English Education: A Tool of Power or Empowerment?

"Education is a form of power but it is also a form of oppression."

This is what another Fulbrighter said at the conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where 80 Fulbrighters from 10 different countries throughout Latin America joined together to share experiences and best practices.

We were in the Q&A section of a talk on Immigration in the Americas during the third and final day of the conference. The talk focused on how the US typically poses itself as a country which improves immigrants (people immigrate to the United States for freedom, for opportunity, to live "the American Dream" and become something 'more' than what they were before they became hyphen-American) whereas many of the countries in Latin America see themselves as improved by immigrants (especially lighter-skinned immigrants, regardless of whether this aligns with what would be considered 'white' in the United States).

So what does it mean, we asked, for us to be educating our host communities about our culture, our English, our lives? How can we dismantle the image of White America, especially when many of us are ourselves white and also the only Americans our host students have met, thus reinforcing the idea of the typical American as "white"? How can we teach the English language without perpetuating the colonialist violence that erased indigenous languages in favor of Spanish and English? How can we challenge the expectations and idealization about living in the United States and express the reality of what it means to be an immigrant in Trump's America?

How can we take steps to empower rather than oppress in our positions at Latin American schools?

In the midst of all these questions, someone said the statement above about education, power, and oppression, and I scrambled to jot it down on the piece of paper in front of me.

I'd been struggling to put into words this feeling that had built up during the conference, and in fact that had been in the background ever since my arrival in Argentina-- rather, ever since my decision over two years ago to apply to be a Fulbright ETA.

This statement, while it doesn't cover everything, is a more concise and accurate way to describe the mild unease I felt about this position that I could not seem to put my finger on.

During the opening remarks on the first morning of the conference, one of the speakers thanked us for "giving the gift of English." I also scribbled this down in my notebook, not because it resonated but because it made me feel slightly sick and I couldn't fully explain why.

I don't place any judgement on my students for wanting to learn English-- for heaven's sake, I was an English Lit major! I love studying the English language, I find it fascinating and I am passionate about teaching it. And it is undeniable that speaking English does open up mountains of opportunities. It is the "lingua franca" practically anywhere in the world, it's more or less essential for international relations and business, and a huge portion of popular media is in English. But these facts originate in imperialist power structures that have violently forced English on different groups of people throughout history. It's hard to ignore that backdrop when teaching the language, to say that English is a "gift" without recognizing that people around that world have had that "gift" shoved down their throats. It's especially difficult when, according to the New York Times, one language goes extinct every two weeks... and here I am, spreading more English and politely showing that "not ALL Americans are self-centered bigots!" (#notallmen #notallwhitepeople #thereisareasonthesehashtagsareproblematic).

So, it's complicated. How can I actually empower my students and meet their needs and desires without contributing to the troubling ethnocentrism and oppression of my home country?

A lot of the strategies that we discussed at the conference have to do with a very basic premise: ask the students.

Ask the students why they want to learn English (maybe they, too, have complicated feelings about learning the language-- maybe the complexity can be a point for discussion).

Ask the students what they want to be able to use English for, so that you can teach specifically to those needs.

Let students direct their education and language learning process: place their lives and their stories at the center instead of making it about your preconceived notions about what an English Language Learner needs to know.

This seems pretty straightforward, and it's reiterated by the literature I've read about teaching English as a Foreign (or Second) Language, but it's a guiding principal that I don't think I had fully articulated to myself.

As we discussed our roles as English Teaching Assistants and brainstormed strategies, activities, and lessons to empower rather than oppress in our classrooms, another complex power dynamic came to the forefront, this time within the English language itself rather than between languages.

In Argentina, professors traditionally teach British English rather than American (US) English. Some of my fellow Argentine Fulbrighters have been told off in the classroom because their English isn't the "right" one. This is generally not true of my professors-- some of them do have a clear preference for British English, but for the most part they just encourage students to choose a style and stick with it.

Even within American English, though, there's a hierarchy.

