In Which I Become Famous

When I was little, I once asked Mom why there was Mother's Day and Father's Day, but when was Kids' Day? Mom replied that every day was Kids' Day, which I see more clearly now that I've been an adult around little kids. They do suck up all the attention, pretty constantly. Supposedly you have to feed them yourself, instead of leaving them in the woods overnight with a Buck knife and a piece of string. Children these days just don't learn self-sufficiency the way we did.

Today was Students' Day at school. I don't know why there's a Students' Day for the teachers to do stuff for the students, but I think it speaks to how the feel of the school is in many ways less hierarchical that I'm used to. Teaching is always a cooperative endeavor, but teaching in Chile seems to be even more so, and it often seems like a less functional cooperation. Either way, classes went until 1pm (which meant I had no classes today), and then there was, you guessed it, an acto. But not just any acto, no. This had the teachers performing.

Rene does a killer Frank Sinatra impression, and while he was singing, Eduardo, the computer teacher, waved me over and started telling me something in very fast Spanish that ended with "and you say, 'They say they're very excited to be here in Chile, and they wish you a very happy Students' Day.'" I had my suspicions, and yes, after a few iterations, it turned out that he and another computer guy were going to do a rap act, and they wanted me to quickly "translate" their English-sounding intro babble into Spanish for the crowd.

I thought about it for a minute. I could have said no, but Eduardo seemed convinced it would be hilarious, and turning him down wouldn't have been in the spirit of the day.

It was great, of course. I got through without insulting anyone's mother. And if any of the 1800 students didn't know who I was, they know now.