Career Change

I'm having a  stressful week at work. My students are taking the state test.  I have worked hard throughout the school year, yet somehow I feel really discouraged and defeated.

 The accordion feels like me.

Feria del libro

At Los Angeles Union Station on Friday: I stared at this mural while my husband called his bank to report a lost credit card. It is strange how we lose things on trains. It wasn't a great start for our adventure in Los Angeles.

Downtown Los Angeles. While waiting for Feria Del Libro En Español to start, we walked the streets of  L.A.

At Feria Del Libro: This man works for Real Academia. He gave an interesing speech about, yeah,  Spanish. At one point in the middle of his speech I turned to V. and told him: I want to listen to this man for a long time. He had a sugar cookie and tea way of speaking.  I started daydreaming about whispering in his ear: watchale! parkeando! troca! Okay, stop dreaming, this man actually told really good anecdotes about Spanish words. My favorite one was the origin of the word, California.   I'm not a storyteller, so google it. You will  find out why the Spanish named this state California.  Hint: It has nothing to do with fornication. Now, the man on the right took the conversation even further (sorry, I'm a lousy photographer). He talked about the Spanish we use when we text and the Spanish we speak in the United States. He is worried.  He wants to invent an app for our cel phones that will respond to any ill written text that says:  Aquí no se aceptan mensajes mal escritos. My husband and I have had a long discussion about the  Real Academia since Friday. He defends it with tooth and nail. I compare the Academia to the porn industry. Okay, bad and dumb comparison, but have you ever noticed how porn always leaves you with an empty feeling? That is, even though porn/language is exciting, it's repetitive and boring. I admit my vocabulary in Spanish and ahem, English is mediocre, but what if my Spanish were top notch, why should I settle for cutting and pasting words that already exist. We should  leave space for creating and inventing new words.

Paco Taibo II at Feria talking about his book, Pancho Villa. Mr. Taibo is my buddy! I normally don't like to speak to famous authors when I meet them ( I haven't met many).  I find it unnecessary to ask for  their autographs and to drool all over them (okay, I did ask Allen Ginsberg for his autograph back in the early 1990's--and for the record I did drool when he said: hey! haven't I seen you before?! How cool is that?!). Anyway, my husband talked to him. Mr. Taibo was really kind and humble!  He talked to us as if we were going to sit down and munch on tacos de tripa, drink atole, and talk Pancho Villa.

And he curses like a sailor just like me!!

This is for Mr. Blecua because I soak my tongue in the streets of California. 

Test

I took the day off from work on Friday. Stress at work is high. I needed a mental break. My students will take the CST on Tuesday  (the CST is a test, a very important test, but I won't tell you what the initials stand for since I was asked to sign an affidavit saying I won't talk about it).

 My principal, who takes things a step further has "encouraged" teachers to avoid teaching Art, Music, Science, and Social Studies and to focus on test prep, test prep, and test prep. If we wanted to teach these subjects we had to justify its importance over the CST by writing a paper. So, for the last month, I've been obediently reviewing Math for two hours and Language Arts for four  hours. I've been obedient for several reasons, I'll just mention two: My students are limited in English. The CST is in English and they need all the practice they can get. Two, we actually have teachers at our school district that say: Those Mexican children bring our scores down. My students are Mexican and don't worry, I'm too tired and stressed to lash out my anger at those teachers..today.

You see, the game/threat is simple: If our school does not meet its academic score/goal on the CST, the state will take over. I asked my administrators many times to explain  "take over," but nobody really does and with my hyperactive imagination and pessimism, sometimes I think the worst:



These are not good days for education.

Santa Monica Mountains on a Sunday afternoon

When people used to ask the little girl where she came from, she just lifted her index finger and pointed to the blue sky. One day the sky was gray.

Her Spanish words were skinny and thristy (y tenian piojos) and her English only filled up a small  paper bag. How would she learn to  fill silence with color?

She told people she wanted to die at 86. Then, she went to a thrift store and got herself a green chair.

Tell me the story again, you know, the one about the the little roadrunner that stopped.

Wind and plants talking to each other. They left her out of the conversation.

FolkStreams » Pizza Pizza Daddy-O

FolkStreams » Pizza Pizza Daddy-O

before i sleep

1.I don't have a middle name but i think it should be mediocrity.
2. My parents were going to named me Lucas instead of Laura.
3. I have 22 students. 14 claim their father beats up their mother.
4. I used to think I would end up in a mental institution. There's still time.
5. When I was in college I stole money once to buy food. I went to Kentucky Fried Chicken and bought myself a piece of chicken, mash potatoes and a buiscuit. Out of shame, I don't go to KFC anymore.
6. My last Christian prayer was in 1976. I prayed to Santa Maria one night to make me beautiful. I woke up the following day and I was still ugly.

Goodbye, Honeysuckle

She didn't  fit in the terra cotta pot we bought for her years ago. Her roots were craving land. She was too big for our balcony. We gave her a trim. We took her out of her pot and placed her in a Trader Joe's bag. It hurt too much to place her in a trash can. We put a sign on the bag, took her outside, and hoped for the best.

Within a couple hours she was gone.

Goodbye, big girl. I hope you are happy in your new home. May you stretch your roots now.