I told this story during a focus group in the conference, and I hadn't even fully realized the implications until I explained it out loud:

At my school, students (and occasionally professors) constantly praise my English. They tell me what a beautiful accent I have, how clear I am-- they come to me begging me to help them improve their own accent (this in itself has made me uncomfortable-- I understand them easily, and it's impossible to erase an accent entirely... why do they have to learn to pronounce things exactly my way when they are perfectly able to communicate with their slight Argentine accent?). As I have mentioned, another Fulbrighter works at the same school as me... he is from Chicago, his family is Puerto Rican (although he was raised speaking English not Spanish), and he is visibly non-white and openly gay. Sometimes he teaches slang phrases like "on fleek," "spill the T," and "throwing shade" (most of these phrases originating from Black communities, AAVE, drag culture, and other marginalized communities). To me, his spoken English sounds just as American as mine, and I have no trouble understanding him... but he does not get the same praise when he speaks. In fact, students (and, again, sometimes professors) will complain (often to me and sometimes to him) that he has a strong accent, that he's hard to understand, that he doesn't "enunciate" properly.

This always made me a little uncomfortable, but I kind of just laughed it off... and I hadn't really thought about how these microaggressions contribute to a particular (false, harmful) image of the United States and of American English.

Several summers ago when I taught with Breakthrough SF, I remember that the staff members explicitly taught students about the meaning of "code-switching." For students who grow up speaking and learning different dialects of English in their homes, being told that their speech is "incorrect" in the classroom can be traumatic. If the way they speak is "wrong," that reflects on their family, on everyone who speaks that way. It places a value statement: this English is right, this is wrong. Speak the right way, or else what you have to say doesn't matter. At Breakthrough, students learn that different situations require different types of speech. These different Englishes all have their own sets of vocabularies and grammatical rules, and none of them are "wrong." What is important is the ability to identify which English to use in a given situation, and to be conscious of which set of vocabulary and rules you are using: code-switching.

At my Institute here in Córdoba, there is a strong value placement on different types of Englishes. Learning slang phrases or colloquial speech is "fun," but students are sometimes told that they will fail if they use that type of English on a test. In some cases, it seems that the emphasis is less on effective communication and more on an idealized version of "proper English."

It's really hard to find the right balance of teaching English grammar and pronunciation so that a student can achieve effective communication without enforcing a dominant white-straight-college-educated-upper-middle-class English.

I think the general idea is to be descriptive rather than prescriptive (if you've taken an introductory linguistics course you know what I'm talking about). Prescriptive means teaching "this is the rule and it is the only correct way and therefore this is how you must do it," whereas descriptive means explaining "this is one way this is used in actual speech to communicate this thing." For the prescriptive linguist, language is this (imaginary) fixed entity that is not flexible and does not change. The descriptivist view allows for the reality of language as something that is spoken with the goal to communicate, and as it is used by people, it is constantly shifting and morphing in different ways.

My hope, when I get back to work after Winter Break, is to ask each teacher for a little time during their classes when it fits in with their schedule to do a few lessons that relate to the topics I've been grappling with here. I'd like to do a lesson that explores and challenges the cultural stereotypes of Argentina and of the US, a lesson on code-switching and the value of different types of Englishes, and perhaps some follow-up lessons based on where students have questions or want to discuss further.

A final aspect of this whole education-is-power thing is that I am here as an assistant, not as a teacher, and so it feels weird to me to be pushing my teachers to give me more space in the classroom... these are their classrooms, and they are the ones who have grown up in this country and actually studied to be English teachers. For all that they tell me I have "native speaker expertise," they are way more qualified than I am to be standing up in front of the class talking about English to a group of Argentine English Language Learners. But at the same time, the issues of diversity of US culture and the diversity of American English are topics that I feel it is important for me to address from my own perspective during my time here.

I said that was the final aspect, but there are so many more thoughts about this subject and other related subjects that came up at the Rio Conference. I don't have time to describe it all in detail here, but to mention a few things: I went to a discussion for femme-aligned Fulbrighters where we discussed the gendered issues we had faced and the intersections of gender, race, and sexuality; I went to workshops on Task-Based Teaching, How to Talk About Trump, and Hegemony in the Classroom; I heard from a Cultural Affairs Officer about the current state of the US State Department (hooo boy); I brainstormed for Life After Fulbright; I had some great personal conversations about identifying as queer in Latin America; I attended a break-out session on how to tell our Fulbright stories (yay blogs!); I ate a TON of really good free food...

