Thursday, June 18, 2009

Big Dose of Going with the Flow

We definitely have to put on our Mexico face as we move into the final couple months of school.

The regular school day has been 8-2 Nayarit time (Mountain Time.)

In May, the school day changed to 7:30-2:30 Nayarit time to make up for swine flu days. We had 1 day notice of the change. Kids started 30 minutes earlier and left 30 minutes later.
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Yesterday we got the memo that the school day will now be 7:30-1:30. Kids will get out 1 hour earlier. Kids are excited. I guess this cancels out making up the time kids out for swine flu. Too funny.

There are several kid type events and presentations to attend at the school. The challenge is sometimes we know about them, sometimes we get 1 day notice and sometimes we get more notice. It is always a little vague as to what to do exactly whether that means providing materials for the projects or attending as the parent.

We completely missed Oldest Son receiving the 1st Place Diploma in Spanish! It was presented in a school assembly. This means Oldest Son had the highest marks in his series of Spanish Exams in his 3rd grade group. The exams covered Math, MX History, Grammar/Reading/Spelling, Geography, Social Studies in Spanish Language and were given over 4 days. Oldest Son was very, very happy. Diplomas for 1st, 2nd and 3rd are presented to the students. In the prior round, Oldest Son had gotten 2nd place so this was great way to finish the year! (Yes, I am blatantly bragging - I suffer from Proud Parent syndrome.)

12 comments:

Bob Mrotek said...

AMM,
You have a right to be proud. Oldest son is incredible. What a wonderful accomplishment!

Nancy said...

No kidding! That is wonderful.

To brag myself, I remember one time son Adam and I were on a bus in Mexico and a Mexican guy Adam was talking with asked him where he learned his English! He thought he was Mexican!

It's amazing the doors that have opened for him because of his business ability and being bilingual and bicultural. He is VP Latin America for a US company, gets to live in DF and travel a lot. I wonder if your son has aspirations like that?

You should be very proud of him, and proud of yourselves for giving him the opportunity to live up to such a challenge.

Refried Dreamer said...

Whoo hoo. Congratulations! You and Oldest son should be very proud!

CancunCanuck said...

Fantastic, you have every right to be proud. Way to go Oldest Son! And may the next few weeks be full of adventure and relatively stress free. :)

Frankly Ronda said...

BM - Thanks - we are very proud of him - obviously!

N - Wow! That is the greatest bilingual compliment ever - seriously. Yes we are hopeful that these kinds of expereinces show the boys that the a whole wolr of options are out there - literally. You must feel so awesome as a parent to see how his early exposure has created his life path - job, wife, babies. You should do a post on this!

RD - See what I mean about him being so far past me ...

CC - If only I could talk to him in Spanish like you do your precious little one!

Tancho said...

His experience down here will open more opportunities to him. Americans are the only folks that have an issue with learning languages and want everyone to speak English. I was fortunate to grow up in an immigrant family and it has help a lot, especially traveling and learning Spanish.
On the notices, you have now discovered the true meaning of the importance of time in Mexico. It's not! you learn to go with the flow....keeps the blood pressure down anyway!

Nancy said...

AMM,

I have blogged about Adam in the past, how proud I am of him. He came to Mexico after high school to live with friends of his dad's and to attend a year of college. That turned into a BA in International Business from Tec de Monterrey and a lovely wife and many great friends. After college but before they married he came back to Washington State, got a job selling projectors in Latin America and then over time changed companies to one with more potential - a few more years and he was country manager for Mexico and the first of this year, VP Latin America. The thing is, I can't blog about it because it's such a big job and he would be uncomfortable if people knew so much about him. So I am quietly proud, but proud nonetheless.

I have a feeling you will have the same sort of story to tell someday. We'll be able to say we "knew" him "when."

Husband's Sister said...

Please tell Oldest Son "Mi sobrino, su tío y yo son muy orgullosos de usted y amamos le y a su hermano mucho. Nos excitan para verle pronto en la "wedding" de su primo. Perdonan por favor mi español pobre." Hugs,kisses and high-fives all around. We can't wait to see y'all!

Alice said...

Even as a teacher, I only find out things on the day of or the day before. With such a large school system in DF, I can't imagine that they would continue to change the hours of the school day like they did in your town.
Would love to hear sometime what your thoughts are on academic rigor here compared to the states.

Anonymous said...

I usually agree with your fellow bloggers on here. However I disagree with Constantino. "Americans" learn other languages every day. We have "Americans" in my neighborhood who speak Spanish, English, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi and French. So I do not understand why he made such a discourteous comment about Americans. -- Uncle John

VisitLaManzanilla said...

Congrats to Oldest Son! Funny that the time changed back, oh well what's a few less hours of school!

Anonymous said...

jajaja----here in Sonora, we initially were going to get out on the 29th or 30th due to the flu-then it got changed to the 26th, with the 24th being the last day of normal class-25th and 26th are promotion cermonies-then, last Tuesday a note went home with the "hour early dismissal" message---one of the reasons I tend to almost never even attempt to "plan ahead" but I think in the long run, it has helped me to "just let it go" instead of letting stress build up---quien sabe???