Steves

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One night last week, I met a former co-worker for drinks. She now works at a different international school, and she was with a few of her current co-workers, and even though I'm trying to avoid hanging out only with other gringos, it was nice to relax and not have to concentrate really really really hard on every word being said.

Anyway, one of these new friends, Tom, told me that he plays basketball regularly with some other teachers. I asked him if I could join in, and he wasn't sure, because it's actually a league, rather than just regular pick-up ball, as I had originally assumed.

On Saturday, I went to a party hosted by another teacher at this other school, which is called Karl C. Parrish. I met a lot more gringos (the teaching staff of Parrish is nearly half North American, as opposed to my school, which has 3 of us), including a couple more members of the basketball team. They told me a bit about the league, and related some fun basketball stories, including one about an interesting character named Steve. Steve, I gleaned, is your traditional nicest-guy-ever-but-incredibly-intense-when-playing-sports. Not to the point of being a jerk, just hyper-competitive. Apparently, you can't tell Steve to calm down, because his response will be (with crazy eyes): "I am calm."

Anyway, I got to experience the legend of Steve first-hand last night, because one of the bball party-goers had been the captain, and he got me onto the team no problem. The descriptions of Steve proved accurate. The best Steve moment was when he was on the bench and an opposing team member was standing close by, waiting for the play to start, and Steve remarked very calmly: "what, are you gonna shoot? you could build a chimney with all the bricks you're putting up" despite the fact that the other team was all Colombian and didn't speak English. Just the Steve way, I guess.

Later on, I was chatting with another team member, Joe. Joe told me he was from Minnesota, and then asked me something like "so, where are you from, Steve?" It threw me off for a second, but then I remembered: in order to get me on the team, they had to claim I was someone else, someone who works at Parrish, I guess. So, on the team, I'm Steve #2. We'll see if I inherit any of the traditional Steve traits.

The Number Two

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The end of the trimester is approaching rapidly at school. Trimester exams start on Friday and run through next Friday. The math exams are on Monday, so I spent the weekend making the two that I had to make (grade 7 and 8). And then, yesterday, I made the study guides for my classes. I printed them off today, and before lunch, during one of my breaks, I looked around for each of my 4 classes to get the study guides in their hands as soon as possible. In the last class I visited, I asked one of my students to bring me the extra copies. She did just that - she found me in the hall right after lunch started as I was on my way to the bathroom and handed a few extra copies to me.

Wow, today's blog entry is just fascinating, ain't it?

Anyway, then I was in the bathroom. (this is only getting better.) I did my business, which in this case was of the prolonged type, as the title suggests. I looked around. There was no toilet paper. I checked the paper towel dispenser - there was nothing there either. So I panicked. This was a single bathroom - no other stalls I could quickly move to. I thought about the possibility of walking extremely carefully to the closest bathroom, but it was a floor down, and a bit of a hike, and I really didn't want to go that route.

Then, I looked behind me and saw the study guides that I had just been given.

Right, so you fill in the rest of the details.

Minca in 10 Pictures

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So I never really got around to blogging about my trip to Minka a couple weekends ago, even though I wrote a whole preview about it. I dunno, I think it was just a little daunting after setting the precedent of a whole week of blogging from my first weekend getaway to Taganga. Anyway, I thought I'd just pick 10 of my favourite pictures to semi-illustrate the story.

(for more on the Minka trip, check out K's coverage!)

We met a Colombian family at a coffee shop in Minca, and they offered us a ride much higher up into the mountains. I had a huge ass-bruise the next day.

I got a lot of great animal shots on the Taganga trip, but this was the only really good one this time around.

High up in the mountains there was a bird reserve. We saw this guy right after entering, which seemed promising, and then barely saw any more for the next 2 hours.

For mom and dad.

Cool mountain house.

Cool mountain mist.

A domesticated monkey. The funniest was when the father of the family we met was playing with it, the little girl of 2 or 3 was delighted, except when it came to close to her, and she burst into tears. This happened on an alternating basis for quite a while.

Cool mountain river.

Dude we found hanging out in our cabana the first night we stayed in Minca.

This is Chuzo, a popular dish around here. What you see are tiny crispy potato shavings, kind of like hickory sticks, covered with a couple of mayo-y sauces. Underneath lies pieces of yuca, a root that's kind of bland on its own, but provides a nice comic foil to the chorizo sausage (it can also come with chicken, beef or any combination of those 3 meats), lettuce and a ton of grated cheese. I actually think it's too much cheese, and next time I stop by my local food stand I'll ask them to hold back. (this picture has nothing to do with Minca, just thought I'd throw it up. The picture, not the food)

Watching the World Series

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So, yeah, I know, I haven't posted anything in about 2 weeks. It's not that I haven't written anything - I've started several posts only to get stuck about halfway through. I think maybe I'll start posting shorter entries to keep myself motivated, since 2 or 3 paragraph snippets are much easier to whip off in a few minutes. I'm sure you guys won't mind losing some of my long-windedness.

