Update for Everyone IV - Hungover

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Those on AAD know my stories, but for make benefit great Atlas forum, here is a brief update on my whereabouts.

Today is my last day as an English teacher in a public primary school (g. 1-5) in Playa del Carmen, Mexico after five months. It has been a remarkable experience, honestly - despite all the sh**t which has happened.

The program, founded by a American émigré, brings down native speakers to teach English in the public schools here. In public, for the crowds, it is a program beneficial to all parties and it is truly fantastic. In reality, the program is a fascinating but dirty mix of money, politics and sex. I don't know all the details, but it's no exaggeration to say that this program only exists because its founder loves money and knows the local politicians, who are happy to use here (she's not a very intelligent person, so I think she's deluding herself into thinking that she has the upper hand in that relationship). Because she's a very unpleasant person and a pathological liar, she treats her interns like sh**t (giving us sh**t pay, sh**t working conditions and sh**t assistance) and in reality cares very very little about the program (usually appearing once a month to keep up appearances). She is a cross between Regina George and Mona-Lisa Saperstein.

For us, to make matters worse, her program expanded to Playa del Carmen just this year, so the conditions are even worse than they are where the program is based (Isla Mujeres). I was a late hire to replace one of three interns who quit on her/got fired within a week or two. With basically no training, I was thrown into the classroom with no idea of what to expect.

Within 3 weeks of arriving, my two initial roommates either got fired or quit, so I was left alone in a house which lacked wifi (another of her lies). One long weekend, I was without electricity because she had forgotten to pay the bill. That was fun. Nevertheless, I believe my boss was worried that I would quit as well following The Power Incident, so I was 'pampered' by moving up a pay grade (to 'coordinator' pay, despite 'coordinating' only myself for a month) and ultimately getting internet installed (the other house never got it). She recently told me that I was her best intern, voted as 'the most proactive' (proactive because I hate waiting on flaky untrustworthy people to do sh**t I can ultimately do myself, even if I'm not responsible for them - i.e. the internet installation). Still, after the 2 interns quit in mid-February, my boss basically went AWOL for a good two months, only to reappear disinterestedly and intermittently since).

Thankfully, the work I did became increasingly rewarding and enriching for me as a person, as I got a real connection with all my students. Five of my twelve classes were grade one, the toughest age to teach a foreign language to, and I dreaded them back in February but now they're the ones I'm gonna miss the most. I am proud of the work I did, and I leave with a genuine feeling that I made a positive impact on over 400 young Mexican children's lives. Today is my last day at school, and I am dreading the painful goodbyes to all my students. The students, in all grades (even the 'tough guys' in the older grades) have been expressing how much they enjoyed English, how much they liked me (I am 'the best teacher in the world') and how much they're going to miss me.

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I'm loving a hurricane which shares my last name.

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I led my first discussion group as a TA today. Incidentally, it's the first time I've been in charge of a classroom where everybody speaks English.

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I'm up to two discussion groups under my belt as TA and it's going quite fine, the topics are interesting and I can get good discussion going. I also completed 5 hours (officially) of paid 'compliance training', which is as boring as it sounds, yes. I learned that it's apparently not a good idea to throw books at people - who'd a thought? But I got money from it, so ha.

I had an awkward moment where I saw somebody I knew, but really didn't want to even make eye contact with her (because I dislike her), but I have found out that this attempt failed.

I'm considering self-publishing one of my terrible verbose treatises in a few months and try to make some money off of it (ha!). Good idea?

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On the topic of TAing, I'm receiving my first student essays today (about 40 of them). Wish me luck.

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A girl in one of my TA groups appears, in my opinion, to have the hots for me. Granted I'm terrible at gauging this stuff. It's weird 😐

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A girl in one of my TA groups appears, in my opinion, to have the hots for me. Granted I'm terrible at gauging this stuff. It's weird 😐

She, uh, probably has the hots for your ability to control her grade.

You'd think that's it, but given that she hasn't submitted her first assignment yet, it's hard to tell.

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A girl in one of my TA groups appears, in my opinion, to have the hots for me. Granted I'm terrible at gauging this stuff. It's weird 😐

this continued, she seemed flirtatious during the midterm yesterday. rather funny

also regaled one of my groups with my tales of the legendary Kristen, for no good reason

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Currently grading my students' midterms. 56 down, 100 or so to go.

This is hell.

141 down. 24 left for tomorrow. Still have all the other stuff to get done this week. Ugh.

Yes, same here. I just graded my load of 40ish midterms. My main takeaway is that the results were absolutely brutal, a bloodbath - over half the students in both classes failed (less than 50%) and the best group's class average was barely a D. To make matters worse, I was rather generous in my grading, seeking to maximize their grade. Just 7 out of like 37 students got over a 10 (/15) grade (I am really not surprised these students did well). They're very lucky that I was overly generous in grading their papers a few weeks ago and that they'll probably get the bulk of their 25% participation mark by just continuing to show up and not saying huevonadas in my groups.

I haven't seen anything this bad since a midterm in a class of dumb Colombian first years last spring, but at least they had the excuse of not speaking English (although given a few of the midterms here, seems like a few of mine don't speak English either).

Not good!*

* The girl who got the best grade (14/15) is some contrarian leftish who plays devil's advocate for TRUMP

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Thankfully my students knew that they were going to fail, and I'll shoo them off with the suggestion that they pester the prof instead (besides I can't answer their inevitable questions about the "bell curve")

if that doesn't work, i'm willing to drop a "be thankful you have electricity unlike certain schools"

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this guy is a Mexican state governor and he is my new hero

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this guy is a Mexican state governor and he is my new hero

You've never seen a Mexican guy in a cowboy hat?

Not in official government promotional videos, no.