A Fish Out of Water

“My name is Kelsey Kudak. I’m from Minnesota.” She said with a trembling, nervous voice the first day of school.

It was the first day of school in third grade. We were all nervous, excited and frightened about new teachers, new friends, maybe a new life.

“Only two more years of school”. That phrase was repeated all day long. Everyone was searching for their names on desks or list in the door of class.

“I’m in section C”, “I’m in section B”, “I missed you!”, “How your vacations were?”, “I hate him, and we are in the SAME class”, “My crush is in front of my desk!” All these questions and secrets were all day conversation.

Seeing new, fresh and friendly faces was exciting too.

Physics with Debbie, Science with Marta, Math with Checha, and Health with Wendy… so on and so forth. But, who is going to teach Grammar and Literature? There were two teachers that were missing.

The only thing we knew is that a new teacher had come from United States

The first time she entered the class, the only thing you could first noticed was her bright, almost perfect fixed in a pony tale, blonde hair. The second thing was her sky-blue, as crystalline as the water, eyes. She’s not too tall; she’s a regular tall, I think. I noticed that she was nervous by the constantly rubbing with her hands. Like it was a very cold, freeze day and you want to give your hands a little heat. But she started to talk. At first, she introduced herself.

“Hi guys, I’m Kelsey Kudak. I’m from Minnesota and I will be you teacher from Grammar and Literature.”

We were all statics, like an alien came from space and was talking to us in its weird, indecipherable language.

She started to tell us about why she was here in Guatemala, or about his home. Maybe her story when she broke his leg.

 I think the fist time I heard her talk, I had a difficult time. I wasn’t used to hear someone speaking English SO FAST!                

The first’s classes with her were frightening. I mean, you didn’t answered her questions just because you didn’t knew the answer; you didn’t answer them because you were afraid of saying something wrong, or misspell something and she will laugh at you. Or, you’ll have the wrong one and she will be mean and take 5 pints out. So, it was difficult for her to break that big ice that was between us.   

Seven months have passed, and Kelsey is not longer a teacher. She’s like a partner to us.  I mean, she left us homework; she gets angry when we start whining about the Grammar pages, or to read at home. But, when you talk to her in out of school, she’s kind and nice to everyone.

She likes coffee, A LOT. She always has her coffee cup in her hand. Sometimes, a porcelain cup with a pink drawing. Or, other times, a plastic like Starbucks cup; one of them like a sunset, orange juice, orange cup and the other one like a reddish blood. These two combined with pure, always clean white.

She’s a nerd; or at least she says so. I think, in part, she is. She likes to read a lot, but most important, she understands the lectures. She’s one of the persons you’ll find in a coffee shop a Saturday night at 10:00 PM reading an antique book. Maybe she will be parting in a disco dancing till die. But my image of her is that.

Also, I can say that she is a little vain. I mean, not of those girls that every period of class has to “re-touch” her makeup. But you can see it in her almost perfect, curly, blonde hair. You will never going to see Kelsey with the same look every day. Sometimes, she will be wearing hair clips or other times just a diadem with her full hair out. But you will never see a little hair out of its place. That’s Kelsey.   

She’s nota a typical teacher.

I mean, in Literature, she’s not the one who only left the reading at home, then do the study questions and on Fridays a quiz. She’s the one who make us go deeper in the reading and see the real meaning in the story. I can assure you that most of us, in our life, have ever heard or even talked about a sonnet, less a Petrarchan or a Shakespearean sonnet. So, it’s cool to know more about literature, even do sometimes it’s a little boring.

Or in Grammar, she concentrates in editing skills. Not just verbs, adjectives and past participles.

Also, you can distinguish her personality by her loyalty. If you need help in something, she will help you no matter how late the e-mail goes or how many time it takes.

So, if you know Kelsey, you’ll know what I talked about in the past 700 words. You will picture her in every sentence.  

But, you know, I didn’t make this of her to gain more points or to get me in her favorite spot. I did it because, in all of the sea of heads you see every day at school, there’s always going to be a bright spot. A spot that may be seen only from Monday to Friday, but an interesting hair spot.  An almost perfect, curly, blonde hair spot. Like a fish out of water.