It was honestly one of the most amazing parts of my experience so far, and I truly believe it has transformed the way I see this opportunity. I think I spent the first half of my grant just struggling to settle in, to find my place (figuratively and quite literally in terms of housing), and to deal with a lot of practical details and personal processing. While I never regretted my decision to come to Argentina, I was a little angry with myself at times and wondered whether there was a real purpose other than just to prove to myself that I could make it through. After being in Rio and talking to 80 other people who felt similarly, who had their own sets of struggles adjusting, some of whom hadn't even started actual classes or were still struggling to develop a feasible side project... it just really changed my perspective. It made me feel like I was part of something, and that I was supported by other people who were as critical as I have been, who were as passionate about making a positive difference in the world, who were as dedicated to holding themselves accountable and being responsible for what they do in their time here. I feel reenergized, and I feel inspired, and I feel like... I genuinely want to be here.

And, oh yeah, I was in freakin' RIO for a week!!

The view from the rooftop of our hotel in Copacabana

Where the Olympic Flame was lit

Largest street art in the world created by Kobra before the Rio Olympics, representing indigenous cultures from 5 continents

View from the first cable car stop up Pao de Acucar (Sugarloaf)

(had a video of the cable car ride but it won't load properly :( )

Me at the top of Pao de Acucar

Sunset over Rio, seen from Sugarloaf

Acai (pronounced ah-sigh-ee, not uh-ki), one of the many Brazilian desserts I was told I had to try. A super sweet ice-cream like dish made from acai berries.

Sunrise at the beach. We didn't have very much free time to explore the city, but I got up each morning to meditate with the sunrise before going down to breakfast...

Friends :)

The Years Don't Happen Without The Days

"The years don't happen without the days." That's what my guided meditation told me this morning. I am on the sixth and final part of the "Headspace Pro" meditation series, a series of six 10-day sessions on silent meditation. Unlike the other guided meditations in the Headspace app, which have cues throughout to tell you what to do, this series begins with several ideas and recommendations pre-meditation, then just times you as you sit in silence, and at the end offers a follow-up for how to maintain a sense of awareness throughout the day.

I've meditated at least a little bit every single day for 345 days... By the end of this month, that will be a full year. The sixth session of Headspace Pro is kind of about the self, and about letting go of the self-- "We think there's a mind observing, an object being observed, and a process of observing. But they are one." (This would be an interesting statement to look at from a phenomenological perspective... *Philosophy major thoughts*)

When Andy (the Headspace guy) said "the years don't happen without the days," he was talking about how it can take months or years to notice a significant change in our daily experience due to meditation and internalizing the ideas he brings up. Not wanting to be discouraging, he explained how the work we put in each day is what builds up to noticeable change.

But in a larger sense, the phrase "the years don't happen without the days" made me think about how easy it is, especially for me*, to get lost in the expanse of past missed opportunities and future unknowns and forget about the small moments that actually make things meaningful, that actually compose reality. It's so easy to not be fully present where I am, or to feel stuck when the future doesn't seem like it's coming fast enough (or when it seems to have come along all too suddenly).

*MBTI Side Note: I kinda love Myers-Briggs types (yes, they are flawed and not perfect but can be a helpful tool for self-reflection), and I'm an INFP, the "N" part meaning that a big part of how I usually see the world is based in theory, ideology, possibilities, and big-picture thinking, which means I can sometimes lose track of details or not give enough weight to what I am actually experiencing/sensing in the current moment. Meditation can be really helpful in balancing out this tendency and helping with anxiety that comes from my brain being somewhere totally separate from whatever is actually happening.

There have definitely been times in Argentina where I feel like nothing is happening nothing is happening nothing is happening and then I look back at my week and somehow, a lot has actually happened. And on weeks when work is slow and I am alone a lot and getting out of the apartment feels like a struggle, I have to remind myself that each moment is passing time. The song "Day by Day" from Godspell ends up stuck in my head a lot...

"Day by day... oh, dear lord, three things I pray: to see thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, follow thee more nearly, day by day."

My sense of prayer and God is probably a little different from what the song intends, but in essence the "three things I pray" are also guiding principles for my life: to see more clearly the present moment and how everything is constantly changing in small ways, to continue to love deeply and learn how to better express that love, and to follow more nearly what I believe and act authentically.

Okay this is all a lot of philosophizing to say...

This week has been hard.

