Nahautl Navidad

The savanna stood vast and stoic as the sun slowly slipped below the horizon,

Stoic, like a bronze Miguel Hidalgo standing straight and tall,

Vast, like the millions of Mexicans remembering and revering their Father for raising fight and feat of the conquistadors de Espana.

El sol: sinking slow and deep into the tierra creates anvil clouds and a sky like a pastel picture of Christmas.

This is the solstice.  This is the solstice of in a un campo de Mexico.  This is the memory of Mexico.

The sound of the solstice is crickets and cuetas and brass booming beyond the vastness-
Celebrations, fiestas, festvities and felizidad-
Posadas y parades-

La Navidad de Mexico

Now for something Nahautl:

Nahautl is la lingua that about 1.5 Nahua natives know; la idioma indigenous to Mexico and Mesoamerica.  It gained prestige when the Michoacan Empire expanded into what is current day Mexico City, became a literary language when the Latin alphabet was introduced and in the 16th and 17th centuries, works including poetry and even codices were written in what was stated as being one of the most well-documented and studied languages of the Americas according to this.  

If it weren't for Nahautl, we might have been stuck handing out brussel sprout bunnies on Easter.
 
Can you imagine what kind of world we'd be living in if everyone went around claiming they were addicted to brussel sprouts?

I navigate your attention towards Nahautl not because we'd cry without avocados and tomatoes and coyotes (all also derivatives), but because we'd cry if we didn't have a language with which to express ourselves as humans.  That's what we do.  We relish in self expression and the verbal language.  Babies cry and laugh and smile and drop things because they have yet to develop the skills to communicate through the expression of language that the rest of us can comprehend.  Slowly they begin filling their beautifully woven basket of brains with vocabulary they remember from their surrounding environment.  Finally, after about a year or year and a half, they retain and recall an expansive vocabulary of six whole words on average, according to this.

From the moment I stumbled upon teaching English as a second language about one year ago, clouds muddled the clear blue sky but created an image of a long, narrow tunnel with tracks built for the language locomotive.  Although it was pacing upwards of 200 mph, I hopped aboard and held on for dear life because from the moment the clouds muddled into a tunnel of tracks for the language locomotive- from the moment I felt the fresh wind on my face and comb my hair with its teeth, there appeared an illuminating lading leading the way.  It was as much of a light at the end of a tunnel as I needed to recognize an unrecognized rapture of the profession of teaching.

Fascination holds no comparison to "calling" and if everyone is patient, in time, they will find their true name.

Spoken language is truly a fascinating commodity even though it is quite obvious from the very get go if it is English or if it is Greek.  Why is it then that it is so difficult for us to say what we're really thinking?  I mean really really?  What are we thinking about at the same time we're thinking about that elephant in the room?  Then again why is it so easy for us to say and do everything else?  Why do we want to declare everything that makes up the one thing we're really thinking but leave out that one thought?  Fortunately, this social worker knows the answer.  Thank goodness I didn't have to say what I was really thinking...

The last couple of weeks have been spent learning and a lot has been learned.  The incredible thing about traveling to a different country and experiencing a different culture from your own is that proverbs exist in every single language.  Here is another one in ours: there is more than one way to skin a cat.  This means that there are multiple ways of doing a single one thing.  I traveled to Mexico with one of my Oklahoma roommates to take a break from teaching and visit other Okies who relocated to a country who has a history and colonization countries away from ours. 

Mexico is amazing.  It's a country with a history as rich and delicious as its food and I can't wait to return.

Finally, this Christmas granted the gracious gift of Grandpa recounting Ave Maria on the clarinet by Chopin and Bach.

Next up: a new year!

Holidaze 101

I forgot how hard college was.  I must have blocked it out of my mind.  Or maybe my mind stayed filled with all the stuff I learned from those days, and there wasn't room in my remote memory to even remember.

Q 1: Why hasn't the writer posted since September?

A 1: a. The writer had writers block.
     b. The writer was teaching down the block.
     c. The writer was blocked from the Internet.
     d. The Jolly Green Giant walked down the writer's block.
     e. All of the above.

 What did they used to say?  When in shear doubt, go with C?  Yet E is so tempting and I dreamt about D last night in my dream.  Where did this text anxiety come from??  Blocked that out too, I suppose.

I discovered the secret to time travel.  Become a teacher and time will disappear faster than you can call roll.  Live with a household full and instruct at the University and you may be transported back into your past.

For the past four months, I've been instructing at the Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work at the University of Oklahoma.  I attended the professional program from 2003-2005 for my bachelors and 2005-2006 for my masters, when it was housed out of Rhyne Hall, a hacienda style, asbestos-filled building on the that used to be Alpha Tau Omega fraternity house back in the day.  It was actually kind of cute and fun to learn in, if you weren't distracted by the thought of your lungs crystallizing.  Then one day, the wife of President Boren, Mrs. Molly Shi, showed up as our key-note speaker at the Phi Alpha National Social Work Honor Society induction.  Once she set foot in our "charming" school, it was only a mere five years later that lectures went from being held in this:





...to being led in this:

To say it was an "experience" to be on the other side of the desk, helping guide 45 juniors through the first of many lectures, would be, well...elementary.  Every week, I prepared a three hour lecture over one and most times two chapters progressing from the principle life stage of human development.  We covered content from the womb to the tomb, analyzing cognitive and physical development as well as social and emotional development. 

How does one keep forty-five minds engaged for three hours while covering content like ethological theory of attachment (an evolved survival technique involving the emotional tie an infant has to its caregiver), Piaget's conservation theory (not until middle childhood does one understand that two different-shaped glasses may hold the same amount of liquid), Erickson's theory of Intimacy vs. Isolation (conflict in early adulthood reflecting thoughts about committing permanently to an intimate partner), fluid intelligence (basically a combination of detecting relationships between visual stimuli and speed of analyzing information), "presbycusis" (old ears) and "presbyopia" (old eyes), and finally,  The Right to Die?

Since it was my very first time teaching at the college level, I just went with my instinct.  I did it by reading the chapters religiously, every week, and then, supplementing the Power Points with things like this:

     

...and also this:












...other great finds include:

...and finally, for the exams!

Basically, I found even more information.  But the information I found was meant for supplemental entertainment.









I always find it hard to sum up months' worth of time, energy and experience.  But I'll just say this:

Teaching a class for the first time will always be "the most difficult thing I'll have ever done"; nobody likes a know-it-all who isn't open to being open; Pen Pals, poetry and pot lucks are all still a thing, and students and teachers aren't that different.

In conclusion, being a teacher is like being a student- you get all the breaks, but you also get paid. ;)  I think I may have found my "day job."

P.S. I may have found my "night job" too.  If you need your house to look like a cartoon, I'm your gal.

Boyd House- Norman, Oklahoma

P.P.S.
Next up? Mexicooooooo!!!!!!!!!!! 
(Stay tuned for a pivotal post card project!)