lamaestramendez

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Headcanon: How bewildering it must be to be a clear sighted Muggle approaching Hogwarts. You get all the misdirections and the magic.

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Read it friends. It’s everything you’ve ever wanted to say to that one customer who thinks you’re a parasite just because you’re working behind the counter.

Well, all his posts are like that, but the religious imagery is so funny in this particular post.

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reading letters from 1818 is wild

“it’s that time of the year when I get colds for no apparent reason again” have some Clairitin hon

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Feel free to use, friends. So many wonderful teachers have shared so many digital resources with me during remote learning. Here’s something I made for my third graders to refer to during math that someone else may find helpful for their students.

I’m resolving to be better at sharing what I make so others can use it as well. I hope this is useful for someone else!

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Inauguration Bernie

Ist attempt at Inauguration Bernie. Procreate is awesome and I was able to use the photo to get the color palette. Pretty cool tools. I had to merge SO MANY LAYERS when I was done though. It kind of felt like when you’re lesson planning and you have 10 browser tabs open.

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Just because you did something wrong in the past doesn’t mean you can’t advocate against it now. It doesn’t make you a hypocrite. You just grew. Don’t let people use your past to invalidate your current mindset.

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Ghada Karmi and Ellen Siegel, in 1973, 1992 and 2011. Photos by Francis Khoo (1, 2) and Jean-Pascal Deillon (3).

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my head is hurting from this Facebook post does no one understand Hendrix played a distorted version of Star Spangled Banner to protest the Vietnam War and not as some act of great patriotism, it’s like the boomers who lived through this event rewrote the history and purpose of Woodstock to fit with their nationalism, the 1960s saw some of the worst acts of American imperialism and racism....these “hippies” were not just anti-establishment, they wanted civil rights and they wanted America to stop killing people in east Asia simply because they were a threat to American wealth

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LIES.

I hate it when I’ve already paid for something, so it’s MINE, but the company still doesn’t want me to have it.

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en route to fascism

Ok, class.

I am angry. I am words I cannot use on this blog out of the very remote possibility my actual students google me.

Our 45th president (henceforth known as 45 because I refuse to give him the name recognition that he wants) is a fascist pig. Let me teach you about this terminology so that you understand my full meaning.

Let’s begin with “pig” as it’s a more commonly known term than “fascist.”

Pigs, also known in English as hogs, swine, etc. Let’s look at my favorite the Oxford English Dictionary for a literal definition.

Notice that the 1st definition in the noun section is a literal definition, “an omnivorous domesticated hoofed mammal with sparse bristly hair and a flat snout for rooting in the soil, kept for its meat.” I’ve been told that pigs are delightful creatures with higher intelligence than many other small mammals. That is NOT my meaning. In defense of the pig, I share share some pictures of its beauty for you, class, to enjoy.

Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/skeeze-272447/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=1507208">skeeze</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=1507208">Pixabay</a>

Look how clean they are! Want some more cuteness before we get metaphorical? Check out this pig swimming with a bird!

Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/larsen9236-47917/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=171908">Lisa Larsen</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=171908">Pixabay</a>

Okay, now to all pig-loving friends, I beg your forgiveness. I cannot come up with better word choice. Pigs are not despicable creatures. I’m even somewhat fond of them. However, the only other terms that convey my full meaning when I say “fascist pig”, are inappropriate for my real life students to be reading when they inadvertently google me and stumble upon this post. I love them too much to expose them to that kind of English.

So when I say “fascist pig,” I am not referring to the many, many good qualities of the wild boar’s descendent. I am referring to those characteristics which humans find repugnant because we are wired differently than pigs are.

Yucky traits I am referring to with the term “fascist pig.” (Feel free to skip this section if you have a delicate stomach).:

Pigs, for instance, do not sweat, so they cool off by covering themselves in mud. Clever idea, right? Modern humans from my culture wouldn’t do that because the mud would dry out and stick to your hair; there could be something nasty in it; and dry mud under your nails is unpleasant. We also sweat, so mud as a cooling technique is rendered unnecessary. 

Pigs are not picky eaters. My dad is the son of a large animal vet. When I was a kid, he told me about how farmers have pigs go into a cornfield after the cows have finished the post-harvest leftovers because the pigs will eat whatever unprocessed corn is left from the cow’s droppings. Needless to say, the image stuck what me.

Due to the rooting through excrement habit, pigs stink.

Now on to the word, fascist. Following is a screenshot of the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition for the term “fascism.”

The screenshot demonstrates that the definition of fascism is, “an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization.” The next line explains a way the term is used generally to mean “extreme authoritarian, oppressive, or intolerant views or practices.”