There has been a lot of travel stress (trying to get to Brazil on Monday and the Fulbright Commission couldn't mail me my passport back in time with the Brazil visa so I am attempting to travel to Buenos Aires by plane without my passport and then grab the passport during my layover), and I only had one real day of classes because everyone was taking exams this week since it's the week before Winter Break, and socially there has been very little middle ground between PEOPLE EVERYWHERE SPEAKING SPANISH and sitting completely alone in my room.

But that's still not really why it's been hard.

My grandmother passed away on Tuesday...

and I don't know I guess when I left in March, my grandfather had been sick for a long time and I knew that I was saying goodbye to him, but I didn't quite realize I would be saying goodbye to my grandmother, at least not this soon, I guess the days slipped me by somehow...

But "the years don't happen without the days" also means that just because years have passed, it doesn't mean the days never happened.

I'm not sure if that makes any sense... what I mean is, when processing loss, it sometimes feels like all of the years of having someone are just gone. It can feel like everything just blends together... like you can see their face but it's some combination of the way their face looked throughout the entire time you knew them, or you can hear them laughing but don't know what they're laughing at.

But then you remember the small moments, each of those days you spent together. The moments when you were really there with them. When she swore while playing Bridge and in your head you were like fuck yeah, that's my grandma-- and the next round, your team kicked butt. When you stood up to receive your Phi Beta Kappa handshake and you walked back to the table to sit next to him and you could see the pride in his eyes and before that moment this award didn't seem to really mean much, but the smile on his face made it matter. When you brought veggie chickpea "tuna" sandwiches out to the dining table at the lake cabin for them to eat for lunch, because, well, that's what you were making, and they actually ate those sandwiches...

The days are what made up the years. The days are real.

When I talked to my mom last night, she described the feeling of the week as "vague." That just felt so accurate... like I'm here in my apartment in Argentina in the middle of an art gallery but there are thoughts of my grandparents fading in and out of the background and suddenly I'm thinking about the movie Departures and the beautiful cello music by Joe Hisaishi is playing in my head and then I miss playing the cello and I miss my cello teacher, who died the summer I left for college... and I'm neither fully in Argentina nor fully in my thoughts, and I'm neither fully feeling nor fully numb.

So I've been living in-between, spending a lot of time home but also doing my best to engage when and where I can.

We had a little party at my class on Wednesday after they finished their quiz. I brought chocolate from San Francisco to share (Ghiradelli squares and dark chocolate almond brittle from that really good place in the Ferry Building).

They thought it was very important to get a picture of me drinking mate

My apartment owner had her first opening since I've been living here, and I liked it. It was very artsy, a multi-media combination of video, photography, word art, sculpture, body art... the kind of thing I feel like a student at my high school would have done (which is praise, by the way-- my high school had some really talented artists).

Mi desnudez sos vos = "My nakedness is you," along with photographs of the artist holding a mirror in the center of her body so that the reflection of that one half of her body creates the illusion of a whole body

I have no idea what this is supposed to be about, but it makes me think of the state of the US at the moment :/

The lighting here made my silhouette look like part of the exhibit...

In that last photo, I'm standing in the doorway, right underneath a glass sign that reads

la piel es un limite

[entonces]

la piel es una posibilidad.

"the skin is a limit

[therefore]

the skin is a possibility." 

I think this was my favorite quote from the show, maybe because the contradiction matched kind of how I've felt (or I just generally love contradictions). Limit => possibility is a line of thinking I appreciate. It makes me think of race and gender and the limits that are placed on us by our skins, our bodies, the parts of ourselves visible as we move throughout the world...  and how this simultaneously holds the possibility of exceeding these limits and reimagining the ways that one's outer appearance defines one's being. The artist tattooed her arm as part of this exhibit, which is a very real, physical manifestation of her statement: literally turning her skin into a canvas for her art. And it also expresses the fact that we are stuck in our skin, that the decay of our body sets the very real limit to our life... at at the same time, all of the possibilities of our lives are held within this skin.

Also interesting that "piel" sounds a lot like "peel."

I wonder if they have some shared origin.

Funny to think of us having peels instead of skins.

See this is how my brain jumps from one thing to another...

Thursday, the day after the gallery opening, I did basically nothing. So on Friday I felt like I had to accomplish something, I had to... do something. And baking is my favorite way of occupying myself and creating something and it's really therapeutic.

But I couldn't decide what to bake. I was craving chocolate, but I knew if I baked a whole pan of brownies I would eat them all and then feel gross. Then I remembered that I had a zucchini in the fridge, and suddenly I really, really wanted chocolate zucchini cake.

