they really are crazy for soccer.

my students tried first to explain to me that they would not be having classes on Wednesday because the Ecuadorian soccer team made it to the South American finals against Columbia. If they win this game, they are one of the four teams off to the World Cup. I was almost buying the whole no-class thing until I noticed the vigor with which they were striving to convince me that it really was a vacation. If something is an official vacation, no convincing is necessary.

So, once they were found out, they asked me if I would suspend the quiz and give them no homework. (I give a weekly killer quiz). I told them I'd talk to the administration, and the next day I came to class and told them that not only was I absolutely not allowed to assign homework or give quizzes on such an important soccer day, I was also required to give them an extra 20 bonus points for watching the game. They were buying everything until a few of them wondered aloud why they would get points for something they were all doing anyway.

Man, I have fun toying with students sometimes. I do need to get better at it, and never crack a smile too early.

Anyhow, they really are fanatics... the game is right now and televisions are perched everywhere around the campus: behind the cafeteria bar, in the International office, in the copy center, in the middle of the road. Earlier today, I had fun turning the game into a rhetorical situation in which they had to convince their disgusted and disinterested audience [me] that soccer really had important social and historical implications. What opportunities arise.

Unfortunately, everyone is as cranky as I was earlier (my alarm didn't go off, and I woke up five minutes before my bus was leaving and had to hoof it without coffee or breakfast) because within the first 10 minutes of the game, Ecuador gave up two goals to Columbia. Everybody is sweating... at least if they lose, I won't have drunk students tomorrow.