Anyway, something that occurred to me as I'm sitting here watching the World Series: there are many ways to follow a baseball game. You can watch on TV, listen on the radio, or follow on the Internet by following someone's live-blog, or using one of the real-time graphical interfaces like the one on mlb.com. You can combine media to make it more complicated, too - personally, I've watched the game on TV, muted the sound, and turned on the radio, since the Blue Jays' radio broadcasters are great. I've also listened to radio broadcasts over the web while loading up one of the real-time GUIs to get a bit of a visual. Here's another one: I've followed games by constantly texting friends who were watching the games. (it's also possible to text a service that sends you an automated update.) The possibilities are endless.

But I think I've hit upon a new one. I'm following the World Series in a way that baseball might never have been followed before. Here's how it works: I'm watching on TV, but the broadcast is in Spanish, so in order to get some analysis, I'm constantly checking Twitter for updates from the 4 or 5 baseball writers I follow who are tweeting about the game. I call it: "twatching". No, never mind, that's not what I call it, that's terrible, sorry.

(Colombian) Kids Say the Darndest Things, Part 4

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Before you read this, check out (Colombian) Kids Say the Darndest Things Parts 1, 2 and 3!

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One day, my class entered while I was listening to music. Specifically, I was listening to Stevie Wonder, so, predictably, the grade 7 boys told me that "this music sucks mister, you should listen to Guns n Roses and ACDC and Green Day and" etc. I told them that I do, in fact, have some Green Day on my computer, to which one of them began to guess which songs I have. "Do you have American Idiot?" "No." "Do you have Holiday?" "No."

And then came this gem:

"Do you have Basketball Case?"

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There's a school science fair coming up, and one day as I was wandering through the hall I encountered 2 of my grade 8's surrounded by a stack of papers, furiously working away on laptops. Wondering what they were doing in the hall during class, I approached and asked what was up. They told me they were working on their science fair project, which was studying the effect of listening to music on concentration. This involved having other students do short math tests while listening to different types of music. Straightforward enough.

Except that one of the types of music they mentioned was death metal, and the student who was finishing up as I approached was a cute little grade 4 girl. I found this hilarious.

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I need to tell you about S. He's a student in grade 8, and I think the best way to describe him is that he seems like he's high all the time, in a dazed, forgetful sort of way. It's not that he seems dumb - and he's not - he just seems like he's having one of those days. All the time. I'm not exaggerating when I say that he forgets his glasses at LEAST 50% of the time, and when this happens, he moves his desk to be about 3 feet in front of the board, so that I'm basically running into him when I try to teach. His notebook is incredibly disorganized, he's always finding stuff he thought he had lost 2 months ago, etc. etc. But somehow his disorganization isn't frustrating, just kind of hilarious.

Anyway, suffice it to say he's one of my more entertaining students. Never was this more evident than during our most recent test, when he inexplicably started dancing in his seat about 5 minutes into the test, and basically didn't stop for the whole hour and a half (sometimes out of his seat too). He kept raising his hand as if he had a test question, and then asked me if I liked his dancing. And then when he really did have a question, he sang it, and I had no idea what the hell he was talking about.

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I've started to really enjoy tests in this particular class. Not because I don't have to expend all kinds of energy explaining stuff and keeping the class focused (though I like that part too), but because both times we've had a test, I dunno, I just feel like we've really come together as a family! For example: during the first test, this annoying bird kept buhkawing or whatever sound it made, and we couldn't close the window because that was one of the days the school lost power. So I went over to the window and gave a curt "ssh!", which apparently worked. The class uniformly thought this was the funniest thing in the world, and was a welcome break in the 90 minute long test (that's a friggin' long test for grade 8s).

A similar thing happened during our recent test. I guess there's a virus going around, because a lot of people were sniffling, and about halfway through the test, the collective sniffling got so frequent that it prompted one non-sniffler to address the class out loud, begging with everyone else to shut up. Of course, this only made things worse, as a number of non-snifflers decided to join in to make it more of a thing. A low murmur began to permeate the room as the chorus of snifflers grew ever louder and sillier. Finally, the dam burst with its logical conclusion - a full-on sneeze, precisely timed to cause the class to erupt in raucous laughter the likes of which hadn't been heard since the bird incident.

It was bound to happen - it had to happen. The sneeze was the only way it could have gone. I had even considered throwing a sneeze out there myself. But it became obvious soon after, when the sneezer followed up with 2 or 3 more, that these were real sneezes. Maybe it was just a coincidence, or maybe the escalating Sounds of Sickness had triggered something. Whatever the cause, it was perfect. And hilarious.

And the sneezer? S, of course.

An Unexpected Consequence of Moving to Colombia

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Before, I tell you, got any guesses? Could it be that I can no longer say the word "bucket" without winking with my left eye? Or that I forgot how to use shampoo? Or maybe, I've suddenly gained the capability to naturally excrete pure iron?

