going for the "set-up"

So I must recount a somewhat humorous chain of events, at least to me it's funny. So the first week or so I get here, I am getting to know the Grecos, spending some time at their house, and Pam finds out that I am a runner (Pam is the wife of Matt, my boss, the director of the school, and the pastor of IBC, the English-speaking church I attend).

So she tells me that there is this Argentine girl who lives in Cordoba (kind of far away from Buenos Aires) who is also a runner, and is really a great gal who really loves the Lord. This is into the 2nd hour of knowing Pam. Let's not move too slow here folks...

2nd week of school, I get an email from Matt that is a forward from Pam. 3 pictures of this nice girl who is a runner, something to the effect of "here is your Cordoba connection, I'm not sure if she hunts, but..." Uh huh. What am I supposed to do with this? She's got a nice smile in the photos...but, uh, uh...
so that was kind of awkward for me. that email.

Flash forward to this past week. I'm in Matt's office on Friday, and he invites Craig and I over for dinner on Saturday. Matt is having people over from the church for pizza who have October birthdays (it's something he does every month). Well, I got to thinking, Craig's birthday is in November, and mine's in June, so I wonder why he was inviting us over. Heck, free food, delicious homemade pizza, I'm in!!

Well, when I walked in, guess who was there? Yep, my "Cordoba connection."
-"Uh, hi, how are you, do you know that I'm only here because Pam is trying to set us up and not provide me with wonderful nourishing pizza?"
I didn't really say that, but was really thinking it.
It was fine the rest of the night, and I actually didn't get to talk very much to Mary. She did seem very nice, but like I said, I didn't really get to know her that much because we didn't get to talk much. I just tried to focus on the pizza, because I just felt somewhat awkard and quite shy actually.

I do appreciate the thoughtfulness of Pam to try and help me out with these things. It got me thinking though, arranged marriages seem like they'd be uber-awkward for the ones being set-up. That's my thought for the day:
arranged marriages must be really awkward

many firsts...

So, this past Saturday, I was involved in a 15k running race. For me, it was an event of many firsts:
1. My first race in South America.
1. My first race in Argentina.
1. My first race at night. It was really dark. We used headlamps.
1. My first race to see and be somewhat close to flame jugglers at the start. I guess it's meant to fire you up. Ha.
1. My first top 5 finish. (I was 4th) see results
1. My first race with Argentines. It was kind of odd at the start when everyone started cheering very loudly, whistling, and pushing each other around (into me as well). Get motivated I guess, we're gonna race.
1. My first race racing in Spanish. Ha.

I enjoyed it very much, and wish they had more races on Saturdays. Nearly 90% of the races in Argentina are on Sundays.

assimilating into Argentine culture...

The longer I live here, the more I feel like I am assimilating into Argentine culture.

Case in point, the mullet I currently have:
^ mullet shot from a distance ^ ^ close up shot: please note the extension from the back of the neck and thickness ^

sporting a good mullet is important to the ARGENTINE identity

Spinboy Aichi

I have some Korean students, well one namely, who is very much into breakdancing. Even if you don't like breakdancing, the videos of breakdancing from Korea my student showed me will surely impress:

here's the spinning-on-your-head record holder(Spinboy Aichi): youtube spinboy

here are the best break dancers in the world according to my student: (from Korea)

I want to learn how to do this.

response to allegations

I have been accused of being a, and I quote, a "cereal dork", by my roommate Craig. Well, this is coming from someone who refers to delicious alfajores as "A-jo"s. He CEREALOUSLY does not know what he is talking about. Jealously takes all forms. Sad really. Just sad.

an outstanding combination...

cereal and the Longhorns!!

Wheaties is starting a series to celebrate college rivalries, and the Horns/Aggies rivalry will be the first one featured.
just wanted to point out:
Texas will appear on the FRONT and the Aggies will appear on the BACK...

math happiness or proficiency?

In a study done on math students around the globe, and their levels of happiness compared with how proficient they actually are in math, some interesting results have appeared. It appears there is an inverse effect.

Enjoying math more means you stink at math.

Hating math means you are good at math.

Here's the article:math article

This theory makes alot of sense. So as a math teacher, what should be the priority? Happiness or Proficiency?

I at least think you can foster an enjoyable learning environment for math where math is still challenging, and the students are being pushed. Then they can still be good at it, but maybe enjoy the time they spent learning math, maybe not math itself.

can't we all just get along?

So not sure if anyone caught this on US news or not, but they tried to re-bury Peron's body here in Argentina. Yes, Juan Peron, husband to Evita (played by Madonna, yes) Argentina's very own former populist president.

At his estate where they reburied him, there were riots and stick fights, and some gunshots. Forty people or so were wounded with sticks after hitting each other, with sticks. What's unique is that the people fighting are all from the "same" political party -- the Peronistas. They were just different factions of the same party. That would be like Kansas Republicans breaking out tire irons to go and fight with Georgia Republicans. Well, maybe not.

