Warrior-A Kid Rock Propaganda Film

A few years ago I visited the lovely country of Thailand. It was a harrowing trip jam packed with three near death experiences, a very un-traditional Christmas eve at a club in Bangkok, and a lot of shopping. While there, since I was there a whole month, I went to the movies. Before the flick, in addition to the normal previews, there was a moment where we were all asked to stand for the for the National Anthem. Though it was different and unexpected, I didn't think too much of it until a friend of mine whispered into my ear that if you didn't stand you could be taken to jail. Intense huh?

Well, I never really followed up to find out if that's true or not, but it was one of those many cultural differences I filed away as something that would never happen in the States. Flash forward to last weekend. After the conference, I met up with one of my favorite people on earth, my Dad. We decided to catch a movie and arrived ridiculously early. Really that just meant there was more time to eat popcorn. While we waited there was a movie quiz stuff interspersed with some seemingly innocuous pre-trailer commercials, one of which was a music video from Kid Rock. Well actually it was a little more than a music video, really it was a National Guard propaganda film masquerading as a music video.

So there is Kid Rock: cue the sexy baseline and the electric guitar. And in roll the US tanks across a dusty middle eastern country. Lyrics begin with: "Now don't tell me whose wrong or right when liberty starts slipping away... And if you ain't gonna fight, get out of the way. 'Cause freedom makes us free when you're breathing red white and blue. I'm giving all of myself, how 'bout you? And they call me warrior. They call me Loyalty. They call me ready to provide the need, the help, wherever you need me to be. I'm an American Warrior. Huh! I'm an American Warrior, Citizen Solidier...." And it goes on, all of this is interspersed with images of the National guard blowing up buildings, rescuing a soccer ball from being squashed by a tank, building a damn, racing cars, and I don't know, whatever glamorous patriot crap you might happen to be doing in the National Guard. I had a moment akin to slack jawed amazement. No we don't live in a country where if you sit during the national anthem, you are sent to jail, but apparently we do live in a country that says you aren't a patriot unless you agree with government and immediately enlist in the National Guard.

I mean let's not question whose wrong or right when liberty is at stake, let's just get out the machine guns and blow up some foreigners. Sometimes I feel such a deep shame to call this my country. Oh land of the free, where we are free to be bigoted and ignorant, where we are free to promote mindless propaganda that some poor misguided innocent might end up buying into...but let's talk about the reality....how many soldier have died in this bullshit war? How many innocent Iraqis have died in this bullshit war? So let's talk about patriotism. In one country you could go to jail for not standing for the national anthem, in this country you could die for actually buying into the propaganda of what is now considered patriotism. I implore you to think again. One of our few remaining liberties is our freedom to disagree, our freedom to call bullshit out for what it is, and to create our own working definitions of patriotism. Perhaps more than freedom, we have a responsibility...a duty, as real Americans to not take on blind faith that what our government is doing is right or something to be agreed to without question.

Soy una maestra...scary huh?

Friday was my first teacher's in-service day. I used to love in-service days when I was a kid because it meant there was no school...well now I am a teacher, and there actually is school. Such is my life. If it's true that what you resist you become, then my entire career is the fruit of karmic retribution. I loved school, until about the third grade, then I was just over it. Despite going to college and even eventually (under duress) graduate school, I would still put going to school on par with cleaning the bathroom...a necessary evil, but nowhere near as fun as sex, liquor, and salsa dancing and certainly not something I want to get stuck doing for the rest of my life.

I digress. Now, I am a teacher. When people ask me what I do for a living that is the answer I give (the whole writing and art thing are central to how I think about myself, but lets face it, teaching is the money making thing I do). I spend a great deal of time lesson planning or actually being in the classroom, and yet sometimes I have to admit, this all feels like some big practical joke. I mean it at least made some kind of sense when I was an English teacher. I know English. And when you are in countries where English isn't the #1 language, even if you didn't graduate high school, you can still claim some kind of expertise by being a native speaker.

I do speak Spanish. My Spanish is much better than my Japanese. I communicate and people understand me. I can even tell jokes. It's true, I did spend close to 10 years studying Spanish, including one and half years spent living in Spain and Chile respectively. But when I was learning how to order a mojito and the most colorful way to tell someone to go fuck themselves, I wasn't really thinking about how I would teach these particularly important phrases to others....which is actually good, because I can't really teach any of that to my fourth and fifth graders. Sometimes I feel like a big phony. I'm doing my best, but there is so much I don't know. I still mess up the gender of things. I mean why is table feminine and pencil masculine? It all seems kind of arbitrary.