No, none of those is the correct answer, though if it was the 3rd thing you can bet I'd be getting in touch with Canadian engineering schools. Actually, the unexpected consequence I wish to tell you about today is that I've become substantially clumsier.

At first I thought it was just a coincidence, but after 2 months of data, the sample size is becoming undeniably meaningful. I broke another glass last night, which brings me up to approximately 5 dishes on the year. I can specifically remember a mug, a pot and last night's glass, but I know there have been a couple others.

And I'm just spilling stuff all over the place. You should see my kitchen floor! Actually, it's pretty clean, but only because I mop it out of necessity basically every day. It's not just food, either - 2 days ago I knocked an entire frying pan, complete with frying sausage, onto the floor, where it landed perfectly upside down, covering the sausage.

I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've put my hand on something hot, or forgotten that a pot of water had just been boiling, or gotten off a moto-taxi and badly burned my leg on the exhaust pipe. Okay, that last one only happened once, but it definitely scabbed up and I still have a mark a week and a half later.

I've even near-electrocuted myself a couple times. Most recently, I had a huge stack of dishes in the sink, waiting to be cleaned. Because of this mess, water wasn't getting through to the drain, so as I was cleaning, the sink began to fill with water. Suddenly, I got a shock and instinctively jerked my hand out of the water. Confused, I examined the scene and discovered that my new electric orange juicer was one of the dishes in the sink, and was not only still plugged in, but had somehow turned itself on. Smooth, Dave. (it happened another time with my razor)

And of course, there's the physical trauma. I've probably walked into walls, or quickly gotten up in a low ceiling areas, and even managed to get kicked in the nuts harder than I ever have been before, but the most infamous (if you're a regular reader, anyway) incident was when I stubbed my toe. Oh, and I haven't blogged about this since immediately after it happened, but I think there's a pretty good chance I broke it. It hurt for a solid 3 weeks, but I never got it checked out, partially because I'm lazy, and partially because a friend told me there's almost nothing you can do about broken toes.

The question is: what's the reason for this sudden increase in clumsiness? Is it the heat? Maybe it's the language barrier? Like, I haven't learned how to cook in Spanish yet? Or something?

I dunno man, it's pretty weird. I do have one plausible theory, though. Here in Barranquilla, almost everyone has a maid, and it has been recommended to me multiple times. Most of the instances in which I've engaged in clumsiness were during menial tasks that a maid would likely be doing. I guess the universe is trying to tell me something.

Antenna Yoga

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You know when people go to such extremes to get a good TV signal (with an antenna, you know those things from the not future?) that they're standing there balancing on one foot while tangled up in the curtains and holding the antenna in precisely the manner that gives a clear picture? I've got that going on right now.

Allow me to elaborate. I'm trying to watch playoff baseball, which I apparently get on one of the 3 channels that is at all watchable on my TV. Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely happy about this, even if it is in Spanish, despite the reception horror story that follows.

Anyway, first I moved over to the lounge area of my living room, taking my computer with me so I could look up Spanish baseball terms. This caused the reception to go all staticy. I eventually discovered that if I held my wireless USB internet device in a precise spot it would work, but unfortunately that spot was about a a meter and a half off the ground. I would have to, I dunno, suspend it from the ceiling or something.

Okay, can we talk about this for a second? Really, TV? Holding a small USB wireless internet receiver in one particular cubic decimeter of air improves the TV signal that by that much? I always thought those one leg standers were fooling themselves. Apparently not.

It gets more ridiculous, though.

Since I couldn't figure out a way to sit on the comfy loungy chair and have my computer at the same time (you can't sit on your comfortable loungy chair and eat your computer too!) I moved back to the deskal area, turning the TV to face said area. I plugged the computer power cord back in, and.... yep. There goes the static.

Okay, so the TV is 8 feet away from me and plugging in a little power cord to my laptop makes it freak out. They are coming from the same power bar, though, maybe this one makes a little sense.

So I left the power cord out, planning on plugging it in between innings to keep the computer juiced (not unlike A-Rod... zing!), and went back to my business of whatever I was doing. Whatever it was, it involved scrolling up and down. So I formed my right middle and ring finger into the shape necessary to engage in Apple™ 2-Finger-Trackpad-Scrolling or whatever it's called. Following this, I picked up the aforementioned fingers (with what? Usually the fingers are the ones doing the picking up) Right, um, the fingers picked themselves up from their positions hovering over (I'm guessing, it's not like I recorded this moment) the J and K keys, sauntered over to the trackpad, and commenced the familiar motion.

You may be wondering why I'm describing the tediously inconsequential physiological processes of my computer habits in such excruciating detail. You're probably not, though, because you're probably completely uninterested, and failing that, you probably already know what's coming: the 2 finger swipe caused the TV to static it up once again. Not a 1 finger swipe. Not a click. Not typing. The 2 finger swipe.

Don't believe me? Here, I'll film it to prove it. Oh wait, now it's not doing it, of course.

I swear, it was doing it before!