Friday, January 30, 2009

I really really want to be totally totally outrageous

Coach Tino watching one of the boys hit a loop...



This gal, Alex, is my mentee. Tracy d'Arbeloff is my other mentee....she took this photo

Am I driving the students crazy in my classes? All I want to talk about is words, language, spaces on the page, words, language, words, words.....I like talking about literature more than I ever even thought. I could sit on the picnic table by the river under the volcano and talk about it for hours and hours....but are they listening? what can keep them engaged? am I talking like a crazy person? If they walk away with just one sentence...is it enough...


the rivers are clear, warm, you can sit in the eddy and just look down and see a moonscape. We are a herd of technicolored duckinglings in the river....the hole we play on trashes me every single time I get in it....but the kids are nice here, they tell me with great patience how to stay upright for just a second longer....how to hold an edge....they're 14, rockstar kayakers, world champions and good teachers. Good teachers, most of them....

Sleep, so far, not much. the crazy dogs bark all night long. Matias tries to chase them away on all fours but they come back....keep coming back....nights are short, daylight till late, I wake up in sweat in the middle of the night....in an hour we are running the upper Trancura....my first river run (the other four days have been playing) and I have too many thoughts. I try and teach the students organization of thought and its importance but I can't seem to get my mind to slow down enough right now, the Chilean coffee is jetfuel and I'm running out of time, have to go catch a bus...

1 comment:

Sabertoothali said...

You totally totally stole my line! I am sure you are the best english teacher they have ever had.