So I'm a celebrity, or at least I feel like one. Every day countless children between the ages of 7 and 16 yell my name across the school yard. On Mondays and Thursdays, I don't have classes until 11:10 am, so I don't arrive at school until approximately 11 am, which is the middle of recreo (recess). In order to get inside of the school, I have to walk about 100 yards through the school yard to get inside the building (aka into safety). As soon as I enter the gates, I hear children yelling, "Derik, Hello!" "Hola, Derik!" "Hello Derek, How are you?" Some run up from across the yard to ask me questions, "Derik, sabes español?" [Derek, do you know Spanish?] I would estimate that on each stroll through the school yard, I hear the word "Hello" (or a variant) between 20 and 50 times. Sometimes the students actually want to attempt talking with me (in English, they don't know that I know Spanish). It usually takes a group of 5 students to ask a single question. One ask the question in Spanish, and the other 4 attempt to translate into English. Then, they all construct it into English as a team.
I walk out of the door to walk to lunch, and of course all of the students are lined up outside of the door I leave through to wait for lunch. As soon as one student yells to me, they all start yelling and some even screaming. I legitimately feel like a celebrity. I shield my face from the "paparazzi." Whenever I am with the teachers going to lunch they laugh at me and say, "You are a movie star."
Every day countless children comment on what I'm wearing (grammatical mistakes intended):
"Derik, why do you wear always jeans?"
"Derik, what do your trainers [British for sneakers] say on the... the... atrás [spanish for back]?"
"It is true that it have your name?"
"Derik, do you put blue clothing every day?"
At first, it seemed cute. These kids notice and appreciate what I'm wearing. However I may dress, the kids always think I look cool and tell me they like what I'm wearing. Some of my students asked me for the website, so that they too can get customized sneakers with their names on the back. I guess that's what people do with celebrities. They see what they wear; then, they imitate it to the best of their abilities because they think that it looks cool. Right now, to some of the students, I am the pinnacle of style. Little do they know that I only wore 1 pair of jeans, 3 pairs of underwear, 2 pairs of socks, and 3 shirts last week because I did not have time to do laundry. (Hey, don't judge me. I doubt Britney Spears wears clean clothes.)
I now have a greater understanding and insight into the lives of celebrities. Sometimes I feel like I need a break. Life in the spotlight is rough, but someone's gotta do it, and I secretly enjoy it. For this reason, it's going to be difficult going back home and being a "normal person." Also, sorry for the lack of pictures to accompany the posts; I can't find my camera chord. I'll need to buy a new one I suppose. I should also point out that because of my students' plentiful grammatical mishaps, certain grammatical mistakes now sound correct to me. The following no longer sound too bad to my tainted ears:
"I am have a bad day."
"You go to home now?"
"He has 12 years old."
"Yesterday, my mother and father was eating dinner, and I was cooking it."
"On Halloween, I was going trick-or-treat with my free-end (friends with a Spanish accent)."
And to leave you with, a quote from a dialogue from my 2nd grade class (all should be pronounced in an extremely british accent):
"May I borrow a rubber?"
"Yes, here you are."
"Thank you!"
It's super awkward when my young students ask me for a rubber because they learn that a pencil eraser is a rubber, not an eraser. That initially caused some awkwardness. Pues, hasta ahora!
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