Saturday, December 16, 2006

Some Random Thoughts:

The students at Jefferson Elementary never looked more angelic to me than when I saw them performing during the holiday shows.

When I was a student at Woodland Hills Elementary our teacher had us perform a song with another class. Because I had only been in America for about nine months, I had no idea what I was singing to — was it even English? Well, as I watched “Girlfriends” this morning, Toni turned to the heifers and said, “Shalom Aleichem.” I looked up the phrase and I learned it meant, “Peace Be With You.” I thought, “Shalom Aleichem sounds pretty much like what I was singing as a child, and Peace be with you is the English version of La Paz Esté con Nosotros, which was the other part of the song we played.” And so, that’s how I found the lyrics to the strange song I sang during my first school performance:

My school year at Woodland Hills Elementary will also be remembered as the one where Fernando Toledo, Roberto Garcia, Jorge Sifontes, Omar Rodriguez, and I would fight the white kids from the other fifth grade classes. But not all of us were into flaunting our testosterones. We had this guy in our class that we referred to as “Lulú” (Loo-LOO). Lulu was a bit on the gay-looking side, and if he got past our name-calling, I’m sure he became a great man… err, person. 🙂

Speaking of girls (ahem), there was one whom I was told had the hots for me, but like a little asshole, I would humiliate. Karma evened things out, though. The girl I liked at Woodland Hills Elementary found out about me liking her and said, “Mexican burrito.” She was one year my junior (fourth grader), so what can you expect, ya’know? 😀 Not old enough to ‘ppreciate mah game, know what I’m sayen?

That was also the year that I tried to learn how to play the violin for the school’s orchestra. I felt so embarrassed returning my violin without having learned a thing on how to play it. Until now, it didn’t occur to me that the only reason why I didn’t learn a damn thing was because I didn’t speak English. All along I thought I simply had failed. I can be too harsh on myself.

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