Examples of 45′s fascist behaviors:

Children separated from their families in concentration camps. I have second-hand knowledge of this. The Gestapo Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) locked up a friend of mine for 45 days. He was taken from his uncle. He was 5 years old. Here’s his story: https://youtu.be/Xa6NYkQWF4I . It’s also been documented by many reputable news sources. https://apnews.com/9794de32d39d4c6f89fbefaea3780769

Children and adults placed in hieleras (ice boxes/coolers). I know people from multiple Central American countries who have suffered this at the hands of ICE. What happens is , the family turns themselves into ICE to apply for asylum. ICE locks them up and turns the temperature down to just above freezing. ICE lets them go within 3 days. There is no benefit to these families making up this story. Being from different countries, they did not know one another before telling me the exact same story. Here’s a similar story that happened to another family from a reputable news source: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-family-separation-policy-never-really-ended-why-ncna1025376

Flint, Michigan still does not have clean water. Yes that’s more in the hands of state government officials but I don’t see 45 using any political clout to help mitigate the situation. https://detroit.cbslocal.com/2020/07/30/michigan-supreme-court-rules-flint-class-action-can-proceed-over-lead-in-water/

45 is violating court orders in regards to DACA. ***Side note: Just like Andrew Jackson. Can we please take him off the $20 bill and replace him with Harriet Tubman already???*** https://www.npr.org/2020/07/28/896334928/trump-administration-will-reject-new-daca-applications-administration-official-s

Journalists are arrested and manhandled by law enforcement when covering protests which is a clear violation of the 1st amendment. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/arts/television/cnn-arrest.html

He’s attacking his own citizens. https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/07/27/895713277/tear-gas-fired-on-protesters-again-during-overnight-protests-in-portland

He thinks Kim Jong Un is awesome. https://www.npr.org/2017/05/02/526520042/6-strongmen-trumps-praised-and-the-conflicts-it-presents

He’s trying to lengthen our border wall - again, shades of North Korea. https://www.npr.org/2020/05/25/861837314/trumps-border-wall-would-go-through-laredos-historic-downtown

140,000 deaths from COVID keep getting minimized. Steps to mitigate the pandemic keep getting minimized. https://www.npr.org/2020/07/19/892787298/some-young-people-have-the-sniffles-trump-downplays-the-coronavirus-severity

I’m starting to work myself up into a state with this list. In order to preserve my sanity, I’m skipping the rest of the reasons and going to the most salient one.

45 is advocating for a delay of the 2020 presidential election. See this screenshot from twitter?

Delay the election?????????? A delay would inevitably extend the length of 45′s current term, no matter the election’s outcome. That’s not how a republic works. It’s how a fascist who is trying to make it look like he’s operating in the people’s best interests, steals absolute power for himself.

Post-Nazi Germany, Germans often said, “We didn’t see it coming.” I say that is a bunch of baloney. I say, Hitler’s contemporaries did not WANT to see what was happening, so they lied to themselves to make their own reality more comfortable.

You should not be comfortable right now. You should be sick with worry.

Get the word out about the evil that is happening in America. Our own citizens are victims of 45′s fearmongering. Do not let them be comfortable with his actions. If you are silent, you are complicit. Do not be complicit. A true American pulls all the stops to make this country that we LOVE a better place. Staying silent in the face of fascism has the opposite effect.

Oh, and in case you forget, today’s learning objective is to understand why I am correct when I describe 45 as a fascist pig.

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This video explains EXACTLY why I am so exhausted at the end of conferences.

Los retos de intérpretes / The Challenges of Interpreters

Este video me hizo reír y me recuerda lo difícil que es interpretar en tiempo real.

This video made me laugh and reminds me of the difficulties of interpreting real-time.

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This is such a great way to explain the art of translation. It’s like playing piano music on the violin! They’re the same, but they’re not the same. It provides access, but doesn’t remove the barrier.

In essence, that’s why you want to learn as many languages as you can. You get to hear so many more symphonies, played as originally intended.

from john ciardi’s translation of “the inferno” by dante alighieri

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AI & Human Languages are Incompatible

I'm impressed. It took a couple years, but spanishdict.com has finally failed me...sort of. A less savvy human translator would not have noticed: 

I didn’t even notice the disclaimer until after researching the Spanish word “despicable” because there was no way it means depreciate.

*** Side note: It doesn’t. Nor does it mean despicable. Total false cognate. Fun fact, “despicar” in Mexico does not mean what “despicar” means in Spain. ***

Neither the Mexican Spanish nor the Spain Spanish dictionary had the word that spanishdict.com just told me was how to say "depreciable" in Spanish. I had a gut feeling SpanishDict was wrong, so I looked up its translation in those dictionaries. Neither had the word as a noun!