My opinion is that in Argentina, since Peron was so popular with the masses (and still is, although he's long-dead), nobody dare claim they are opposed or even associated with anything not Peron. Everybody wants to associate with Peron in some way because he carries such an important weight among many poor and some middle class in Argentina. I've had more than one middle-class or upper class Argentine tell me that Peron and his government was the worst thing that could have happened to Argentina. So as a result, when different factions disagree, but remember they're all tied to Peron, they break out the sticks. And hit each other. Until alot of people bleed and are wounded.


Here's the Yahoo article

update on Hunter's love life

It's Spring (at least here in Argentina), which means a time of the year for things to come to life and bud. In addition, there has been more than one formation/interests of relationships happening recently among good friends, so I figured it was worth an update for all you blog readers on my "love" life, especially the ones who expect me to marry an Argentine woman. Well, there's nothing to report. Still single as salami. Sorry mom.

rampant inflation...

I'm sorry to report, that, yes, Argentina is experiencing (in US terms) high inflation. It is evidenced in the wonderful, tasty tartas that we get for lunch sometimes (quiches for you northern hemispheros). The price rose 50 centavos last Thursday from $3 pesos to $3.50. An increase of 16.67% Don't get me wrong, it's still a really good deal.

My salary certainly isn't going to grow by 16.67% any time soon. Not just in tartas, but other items, like bell peppers, our gas bill (yikes, it more than doubled!!) you can see prices growing and growing and growing. I doubt Argentines are getting anything significant in the way of salary increases...

homenaje al cereal

So I decided to take matters into my own hands. The fact is, we have alot of wall. Little covers it. My plan is to accumulate cereal boxes and hang them. Somewhat of a place to honor cereal. I hope Craig will be ok with it.

2 for 3, not bad

Well, Saturday turned out to be just fine.
1. The Horns beat the sooners. Now, my students who are from Oklahoma will have to apologize for all the taunting done this past week. We are doing inequalities in class, so I could do an example on the board that shows them that 28 > 10 (is greater than).
2. The Yankees went down. "You kind of get tired of giving the other team credit," third baseman Alex Rodriguez said after another terrible October. "At some point you've got to look in the mirror and say, 'I sucked."' Such true words A-rod...still spoken in an arrogant fashion.
3. The Deacs did fall to Clemson after being up for most of the game. However, we're still 5-1 and have a good shot at winning a couple more games for a chance at a bowl game.

why?

you know that feeling you sometimes get when you feel completely embarrassed or absolutely ridiculous...that feeling of being really red on the inside, where you just want to run away and hide?

I wonder if animals can have that same feeling...If so, these dogs and cats definitely are feeling completely DUMB and AWKWARD!!

check out these pets...

my favorites would have to be:
1. Wonder woman deluxe pet costume
2. Pet Costume Big Daddy - What up dog!
3. Pup Shalom

WHY do such things exist?

alot has happened...

Congratulations to the Demon Deacon football team, we're 5-0, and haven't been that since the 1987 season. That's alot of time, and alot has happened since then. Consider for example:

-Table tennis was introduced as an Olympic "sport," with China winning 2 titles (1988)
-West Germany beat Argentina (and Maradona) to win the World Cup (1990).
-I graduated from 4th grade (1993)
-TLC's "Waterfalls" was a top 10 single for many weeks (1995)
-The first Pokemon video game was released (1996)
-I became a Demon Deacon (2001)
-Dewey, the first cloned deer, is born at Texas A&M (2003)
-I graduated from my dear old Wake Forest (2005)

with one more win, we'll be bowl eligible...
if football has started this well, what should we expect from the b-ball team??

Demon Deacons cause people to go to hell? that may be a tad extreme...

elementary not so elementary

So last Friday, I was asked to substitute for the substitute for the 1st grade class. Not a problem, I thought. One class period where we're supposed to watch a video on Joseph. I can do that. Well, 1st graders are nuts, but awesome at the same time. I would describe them as miniature Energizer bunnies, but instead of running on electric batteries, they run on sugar. Oh, they also freak out at kissing.

So I tried to get them to sit down on the rug and pay attention to the movie. Every time I looked away, their 6th sense kicks in to tell them they can do something other than pay attention to the movie. It was Friday, the last period of the day, so it's hard to blame them. Of course, you have to be uber-attentive, cause their 1st graders, and a pencil could severely injure them somehow. They're much more fragile than brute high schoolers.

Adam warned me that 5 minutes or so into the movie, there would be a part I needed to fast forward through, due to a cuddling in the bedroom scene. So I got that one. I didn't catch the next scene where there was some kissing involved. I only realized it when all of them started to squeal and shriek "oooo, gross!! they're kissing, yuck, yuck, yucky!!!"
I quickly jumped up in front of the TV to shield them from some very clean, toned down kissing. It's a Bible movie of Joseph for Pete's sake. Not Desperate Housewives. But they were still freaked out.

I really appreciate that they're so inquisitive. They asked so many questions I had no answers to -- about the papers I was trying to grade, about the sheep in the movie, why that guy in the movie was angry. I wish high schoolers had the inquisitive mind and the desire to learn that 1st graders have. I guess high schoolers are bored of being curious or something. I was very glad when the bell rang, because I was exhausted, and it had only been 45 minutes!!

So to all the elementary teachers out there, many thanks to you for doing what you do...it's not easy, and you have to be super-duper energizer bunnies to teach the miniature energizer bunnies.