post-nicaragua postings

...current afterthoughts...

After posting the monsoon-photos I just uploaded, (in the 'sunset monsoon photos' posting) anything else feels like a letdown...but here a few more everyday photos, accompanied by thoughts just as mundane..but hey--when you have moved to a new place, even the prosaic is new, so...that's what blogs are for...

I've gone from Rainier-vision in our living-room in WA to Catalina-vision as I look out the window from my desk (when I'm sitting there, which is rarely) at work:

About a 1/2-mile away from there is the Tucson botanical garden, where I met my wife one HOT afternoon this past week after work. Surprising, though, how after living here for several weeks, we now feel 'cool' in the shade even on a 100-degree afternoon...

All throughout Tucson, since we got here, we've noticed the 'Mexican red bird of paradise' plants in bloom. When we lived in Nicargua, we saw them too, but didn't know the name...

...also at the Botanical garden, there is an example of a 'cristate Saguaro,' a mutation that occurs in about 1 in 100,000 cacti! Botanists are not completely sure why this happens--it could be a lightning strike, an 'impact injury' when the cactus is young...This is only the second one we've seen in our outings in and around the city:

A couple of weeks ago, just before the start of the school-year, we drove out west of the city, to catch a sunset at Gates Pass:

Now with the school-year underway, mid-week sunset-viewing drives will be a rarity...

One little detail about my new workplace that makes me smile is the manner in which many students address me.
About half of the students in this school are Hispanic, and they very earnestly call me "MEES-ter."
Not "Profe" or "MEES-ter my-last-name;" just "MEES-ter." Slowly, though, they are coming around to using "Monsieur." Poco a poco...

The socioeconomic setting of this urban school is a world apart from the semi-rural/suburban district I just moved from, where 90 percent are 'pan blanco,' compared with here--about 50 percent 'tortilla.' Add in the refugee population, and there are a whopping FORTY-SEVEN languages spoken in the homes of the students! Challenges, of course, but never a dull moment...

On my way home, I pass a little Asian market--alas, not the weird-snack-food-and-cheap-produce-paradise of H-mart--but it has the essentials: all flavors of ramen and udon, dried squid strips, fresh California rolls (kimbop) on Thursdays and Fridays, etc. etc...
...and, to my Engrish-lover's delight, whimsically-labeled candy, such as this:

Feeling crunky? Eat some chocolate...

---

Since I am a language teacher, I enjoyed this cartoon:

Yes, we are all human, and gestures can get you far...but sometimes not far enough, eh?
Achtung...Cuidado...Attention...Jo-shim-hae!!

---

I'm enjoying my new work environment as far as the students go...
I am not enjoying my new work environment as far as the bureaucracy goes...
...because nothing seems to get very far fast enough in a large organization.
There is much talk in the education-world today of 'smaller learning communities'--yay! Yes, we need to not have our adolescents channeled through institutions so huge that they become 'anonymous.' So let's break up our large schools into smaller 'communities' where students are 'known' and things are relevant for them....
...BUT, at the same time, maybe we should be applying this principle to the bureaucracy of large districts, where too often people make decisions without being in touch with reality---and then they can hide in their maze of 'central district offices,' anonymous from those who live with the consequences of their ineptitude.
No--I'm not bitter, and in all seriousness, things haven't been that bad...but I DO sense the world of difference coming from a small district, where accountability has a face on it, to a large district where incompetence hides in cubicles.
And so, the following comic strips really 'spoke' to me this past week: