Mexican Grad Practice NOISE!!!!!
I just experienced hell.
We had a 3 hour 6th grade Mexican graduation practice yesterday in a small, echo chamber.
We arrived and the first 30 minutes were spent with a group of adults huddled around a laptop, hooking it up to an overhead projector, while 45 students ran around like students with nothing to do! This, of course, is to be expected and is NOT the fault of the kids. I was quite impressed by how well my kids behaved under the circumstances.
When the program finally started, the people using the microphones were literally SCREAMING into them. I plugged my ears and could actually understand their screaming Spanish better.
Next came both the Mexican and Chiapas anthems with the fricken Banda de Guerra, an obnoxious pounding of drums, the louder the better as with all else in Mexico. I actually speak in this video, but you can barely hear me - and I was standing on the other side of the room from the drumming! My students are directly in front and definitely sustained eardrum damage.
This went on for a full 3 hours. Before snapping, I told two other teachers that I had to step out because the noise was overwhelming. I headed to the bus and we took off 5 minutes later.
Tomorrow is the real graduation and I informed school today that I'll be attending the church service at 8:30am (I'm hoping at least THAT is peaceful) and skipping the ceremony with the blasting loud music, screaming speakers and pounding of drums.
I'm very disappointed because I had been looking forward to it all week. I prepared a slide show with 125 pictures of the kids throughout the year and background music in PowerPoint. That took me about 20 hours to complete and get it just right; I'm a bit of a perfectionist and wanted the music starting and stopping perfectly and the pictures in a certain order. I also organized a booklet for each of my 33 students including Class Quotes, Primary School Memories, Future Plans, lyrics to the songs in the slideshow and their class titles (ie. Most Likely to Become an Insurance Salesman).
The ceremony was THAT ridiculous that I can't imagine dealing with the noise for another 3 hours. I took an aspirin yesterday when we returned to the school and still woke up with a headache this morning.
My kids understood this morning when I explained to them that I wouldn't be at the service after church. Many of them commented about the drumming and how it was hurting their ears and the fact that a few of their parents complain about noise in Mexico. One student's mom doesn't like going to movies because of the volume. When my parents visited in January, we went to a movie and their eyes bugged out when the previews came blasting on. I screamed, "DON'T WORRY, THE VOLUME IS TURNED DOWN WHEN THE MOVIE COMES ON" and they looked relieved.
This guy also explained Mexican noise well in his blog.
Enjoy the peace and quiet wherever you may be; not everyone has it.
We had a 3 hour 6th grade Mexican graduation practice yesterday in a small, echo chamber.
We arrived and the first 30 minutes were spent with a group of adults huddled around a laptop, hooking it up to an overhead projector, while 45 students ran around like students with nothing to do! This, of course, is to be expected and is NOT the fault of the kids. I was quite impressed by how well my kids behaved under the circumstances.
When the program finally started, the people using the microphones were literally SCREAMING into them. I plugged my ears and could actually understand their screaming Spanish better.
Next came both the Mexican and Chiapas anthems with the fricken Banda de Guerra, an obnoxious pounding of drums, the louder the better as with all else in Mexico. I actually speak in this video, but you can barely hear me - and I was standing on the other side of the room from the drumming! My students are directly in front and definitely sustained eardrum damage.
This went on for a full 3 hours. Before snapping, I told two other teachers that I had to step out because the noise was overwhelming. I headed to the bus and we took off 5 minutes later.
Tomorrow is the real graduation and I informed school today that I'll be attending the church service at 8:30am (I'm hoping at least THAT is peaceful) and skipping the ceremony with the blasting loud music, screaming speakers and pounding of drums.
I'm very disappointed because I had been looking forward to it all week. I prepared a slide show with 125 pictures of the kids throughout the year and background music in PowerPoint. That took me about 20 hours to complete and get it just right; I'm a bit of a perfectionist and wanted the music starting and stopping perfectly and the pictures in a certain order. I also organized a booklet for each of my 33 students including Class Quotes, Primary School Memories, Future Plans, lyrics to the songs in the slideshow and their class titles (ie. Most Likely to Become an Insurance Salesman).
The ceremony was THAT ridiculous that I can't imagine dealing with the noise for another 3 hours. I took an aspirin yesterday when we returned to the school and still woke up with a headache this morning.
My kids understood this morning when I explained to them that I wouldn't be at the service after church. Many of them commented about the drumming and how it was hurting their ears and the fact that a few of their parents complain about noise in Mexico. One student's mom doesn't like going to movies because of the volume. When my parents visited in January, we went to a movie and their eyes bugged out when the previews came blasting on. I screamed, "DON'T WORRY, THE VOLUME IS TURNED DOWN WHEN THE MOVIE COMES ON" and they looked relieved.
This guy also explained Mexican noise well in his blog.
Enjoy the peace and quiet wherever you may be; not everyone has it.