Spanishdict.com is officially off my list of bilingual dictionaries that I recommend for adults. It's not a great situation though because there aren't many free bilingual dictionaries online. I may have to pay for one. I'm mad that the site implies that it is a dictionary (I mean look at the name!). SpanishDict clearly has some type of artificial intelligence trying to manage the intricacies of human language. *Shakes head* At least Google Translate *grabs protective talisman* owns that it is an electronic translator. Call a spade, a spade already, SpanishDict.

*** Tangential Comment: Stay off Google Translate. It doesn’t have a brain and is therefore, stupid. ***

What's even more annoying is that the root word for depreciable is a cognate. “To depreciate” is “depreciar”. In short, AI, as usual, CANNOT do human languages, so seriously, use dictionaries and bilingual humans.

Also - I wouldn’t worry about robots taking over the world anytime soon. We’re still good, Asimov. *Isaac Asimov’s spirit shakes a printout of the Three Laws of Robotics in my face, screaming about how he was never concerned anyway!*

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Here’s some fun facts about one of my favorite stories being told in Hamilton: this is Ariana Debose, who plays a special role within the ensemble known as The Bullet. She’s killed for suspected espionage right after You’ll Be Back, and is the first one to die (not counting Hamilton’s mother or cousin who hangs himself). After this moment, she becomes an omen of death. At the beginning of Stay Alive, she carries a shot that narrowly avoids hitting Hamilton. In Yorktown, she helps Laurens kill a redcoat, shakes his hand, then Laurens is the next to die. In I Know Him, she’s the one bringing the message to King George about John Adams and symbolically heralding the impending doom of Hamilton’s political career. During Blow Us All Away, she’s the one who tells Phillip where to find George Eacker, (and flirts with him! Phillip is literally flirting with death!) then Phillip is the next to die. In Your Obedient Servent, she brings the desk on stage and hands Burr the quill to write the first of several letters that will eventually lead to Alexander Hamilton’s death. During the final duel, she again catches a bullet (fired by Burr), and if you watch her, she gets closer and closer to hitting Hamilton while he’s doing his soliloquy until Eliza pops onto stage. At this point, The Bullet is stopped by other members of the ensemble, the time freeze is abandoned, and we all know what happens‬ next. (soure: JC Payne)

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“Say No to This” has 2 different stories

This is probably due to my perception (both metaphorically because it’s been years since I first watched Hamilton and also literally because now I’m watching a clearer version) but this time around, I perceived Maria differently. 

 Before, she seemed more liked a device–she served to make me mad at Hamilton. And believe me, I was mad. (He cheated on Eliza!)  

That’s really all the relevance I gave Miss Maria Reynolds. I think I low-key believed the set-up idea - she and her husband planned all this so they can profit off of Alexander - but either way I didn’t give much thought to it.

But look at her.

This is her movement at the line I’m so sorry to bother you at home. 

I’d registered that line as seductive. Listening to the soundtrack, I’d reimagined her putting her hand to her chest, or looking forlorn, or something. But what does she do in the actual play? This juvenile little bop, like, It’s not really a big deal that I’m bothering you at home, right? It reminds me of a mischievous kid trying to get out of trouble.

This is mind, when she actually asks for help (My husband’s doing me wrong–beating me, cheating me, mistreating me) it registers as shameful and embarrassing. As if she were a fiercely independent latchkey kid ashamed at not being able to get out of this one by herself. 

Her act of seduction is portrayed like this by Hamilton: I said, “Well I should head back home” / She turned red / she led me to her bed / let her legs spread / and said “Stay…”

When I was listening to the soundtrack, I was picturing, well, exactly that. What was Maria actually doing in the musical?

1) She gazes up at her house, not looking at Alexander at all.

2) Exactly when he says he should probably head back home, she stiffens, and her hands slowly starts to clench around her skirts,

3) She whirls around suddenly and desperately, and begs, “Stay!”

Do you know what that looks like? A person, a young person, who’s been abused and alone, and who’s latched on to the first semi-trustworthy authority figure she spots. He helped her, didn’t he? He actually did, and no one’s helped her in such a long time. And he was so nice, offering to walk her home like that. But now he’s leaving, and what if her husband comes back? What if she’s all alone again? 

So she asks him to stay.

And she convinces him, it looks like, with the only way she knows how.

Notice her blocking during Hamilton’s internal monologue as he prays for the strength to not break his marriage vows to his wonderful wife and extols how helpless and hot Maria looks. She approaches him purposefully, and then a tad nervously (it looks like she swallows for a second), looks at his lips, edges closer, and then turns away at the last minute. 

I remembered this blocking, actually. Vaguely. I remembered it as seductive, an attempt to lure Hamilton in and delay gratification, leave him wanting more, as she sings her quintessential waoaoaoh. 

