great expectations

First things first, the month-long training in Santiago continues to prove itself valuable and practical. Obvio, po! (loose translation: "well, duh!") it should have been valuable and practical.  Nonetheless, in my short resume of experiences, "training" for a certain position or job is often filled with a lot of fluff and preparation. Long sessions filled with "goal-setting" and "expectations." In Santiago, WorldTeach training was well-balanced: warm fuzzy interpersonal time, combined with a dose of reality.  We were told many times to "go with the flow," be "tranquilo," laugh at the bureaucratic merry-go-rounds that we'll encounter etc. I now realize what our directors meant to say was this: DuocUC is disorganized mess. 

What throws you off though is the "look" of Duoc. On the outside, it looks really really nice. The site itself is quite modern, outfitted with wireless, computer labs, up-to-date science laboratories, a comfortable cafeteria, lots of windows and sleek metal. It even sits on top of a hill! Reminiscent of a certain place in my not-so-distance past...

Given all of the above, we, the Conce crew, were in a healthy state of mind going into Monday morning. Expectations not to high nor too low. 

Reality check: At this point, I should have encountered students from all five of my classes. I'm 2 for 5. Three whole classes are MIA. Those two classes, both intermediate level, are great! Monday and Wednesday mornings are smooth sailing. I taught them "What's up?!," "Awesome," how to pose questions in the past using "did you" and "were you." They even made name tags and assumed American versions of their names. Arturo is now Arthur. Yesica is now Jessica.

It's Monday afternoon, Wednesday afternoon and Friday all day that concern me. Wha' happen? I arrived at Duoc ready to go. Heels and all. (by the way, I think the heels were a one time deal: the hill, the bus, the sand walked through to get to the bus. mmm, no más.) I rushed to "carpetas," a classic Chilean--unnecessary-- addition to the teacher's day. "Carpetas" keeps a 3-ring binder for each profesor/a and keys to every room. Before every class, the prof has to go to carpetas, ask for the binder, sign out for the class and get a room key. My experience so far has been wrong room numbers, different section numbers, no attendance lists, no more keys...no part of the system functions as it should. Yet. "Chicken with my head cut off" would describe the situation well. Such is life. The thing is, no one else seems too worried about it (ie. my boss, other teachers), so I'm not too worried about it either..

Will learn about patience this year.