And then there is the whole Spanish teacher thing. All the Spanish teacher I had were really kind of strange people. There was the one that called herself "La Bruja" (the witch) and screamed "Ingles es kaka" every time she caught us using English. I had Spanish teachers who made us wear costumes or squirted us with water bottles. I always kind of thought that you had to be kind of crazy to be a Spanish teacher, or at least very dramatic (melodramatic).

This weekend the other Spanish teacher at my school (we'll call her Sra. C because she comes from Colombia-el pais, no la universidad) and I attended the WAFLT/ COFLT conference in Vancouver, Wa. WAFLT stands for Washington Association of Foreign Language Teachers. COFLT is the Oregon acronymn. Sra. C and I spent a lovely 5 hours on the train getting to know each other....no sarcasm implied. Yes, the train ride was freakishly long, but she is just super cool. I am so glad we got to kick it. Once there, we spent 2 days in session after session all about how to teach a language.

Stupid joke repeated throughout the conference: What do you call someone who speaks 2 languages : Bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks 3 languages? trilingual. What do call someone who speaks one language? American.

When I survived my demo lesson and my all Spanish interview last year and actually got this job, I thought "Hey, maybe I can do this after all." I mean I still had some insecurities, but then I got into the classroom and realized that while I might not be the Goddess of Spanish, I certainly know more than a fourth grader. Moreover I remembered how much I like teaching....being at school is way more fun when you're not the student.

At the conference I learned a lot. I have a whole list of new activities, dances, songs, and games I want to try out. In that sense it was great. I also got to meet a lot of other teachers.


Top 5 things Spanish teachers like:
Speaking in Spanish (even when they speak with Oregon accents)
colorful scarves
coffee
making their students do embarrassing dances
sombreros

Many of the teachers I met have been teaching longer than I've been alive (literally). While it was cool to pick their brains, it was also totally intimidating. Also, the majority of the seminars were all in Spanish. There was one put on by two amazing ladies from the UW all about dichos (expressions) in Castillano...the Spanish of Spain, vs. the Spanish of Mexico. This was really interesting, but out of the 20 or so examples the put up, I only knew two. How is that possible? I still have so much to learn. If this is really what I'm going to do as a job, I know it is my responsibility to get more information, but God knows I really don't want to go back to school. :(

My temporary solution is Mexico. Yup, I am applying for a grant and headed to Mexico this summer for an advanced course in Spanish and Spanish teaching pedagogy. If I have to go to school, at least it should be somewhere hot.

Weekend with the Ladies and Henry

Last weekend Shoshana, Coco, Mz. Blu, Greta, and set off for some rest and chillaxation at Greta's grandma's house in Snoqualmie.I don't know what I enjoy more, leaving the city and feeling the excitement of escaping my everyday life, or coming back to city and getting to sleep in my own bed. Greta's grandma is lovely lady and owner of a very comical white french bulldog named Henry. I am not much for animals. Contrary to popular belief, I never had any really negative animal experiences, other than living with Jupiter, the cat from hell, getting thrown from a horse twice and getting pissed on by a rabbit sometime during Kindergarten. I just never had a pet, so animals, to me are kind of like other people's children, not my responsibility, and something that should refrain from licking or jumping on me. Henry in definitely a jumper, but there is still something really endearing about him.Mz. Blu, adores small dogs, so she spent her entire weekend alternating between playing with Henry and trying to get him to jump on me (thank for that).

But that aside, it was really awesome to just hang out. Coco couldn't join us until Saturday, so the rest of us had a leisurely dinner at Yanni's, a fabulous Greek place not too far from my house. Then we drove to Snoqualmie and made it in time to see the second showing of the debates. I worked on some painting and we all just drank tea and chatted. The next day Greta and I were the first up so we ran some errands and ended up taking a moment to get some pedicures. By the time we got back the other women were awake and Coco had arrived, so after a nice brunch of grilled cheese and tomato soup, we broke out the canvasses and started to paint.

Like me, most of my friends were discouraged from painting. I remember one of the art teachers I had when I lived in Colorado made some sarcastic comment about drawing just not being one of my gifts. Well, like most of the teachers at that school, she was wrong. Maybe she wasn't entirely wrong about me lacking perspective...but she was wrong in that she had no right to assume that she could measure my potential aptitude. Thankfully I ignored her. As we sat around the table there were lots of "What should I paint?" and "I can't do this, I suck at art". And then eventually everyone just shut up and sat down and produced some fabulous paintings. It felt good to be a part of the process of watching my friends change their beliefs about themselves. Maybe they still don't think they are fabulous artists, but they lost some of their fear of trying. I think that's what it's all about. These wonderful people come into my life. They each have their gifts or special things about them and part of our friendship becomes nurturing that light in one another.

God I think this church is really turning me into a sap. The long and short of it is that the weekend was fabulous. It was a great chance to rest and renew and to reconnect with some very special people in my life. Thanks Greta for being a fabulous hostess.