What it actually looks like? Her working up the courage to seduce Alexander (to get him to stay) and then backing out at the last minute. She moves away, looks out onto the street, and makes a decision. (Who would you rather contend with, Maria? The nice man who lent you thirty dollars or the husband that beat you?)

Look at that resolute tilt of her chin. She makes a decision.

The next face she takes on shows what decision she’s made:

She strides to him, all purpose now, and kisses him determinedly. 

Her expression right after it’s over?

It looks more than being startled by Alexander letting go of her so quickly. Does this look like a woman who wants to seduce? Honestly, it seems more like a young person who had been relying on Alexander to say no. Who had been hoping for the authority figure to have helped her because he was kind, and not because she could seduce him. She was disappointed.

(Another observation during this sequence: Alexander’s Lord, show me how to say no to this begins when Maria is walking towards him aggravatingly slowly. It begins again when Maria backs out of the kiss, walks away from him, and looks out onto the street, and then it becomes in my mind I’m trying to go [go go go]. Aside from her actions, we really don’t have insight to what her thoughts are, but here’s a thought experiment: What if she’s thinking the exact same thing?

Lord, show me how to say no to this. I don’t know how to say no to this.)

This characterization that I missed the first time around - that she really is younger and less experienced than him - marks how insidious Hamilton’s adultery really was beyond the surface. He doesn’t just cheat on Eliza–he fetishizes Maria. He infantalizes and and sexualizes her at once. (My God, she looks so helpless. And her body’s saying hell yes.) 

Now that I’m paying attention, it’s not even just her blocking. It comes out in the lyrics, too. The whole time, she’s addressing him as sir. No other woman in the play addresses Alexander like this. Yes, it’s kinky - we hear it’s kinky because we’re in Alexander’s perspective. Take that lens away and what we actually hear is a young woman addressing an authority figure.

What the hell, Alexander.

“I don’t know about any letter!”

I had forgotten that she screams this line, not sings it.

Look at Alexander’s reply and what he’s reinforcing here. Look at their priorities. 

It’s obvious that Alexander’s being selfish. He’s thinking about himself, his reputation, how he’s ruined. And Maria’s concern?

Please don’t leave me.

It still comes down to that. She doesn’t want to be alone. She doesn’t want to be left to fend for herself from her brute of a husband. The man of honor who’d helped her is yelling now, and threatening to leave, but Maria has one more trick up her sleeve, and it’s not even a surprise. It’s the only trick up her sleeve she’s got. It’s the only way she can get men around her to treat her with even a smidgen of dignity. 

This also adds another layer to Hamilton. Unlike pretty much every other song, this one doesn’t quite line up with the narrator’s version of events. One could claim that the lyrics and the actions onstage don’t exactly match because that’s how it works–I mean, it’s not as if they could’ve shown the entire affair onstage. I might agree (and I do agree in part–I’m sure some of it is symbolism due to the medium), except all the other songs move in tandem with onstage events. In Alexander Hamilton, we hear moved in with a cousin / the cousin committed suicide and then we literally see the cousin hang himself, as well as Hamilton’s emotional reaction. Even more glaring, we hear Eliza’s then you look back at me and see Alexander glance at her. We listen to Angelica’s the conversation lasted two minutes, maybe three minutes and are witness to the important parts of that conversation.

Say No to This is different, and perhaps one of the reasons I didn’t catch what was happening was because there are two similar-looking, but but ultimately disparate stories. We hear about a temptress trying to trick Alexander out of money. We are shown a girl giving an authority figure what he wants so that he would help her.

Maria doesn’t get to frame her narrative–we already know that from the soundtrack. What we don’t realize is how much of the narrative we hear is falsified, skewed by Alexander’s perception. What we don’t see is a young woman doing what it takes to survive, someone not unlike Alexander himself. We don’t see that because Alexander doesn’t bring himself to try.

If there’s one thing we learn from the musical, it’s that we don’t get to control who tells our story. Maria Reynolds, who gets almost no voice, knows and exemplifies this most of all.

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Hey friends.

I’ve got a mildly amusing and off-color tale for you tonight.

‘Bout a week ago, I was making lunch. The younger preschool aged child, we’ll call him Utah, asks me the name of the type of pasta I’m boiling.

Me: It’s called penne.

Utah: No! What it called?

Me (confused): Penne!

Utah: No! That not what it called!

Me: Penne pasta?

Utah: It not a pene!

Me: Oh snap.

He’s right. “Penne” does sound like the other thing. Now he absolutely refuses to eat rotini. “Wotini” just isn’t a funny enough word to eat.

Grab a bilingual dictionary if you don’t get it.

Having been raised monolingually, but raising my children bilingually brings up so many unexpected [to my husband & I] situations. It’s awesome.