great googly moogly

In my afternoon computer class we're continuing to focus on Internet research. After more or less completing last week's dictionary worksheet (you know, the one where words were frequently defined as "noun" or "verb"), we've been working on an Internet scavenger hunt using Google. By the way, Dominicans (and I suppose all Spanish-speakers) pronounce "Google" as "Googly." And they have no idea what I'm talking about if I say "Google," so I'm always like, "So, let's go to Google... (blank looks) sorry, I mean, Googly." This cracks me up. Also, like 5/6s of the sounds are the same between "Google" and "Googly" so you'd think they'd figure it out. But no.

Anyway, here are some highlights of student answers to the scavenger hunt, translated to English for your convenience.

What is the capital of India?
Wikipedia

What is the population of China?
2008

What is a traditional African food?
food

What is a type of traditional Japanese theater?*
Japan

Find a photo of traditional Mexican clothing.


(I mean, yes, technically this is Mexican clothing, but seriously... you couldn't find a PHOTO? No, you can't, if your entire Internet strategy involves clicking on the very first thing that comes up. And also if rather than use Google Images [I mean Googly Images], you type "Find a photo of traditional Mexican clothing" into Googly.)

* "What's your favorite kind of Japanese theater?"
"Noh theater."
"You don't like any Japanese theater?"

more tales from this dominican life

Thank God it's viernes! A few anecdotes for you:

• Yesterday I introduced my classes to the online multilingual dictionary WordReference.com. I gave them a worksheet with some English words and some Spanish words and asked them to find the word in the opposite language. This activity was a little bit high-level for a lot of the kids, who just haven't been taught many reading comprehension skills. So I'd look at the worksheet and see that kids had defined words as "verbo" or "sustantivo" (noun). But my favorite was one student who defined "reirse," which means "to laugh," as "to laugh at grammar." Wouldn't it be great if English specifically had a verb that meant "to laugh at grammar"? I would use that verb all the time. I bet German has a word for it.
  
• The standard demand in my computer classes is "Juegos! Juegos! JUEGOS!" (Games!) The kids want to play computer games. Understandable, but whenever I give them a little free time to play games, it turns out... they don't really know how to play computer games. So they call me over to show them how to play whatever Flash game they have encountered--assuming, naturally, that I automatically know the rules to every single Flash game on the Internet. Usually I can figure it out, and then they don't even want to play the game. They want to watch me play the game. So I have 10 kids all going, "Sssst! Profe! Sssst!" urgently calling me over to play Internet games for them. Which, I mean... there are worse jobs.
  
• DREAM has a pretty good database of all its past and present students, often including observations from teachers and parents. Today I looked up a student and saw that under "Parental comments" it said "He is not good at anything." WOW. I called everyone else in the office over to look because I thought it was so hilarious. And so sad. And also, can you ever in a million years imagine an American parent telling their child's teacher, "Oh yeah, he's not good at anything"? I mean, there's a good chance that the Dominican parent honestly meant for "he's not good at anything" to be a helpful comment. Like, he should take all the classes... because he's not good at anything.
  
• I realized I never really updated my blog about my health--I'm totally fine after my week of near-constant sleep. However, I'm bitterly disappointed that my diagnosis was "a dengue-like viral infection." Come onnnn, I couldn't have gotten regular dengue? I had all the symptoms, but now I don't get the badass points of being able to say "Yeah, I had dengue fever. No big deal." "I had a dengue-like viral infection"? LAME. I also technically can't say for certain that I had a parasite. "I had a long-running stomach ailment that resolved itself after I started taking anti-parasite medication, but I didn't go in for a stool sample so I can't conclusively state that I had a parasite." All I wanted from my Peace Corps experience was one impressive-sounding tropical ailment. Is that so much to ask?
  
• Also, the electricity situation has been better. I opened my milk box and it hasn't gone bad yet, hooray! Next to the fridge, I did discover a banana that I left at my house the entire week I was gone being sick. It was basically liquid, but strangely didn't smell bad or have any flies or ants on it. (It was in a plastic bag, but that doesn't necessarily keep bugs out in this climate.) Interesting. I wonder how long I could potentially have rotten fruit in my house before I would notice.
  

i don't even know, you guys

Remember a few weeks ago when I posted about a student's email to me? It was very sweet and high-level.

Today I received an eCard from the same student, which I'm choosing to share with everyone because it is amazing. Haga clic aqui.

