"We Collaborated With The Cleaning Of The Baths To Loosen To The Toilet Each Sees Is Used."

This is about the only Spanish (aside from very simple statements, like "Me llamo Bill") that I can recite from memory (and I apologize if any grammar or spelling has been slaughtered in the remembering):

Colaboramos con la limpieza de los baños soltar el sanitario cada ve se use.

This used to be posted in the lavatory at De Porres P.L.A.C.E., and I managed to memorize it, before I even knew what it meant. I mean, I had an idea, since the signs were posted above the urinals, but I certainly didn't recognize many words. I actually created a little song with it, which I proceeded to sing for everyone I saw -- which more or less meant Brianna. The song lingered for a while after I left, but eventually seemed to evaporate, just another detail lost in the march into the future.

Then yesterday, I was teaching my students about "clean" and "dirty" -- "limpio" and "sucio" in Spanish -- and when I saw the word "limpio" in the bilingual dictionary, the entire song came back to me. So I thought I would share, because I can't get the damn thing out of my head. Some day, I will record it, and then you'll all be sorry! YOU'LL ALL PAY!! MWUH-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!

Of course, I'm also posting it here so I won't forget it again, too.



On an unrelated note: as I'm looking for a job, I've been paying more attention to the goings-on in my (hopefully) future profession. Hence I was very pleased to find that John Waters addressed ACRL. I find the reactions amusing: the positive reaction isn't really sure that it is positive in any sense except the theoretical, and the negative reaction has trouble putting the offense into words. How old was she that she was referencing "vaudeville"? Really, I have sat through a few of these speeches, and they are ALL relentlessly self-serving, including Barak Obama's spewage at the ALA Conference in Chicago. His single-minded, relentless idolatry of children's librarians left me breathless with boredom for the duration of the speech. (Yeah, OK, children's librarians are great, we get that, but there are whole species of librarians who will never, ever have to participate in anything called "storytime".) I would have paid an extra hundred dollars if John Waters had bum-rushed the stage and started to recite the professional biography of the man with the singing sphincter from Pink Flamingos, complete with a slide show and Odorama.

I Don't Feel Like Dancing

Or do I?

I went to the dance at my old AmeriCorps site yesterday. It was fun, although there were not many of my old students in attendance. In fact, there were only two: Luis, who had very little to say to me, and Pedro, who always has something to say. I was very happy to see Pedro, because he is no longer even a student at De Porres P.L.A.C.E. He was always one of my favorite students, very enthusiastic about learning English, and, while he was beset by medical problems last year, he seems to be doing much better now.

I asked him why he never sent me an e-mail, and he said that he had lost my address, so I gave it to him again, as well as my phone number. I told him that he has to have me over to have Venezuelan arepas again: he made them for us on the last day of school, and damn if they weren't the best arepas I ever had. Which isn't saying all that much, since the Colombian arepas I have had have been served cold, and they gave me the impression, through their size and texture, of unscented urinal cakes. So he insisted he would call me.

I ended up dancing with the AmeriCorps service member for the site I work at now, Jenny-Lind; Erin, the AmeriCorps service member at De Porres who is referred to as "the new Bill" -- similar to how I was "the new Mary" at the beginning of my service year; and Sandra, the secretary at De Porres. I did not freak out when pressured to dance like I have in the past, nor did I hide underneath a table, as I similarly have a history of doing. So that was good.

When the Daddy Yankee reggaeton song "Gasolina" came on, I wanted very badly to ask Sister Margaret, the director of De Porres P.L.A.C.E., to dance with me. I chickened out, though, although that seriously would have been the funniest thing ever.



In other news, having not learned my lesson the first time, I have started reading my second book by Anthony Trollope, Can You Forgive Her? I don't really know why, except that I was tired of reading fantasy short stories, and evidently the only answer was to start reading an 800-page Victorian novel. So far it's far superior to The Way We Live Now, and besides, the title was purloined by Pet Shop Boys as the title of one of my favorite songs.

I anticipate that, based on my previous experience, I should finish the book sometime within the next calendar year.