I didn't have half the ingredients for chocolate zucchini cake, so I had to go out and buy a bunch of stuff. Unfortunately, sour cream is kind impossible to find, so I ended up making my own: heavy cream with a couple teaspoons of lemon juice, a teaspoon of white vinegar, and a pinch of salt, whipped to the right consistency.

I'm pretty proud of myself for doing that.

I also couldn't find chocolate chips, so instead of cut baking chocolate into chunks and sprinkled it on top.

And I lit the oven on my own for the first time, without burning my hand off! :)

It turned out so freaking good

We usually eat it with vanilla ice cream, but I didn't have vanilla ice cream, so I scooped some of my chilled vanilla chia seed pudding on top, and it looks weird in this photo but it was actually a really good combo.

I didn't realize until I was putting the cake into the oven that chocolate zucchini cake was something my grandma and grandfather both really really loved... and maybe that's a part of the reason that eating it this time tasted so incredibly good. Because it brought me a little closer to them.

So yeah. Life is still happening, day by day, and there's somehow a lot going on at the same time that there's nothing going on, and I'm here in Argentina and practicing staying more aware of what I am experiencing in the present moment, which is sometimes the experience of my mind wandering off to other places.

Tomorrow I am going to (attempt to) fly to Brazil.

But today I am going to finish this blog post and go get a piece of chocolate zucchini cake and maybe listen to some cello music.

There and Back Again

I have been rereading Harry Potter in Spanish, not Lord of the Rings (I struggled enough making it through the whole series in English, so I don't think it would be the best choice of books to read in translation), but "there and back again" feels like a pretty accurate title for this blog post.

I've missed two Sundays in a row due to preparing to leave for San Francisco and then being in San Francisco-- about 48 hours of travel time for 6 days in the city, but it was absolutely 5 billion % worth it.

I think one of the most important love affairs of my life is with the city of San Francisco.

I know it's not still quite the same city I grew up in, and even the city I explored this past week wasn't the same as the one I left behind. But even as much as things change, I still find familiar places and faces, and every time I see the city I fall in love with it all over again.

This was the view I saw of the Bay Bridge as I waited at the bus stop to go home on March 11, my last night before coming to Argentina for the first time... I remember staring at the lights and thinking dammit, San Francisco, why do you have to make me fall in love with you again right before I leave?

This was written on the bus stop that night... foreshadowing of the excessive graffiti in Argentina, and a good reminder :)

This past week was an especially meaningful one in the Bay Area because I was there with my entire dad's side of the family to mourn the loss of my grandfather/celebrate his life. I can't remember the last time I got to be with all of my Harvey cousins together, and it was... idk, I think it was the happiest I have felt in a really really long time.

Or rather, I'm not sure if happy is the right word. There were moments of joyful happiness-- my sister and one of my cousins got to witness the peak of that when they met me at the Ferry Building on my first full day back in the city, and I came up to them literally bouncing up and down and unable to stop smiling because I was so excited to be back home, by the ocean, surrounded by glorious amazing food from all over the world.

But there were also moments of intense sadness: hearing my uncle speak about my grandfather while I held my grandmother's hand, trying to process the fact that he wasn't just going to walk in at any moment; learning about the changes that happened at the school I left behind after I came to Argentina and wishing I could have stayed until the end of the school year; seeing the overwhelming stress that my dad and his brothers have had to deal with in the wake of their father's death.

So it wasn't "happy" so much as... this feeling of overflowing, limitless love for the people in my life. I know I sound cheesy as heck but the "happiest" moments of my life aren't when something really good happens, or when I get something that I want, or EVEN when I am eating one of my favorite foods... they're when I feel so much appreciation for the people around me that it feels like my body can't contain it, and I really suck at showing it or saying it in words sometimes, but it is the best thing and being with everyone in the Bay Area this weekend made me feel that way.

Especially getting to hug everyone. Being around family usually means a lot of greeting and hugs, and I'm pretty sure hugs are scientifically proven to be kind of magical.

I wasn't sure if I was going to cry at the service for my grandfather. I very rarely cry in front of anyone, and sometimes in public settings my emotions just kind of switch off. While my uncle spoke, though, he mentioned how important all of the grandkids were to our grandfather, and he listed each of us by name, and I started to tear up. When my sister sang "Let It Be," acapella, the same song she sang at my other grandfather's funeral, I definitely felt a few tears fall. But it wasn't until the end of the service when one of my cousins came and hugged me and said "I love you" that I started bawling.

I don't ugly-cry in public. Like, ever. But there have been so many emotions for so many months that I have had so little time to process, and something about that hug... it's like it created a space for all of these feelings to be real, to be felt, to be okay. I wasn't crying just because I was sad, but also because the verbal reminder of the love of my family made me feel so happy, because I was there in that moment and it was real, and because hearing someone say "I love you" and mean it meant it was okay to feel all the things. And after that I went to hug my mom and my sister and my dad, and... yeah. It's just really good, to have people who love you to hug.

I fit about as much as I possibly could into my time in SF, including dim sum, sushi, tacos, chocolate, baking, running by the ocean, playing board games with friends, going out dancing in the Castro, and even going to SF Pride:

Recognize the rainbow scarf? ;) Came to SF Pride all the way from San Lorenzo, AR

In my time in San Francisco, of course I fit in all the food... including the Argentine empanadas :P

On Monday, it was really really hard to get ready to leave again. I spent most of my 20+ hours of traveling feeling kind of sad and trying not to cry on the plane.

At least the sky was really pretty...

But when I landed in Córdoba, one of the teachers I work with, Pat, met me at the airport to pick me up, even though my flight had been delayed and it was almost 2am Argentina time.

Two Sundays ago, on Father's Day, Pat had taken me into her family and I shared a wonderful meal with them at her mother's house. Afterwards, she took me on a driving tour around the outskirts of Córdoba, and we made a short stop to play in the Saldán playground with two of her kids.

Father's Day family meal

Evening exploring in Saldán, just outside of Córdoba Capital-- this was the same place the Locro Festival took place! It looked totally different without 50+ booths making locro and thousands of people milling about and eating...

Having Pat meet me at the airport with a hug helped ease the whiplash of having been home and leaving again, and her mother was incredibly kind to take me in and have me stay in a spare bedroom for the night.

My first morning back in Córdoba, I woke up to the biggest array of breakfast food I have ever seen in Argentina:

Not pictured: scrambled eggs and toast that she was just finishing cooking, milk, and coffee. Oh, and since you can't see it very well behind the water glass, those are two pieces of chocolate cake at the back left.

Pat's mom is the most gracious host ever, and she helped me get back into the City Center in time to drop my stuff at my apartment and rush over to the high school where I had scheduled a class (why did I allow myself to schedule a class for the first day I got back?? *sigh*).

I adore the students at this school-- this was my second time with them, and we were talking about festivals from our hometowns... so, naturally, I talked about Pride.

I gave a short presentation on the history of Pride (message me for a link, if you would like to see it), then answered some questions, and then the students shared about several different festivals that take place in the Córdoba area.

After class, I rushed to the mail office to get a package sent off to the Fulbright Commission in Buenos Aires so that, hopefully, I will get my Brazil visa in time to make it to Rio in a week.

I stopped by my apartment again to grab some lunch (although all I had in the pantry was oatmeal and peanut butter and an overripe pear) and then, because I wasn't already doing enough my first day back, I went to my aerial rope class.

After rope, I grabbed some basic food essentials, rushed home for a shower, and then made my way to the bus stop to get to my regular classes.

And... well, that was it. I was, I am, back in the swing of things.

Despite how upset I felt when leaving San Francisco, it actually feels really good to be back in Córdoba. I definitely didn't feel ready for my time here to be up yet... I still feel like there is more for me to do and learn and feel here, and I want more time with the people and families that have taken me in here, too.

It was AMAZING not to have to go through that first month of confusion and adjustment again. I already knew my apartment and could just flop onto a familiar bed. I knew exactly where to go shopping and where to catch the bus for school. From my apartment to the high school to my terciary school, I was welcomed by familiar faces.

My cousin recommended that I write up a guide for the next Fulbrighter who comes here, and that is definitely something I am going to begin working on.

So here I am, back in Argentina again. We have one more week of school before our Winter Breaks, and then it's on to the second half of the school year.

I brought back some multivitamins, a bottle of 150, and I realized something...

If I eat one a day, by the time I finish this bottle, I'll be back in San Francisco...