New Job!

I started Job numero dos today.

I should really start learning to speak Spanish.

My second job is a tutor position for Northfield Public Schools. Monday and Tuesday mornings I go to Greenvale Park Elementary and tutor 3rd and 2nd graders in math. The Monday class, the 3rd graders, is a Compenearos class, which means it's a Spanish immersion class. Language arts are taught in English, but science, math, social studies are all taught in Spanish. Ergo, I must learn to say 'Cinco mas tres son ocho.' Except, the 3rd graders are learning long addition and subtraction, time changes, and will start to learn their multiplication tables this year. I've already exhausted the extent of my math in Spanish with simple addition. I don't remember how to count above 10. I don't know how to say 'minus' or 'times.' I do know how to say 'Que hora?' in my broken Spanish so they can tell me what time it is on the paper. Hopefully I'll pick it up pretty quickly. Or at least have the 3rd graders help me interpret. Or the teacher, as he speaks English just as much as he speaks Spanish, but he is supposed to speak more and more Spanish as the year progresses.

Luckily, my other classes are not taught mostly in Spanish. My 2nd grade math is taught in English. My 6-8th grade learning disabilities math is taught in English. The after-school homework help is taught in English, unless the student I am working with needs language help or has poor English skills.

In other news, I kind of want a wheelbarrow. I don't need it yet (not til this summer maybe, if even then), but it would be pretty fun. I'd be like Nicole on ANTM who used to bring a rusty wheelbarrow to school instead of a backpack.

A Lack of Language

I wish I spoke Spanish. At home, there were very very few people who spoke Spanish as their first language. If I heard it, it was a high school student speaking it to their friends with an atrocious accent. Ergo, I chose to learn French in school.

I wish I had taken both. I am glad I know some French, but 90% of my neighbors and many of my coworkers speak Spanish as their first language. Most speak English well, but prefer to speak in Spanish. Much of the time, I can hear their conversations that they have outside because my windows are open. The only people I can understand are the two girls who play double dutch in the parking lot, because their chant is in English.

One of them was very upset today, though. I would put her at 11 or 12 (that age...). I was coming back upstairs from bringing out the recycling and she came down the stairs sobbing with a bag of garbage. I'm guessing she didn't want to take it out and her mom made her. She rushed by so fast, I didn't get a chance to ask if she was all right. She's the oldest of three kids, from what I can tell. I think they live with their grandma?

I should probably just talk to them when I see them. Haha. I am sounding like a creep-o. I'm really not, I swear. If I was, I'd know where the cute man lives. I've only seen him in the laundry room.