Sunday, September 2, 2007
She has the most beautiful caramel skin and springs of coffee-colored curls fall just below her shoulders. She is not exactly shy but not exactly boisterous either. Her smiles are frequent, despite the amount of stress she's under with a new home, a new school, a new language, a new culture, a new country. But her big chocolate eyes--though crossed most of the time--never cease to twinkle when someone says her name. Estefania hasn't had the easiest time adjusting to her new life in the U.S.A. Fresh from Mexico, the first day of first grade proved much more difficult than just the normal first-day jitters. Estefania needed to use the restroom. She knew she needed to go. She knew where the restroom was. She knew she had to ask the teacher permission to get up to use the restroom, just as she had in Mexico during kindergarten. But she didn't know how. So she held it. And held it. And held it. And finally she could hold no more. Estefania wet all over herself, and it embarrassed her so. "Oh, how do I tell the teacher? Oh, how do I ask her if I can go to the bathroom?" Her teacher noticed sometime later, as Estefania rose from her seat to line up to go to the cafeteria for lunch. She called in the ELL teacher (me) to call Estefania's parents (for they didn't speak English either, and I was the only bilingual adult in the building who could communicate with them) to inform them that their child would be arriving home wearing clothes borrowed from the school supply closet. To make matters worse, Estefania repeated the accident a few days later. From either a mix of nerves and excitement or the sheer fear of disobeying the teacher by getting out of her seat without permission, Estefania wet all over herself a second time. This broke my heart for this precious little girl. Can you imagine how it must have felt to know she needed to use the restroom but not be able to get up to go because she did not know how to ask if she could? Though I've now taught her how to ask this simple question (she says, "I go to bathroom?") she will remember the embarrassment of the incident for the rest of her life.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
So I decided to start a blog...
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Okay, so I have made fun of online journals for years. My sister has had a xanga site since college, and though I have enjoyed the benefits of keeping up with her via this insightful albeit impersonal way of communicating, I never thought I would start one myself. Who wants the whole world to have access to all of their personal thoughts, emotions, dreams, etc.? This is what I thought of blogs or online journals. But I've recently been rethinking the whole premise of "blogging," and I've decided that one of the beauties of this type of medium is that the writer alone decides what information to share and what to withhold. And at least the writers are writing, right?
You see, this is primarily the reason I decided to begin this blog--to write. From first grade through college I wrote--all the time. I wrote short stories, I wrote poems, I wrote news reports, I wrote features, I wrote--my favorite--creative non-fiction. I could go on and on. But then something happened just over four years ago: I graduated from college. I moved to a foreign country. I became a teacher. I moved back to the States a year later and continued in the "real" world. And my writing...stopped. Just like that. I was so busy living life that I simply let this one particular passion go. It's almost embarrassing.
So I've decided to start a blog. About what? I guess just about life. Sometimes it may not be that interesting, but to be interesting and entertaining is not my goal--at least not here. I simply want to re-hone my gift (or what I once thought was an area in which I had some talent).
No one may ever read my blog, and, really, that may be better. Perhaps this will just grant me ground to tread on until I am ready to enter the world of authorship once again.
Okay, so I have made fun of online journals for years. My sister has had a xanga site since college, and though I have enjoyed the benefits of keeping up with her via this insightful albeit impersonal way of communicating, I never thought I would start one myself. Who wants the whole world to have access to all of their personal thoughts, emotions, dreams, etc.? This is what I thought of blogs or online journals. But I've recently been rethinking the whole premise of "blogging," and I've decided that one of the beauties of this type of medium is that the writer alone decides what information to share and what to withhold. And at least the writers are writing, right?
You see, this is primarily the reason I decided to begin this blog--to write. From first grade through college I wrote--all the time. I wrote short stories, I wrote poems, I wrote news reports, I wrote features, I wrote--my favorite--creative non-fiction. I could go on and on. But then something happened just over four years ago: I graduated from college. I moved to a foreign country. I became a teacher. I moved back to the States a year later and continued in the "real" world. And my writing...stopped. Just like that. I was so busy living life that I simply let this one particular passion go. It's almost embarrassing.
So I've decided to start a blog. About what? I guess just about life. Sometimes it may not be that interesting, but to be interesting and entertaining is not my goal--at least not here. I simply want to re-hone my gift (or what I once thought was an area in which I had some talent).
No one may ever read my blog, and, really, that may be better. Perhaps this will just grant me ground to tread on until I am ready to enter the world of authorship once again.
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