Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Astig!


(There are references to MySpace in this entry, because this is a copy and pasted blog entry from that page. If you wanna see my totally awesome myspace page, it's www.myspace.com/jedimasterbooboo)
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Astig!


(Every Filipino anywhere near myspace is going to be in my blog pronto with a title like that.)

So what does astig mean? Well, I might not know exactly, but I can provide some context.

My friends know awhile back I was vexed while correcting exams and on myspace here I put up an update with one of those distressed constipated looking faces, remember? Well I was correcting my sixth grade exams and one after another was just a train wreck. Horrifying. I kept looking at the names on top, 'who is this person, is this person even in my class, did they take the wrong test?'

Well, I discovered that all the crappy tests were on top, that's all. So before I started rethinking my entire teaching strategy, I came upon one that was beyond perfect, and I was elated. I wrote on the test in red pen, "You Rock!" and I don't typically say cheesy things like that, it's not really my style. I was just so happy.

Later, I got a card and a flower from my 6th graders and on the card, it said "You Rock!", ha ha. Then once when I was checking assignments, one student failed to do the essay question, but where the answer was supposed to be, in red pen was this fancy lettering that said "You Rock!", she had really worked on that a long time. I said, this doesn't help you, you still need to answer the question. They're just amazed with that saying.

Anyway, the students are always saying Astig! and then laughing. When we play review games in class and they have to pick team names, one side always picks Astig! and everyone laughs. When they say, Astig, they make that sign with their fingers that's like "love" or "the devil", or something, (I always get those two mixed up). So I asked them, what does Astig mean? The sixth graders didn't really answer to my satisfaction, so I asked my 4th year students...

They laughed at me and said, "It means You Rock!" I guess all the students talk about how I wrote that on Alicen's test (or whoever it was). Word spreads. I remember with the Koreans it was the exact same thing, but that school was so small and the students lived in a dorm together. This was a bit more surprising.

In my second year class I was standing by the whiteboard once and lost my balance and fell over into the room divider, so the whole thing almost broke and swayed back and forth, I said, "that's not a wall". That was a Friday, on Monday in my 4th year class one of the guys said, "Hey that's not a wall, ok?" and pointed to the room divider.

Astig!

I found a photo to steal from flickr...this is nobody I know...That photo was called...Astig!

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