use correct grammar and so i dont get it. they are using the present tense to talk about the past. everyone else gets it, but i dont. this is just one example, but if you think about it, this happens all the time in regular english. verbs nd other words are screwed up all the time, but we understand because it is our native tongue. when people make mistakes down here, it throws me off completely. thus, slang and casual conversations with peeps on the street is still difficult sometimes. all in all, however, i have come a very long way in the last few months, especially my reading ability. that makes me happy.

ok, i will try to write more this week now that i have a compy. but, horror, my laptop is now on the fritz. insult to injury. luckily, i work at an engineering university, kind of, and circuits and such are the specialty of my roomate, so hopefully this problem will be quickly solved. he told me not to worry. why does this always make one worry? if we know it is going to make us worry, why do other people even bother saying it?

well, i am off to do lesson plans. life is good. dont worry.