I really recommend that you follow the link, since the image and formatting are also key, but in case you don't have that kind of time I'm going to archive the text of the card here.

my best teacher Renata S-

Hi teacher
how are you today? i hope you are doing very good.I am your student Anderson I send you this flower just to prove you how i appreciate the manner you teach me and sincerly i am very flattered that i have some one so special like you as my teacher .iwant to ask you this question but i would like you answer me about it:can you give me permit to be your friend ?i hope fully you will let me hear from you very soon.take care of your self and i wish you a perfect time here in Dominican Republic.
your student Anderson
Your sweet student Anderson

Also, a quick GChat my friend Keane & I had on the subject:

Keane: WOWWWWWW
Keane: POST THAT AS YOUR AWAY MESSAGE
Me: i just wish that the image was actually the cover of twilight like i thought it was at first
Keane: it's so deep
Keane: so are you going to be friends with him?
Keane: he wants your permit.
Me: i think i'll give him a learner's permit to start

It's such a fine line between "sweet" and "a little creepy." But I'm going to just go ahead and give him props for the effort. And the correct spelling of my email address. Peace Corps is truly offering me the opportunity to be an agent of change in the Dominican Republic.

out of the sickbed, into the fire

Not really a fire, just back to Cabarete, which is swelteringly hot. And I think I've had about half an hour of electricity since I got back on Saturday night. It was from 8:30am-9am today.

The main reason this is annoying is that my milk goes bad. Dominican standards for milk are different from in the US. Here, whole milk is the norm. You can buy whole milk in little juice-box sized boxes. This way, you can probably use it all in one day before it goes bad. But whole milk is gross.

You can buy 1% milk at the big grocery store, but it is only available in big boxes. I think they are a liter or something. Anyway. When the electricity is being normal (a few hours on, a few hours off) you can buy a big box of milk and it will probably be okay.

These boxes (of all milk, not just the 1%) are hermetically sealed so they don't go bad. So right now I have an unopened box of milk in my fridge. I am afraid to open it because I don't know when the luz will come back and I don't want to waste a 45-peso big box of milk.

In summation: life is hard!! Wah!!

But on the bright side... I'm feeling better! I got out of my medically-mandated hotel room! Hooray!

looking on the bright side of things

I was going to write some kind of funny blog entry about how I've been sick for the last four days but actually I'm just pretty tired. Yesterday I came into the capital to see the doctor. We're waiting on some bloodwork to come back to make sure I don't have anything too weird like dengue. Mainly I've been sleeping a lot and only occasionally surfacing to eat crackers and watch reality televsion.

But on the bright side, at least I didn't get tuberculosis* like a friend of mine did! He's in quarantine for like three weeks now. We've decided that he should release an emo album based on the experience entitled Within the Quarantine of my Soul. It will include tracks like "The Empty Calcified Pocket in my Lungs... and Heart" and "I Miss You Like I Miss Not Coughing." Trust me, TB is going to be the next big thing.

* You might be thinking, "I didn't even know people got TB anymore!" Well, they do, but it's pretty rare in developed nations. He'll be fine, though, he's getting antibiotics. And is in quarantine.

haga clic. haga clic. haga clic. jesus christ, DIJE HAGA CLIC.

The above was pretty much what I was chanting all day today and yesterday as I tried to coach kids through creating email accounts. I realized that I waaay overestimated these kids' skill level. They are extreme beginners, although they are very enthusiastic. Also, the Dominican school system does not emphasize creativity, but rather rote memorization. So, for example, when I was trying to explain the concept of a "user name" I said that usually people do something like their name plus a number or a nickname. Then I said, for example, my email could be "Renata50 at gmail.com". Then I walked around and realized that half the students were trying to register the account "Renata50@gmail". Not quite, guys. The other half put "Cabarete, Callejon de La Loma" for "desired address."

Anyway, as if this weren't complicated enough, our Internet kept cutting in and out and resetting everyone's work. And then Gmail decided that we had registered enough accounts for one day, thank you very much.

BUT ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, one of the few students who successfully created an account sent me an email to practice his English, and it reads as follows:

Subject: Saluting
Hi Teacher

How are you ? i hope you are very fine.My name is Anderson , i am a student at dream Project .i am 22 years old ,i am intersting very much for the manner you teach me and sincerly i appreciate the computer class so much , i hope fully that i will have a good experience with you at the computer.take care of yourself and God bless you.

your studant Anderson

So, you know... could be worse.

a brief interlude from peace corps stories

Advise me on my grad school/GRE dilemma, blog readers!

The gist of the dilemma is: Waaah I'm lazy and I don't want to take the GRE. Should I suck it up and do it anyway?

The deets: I am applying for library/information science masters programs. My top two schools, U of Illinois & U Wisconsin (Madison) do not require the GRE. U Iowa and U Washington, which are my... third and fourth choices I guess, DO require the GRE. U ILL says a good GRE score can help an application. U Wisconsin doesn't consider the GRE (right on).

It is possible to take the GRE in the DR, but it's kind of a pain. And expensive. And also I don't want to study for it.

I think I am probably already a pretty good applicant without the GRE. I also think if I suck it up and study I could probably get a pretty good score normally. I have also been having these anxiety problems lately so maybe I would actually just tweak out about it too much. I'm not sure.

Also, if I don't take the GRE it looks like I'm only going to apply to two grad schools. Is that okay? I don't want to flip out and apply to a billion schools or anything, but should I apply to more?

Any input would be appreciated!