Cebola

I have to administer a survey to an English Language Learner. I don't have any students, so I had to think of a creative way to accomplish this task. I saw a good chance to get some family history. I called my dad.

"Dad," I asked, "Did you grow up in a bilingual household?"

"What do you mean?" he replied.

"Didn't your grandparents speak Portuguese at home?"

He admitted that they spoke some Portuguese to his parents, but not to him. I persisted nonetheless.

"Did you speak Portuguese with your parents?"

"No."

"Siblings?"

"No."

"Grandparents?"

"No."

"Grocer?"

"Karen, I don't speak Portuguese."

"But you know the word for onion," I persisted.

"That's true," he replied, "Cebola. Cebola."

"Cebola!"

"I also heard some curse words growing up."

GOING for it

Oh yes, I am giving myself an ambitious Independent Learning Project for my master's degree. I'm going straight to the meat of what interested me most last semester: psycholinguistics. Can Chomsky, Vygotsky, Krashen (aaaah, Krashen, I love you), and Cummins make us better language teachers? I think they can. When and how can we put their theories to best effect?

Other students are going to research how to encourage acculturation, differentiation between language learning needs and learning disabilities, issues of cultural identity, educational models for teaching English in other countries, successful bilingual schools, or how to help language learners pass The Test (whichever test it may be).

I've always been a freaking philosopher, though. I mean, I majored in Classical Civ because I really, really wanted to read Plato in Greek. (For the record: makes more sense in Greek than in translation. Classical Greek syntax does not do well in English. At all. What would Chomsky say about that, I wonder?)

UPDATE (nerd alert...though I suppose it's already too late for that): OMG, Stephen Krashen has a mailing list! I subscribed! So exciting!!

Weekly Question

In honor of my recent job-quittin', please tell us about a time that you gave your notice.

New York City: Ground Zero

We visited Ground Zero when we went to NYC. We were there Sept. 12-14, so it seemed a fitting thing to do.

It's difficult to get there. The subway line still marked "World Trade Center" doesn't go that far anymore, but there's no one to explain that. After a few subway mishaps and loads of walking through an unseasonably hot, sticky afternoon, we arrived.

A block away from the site idiot protesters were loudly, obnoxiously demanding the Truth about 9/11. They had decided that Bush orchestrated the whole thing. Somehow their shouts seemed incongruous near a place of mourning, and disrespectful to the fire fighters who fell that day. Thankfully, no protesters or vendors are allowed at the site.

Not much construction has been done yet. Ground Zero looked like a scar to me, an absence. Although that somehow felt appropriate to me, G. felt miffed that the construction had gotten nowhere in the course of seven years.



Note the people in the foreground, living life like nothing huge ever happened here. I guess that's how it has to be, especially if you're going to live or work in NYC. It has been, after all, seven years, even if I just visited the site for the first time. I didn't notice this pair until I saw the photo on my computer.

What you can't see in this photograph is all the other pilgrims around me, behind me, like me climbing the stairs across from the site to get a better look, trying to make some sense of the horror of that ripped through that fine September morning. You can't see the little children running around, playing, oblivious to their stricken parents.

Here's the firehouse right next to the site. I mean, right next to it. They lost a lot of men that day.



The wall beside the fire station serves as a memorial for their fallen. There were so many people in the small alley, looking, remembering, that I did not get a front view.



Down by the fire station, one side of the WTC site is left open for viewing, no tarps over the fence. There was a crowd peering through the fence on this Saturday afternoon seven years later.



Plans for the future WTC are here. They were posted near the site, a little beacon of hope. I think they're beautiful.

Senioritis

I see why a mere 2 weeks' notice is standard. I'm not getting much done at work this week, and it's hard to care. I'm supposed to finish my current projects before I leave--that was the plan! my plan!--but I just don't give a crap.

Surreal

Well.

I plan to give my notice at the publishing company today.

It is very strange. I thought I would feel elated and nervous when the day came. Instead, I feel like I don't believe it, and very calm. I wonder how I'll feel once I actually talk to my manager, and over the next month until my last day, October 30.

I wonder how anxious I might feel as I work out health care and banking over the next month, as I defer loans and cash a few matured savings bonds.

I'll be substitute teaching in a couple of towns and maybe freelancing on the side. I figure, pouring all my energy into publishing is not going to help me get into teaching. Substitute teaching will help me get into teaching.

And that is the story for today.

New York City: The Williamsburg Bridge

We walked across the Williamsburg Bridge on Saturday.



G. and The Sister gave me lots of looks for holding them up snapping photos. But who could resist the top of the bridge?



The view was nice, too.



Be sure to click on that last photo. A whole world opens up. A shining city.