uh oh... jefe.

The kids were being terrible, more so than usual yesterday. I've determined that the behavior of the age groups are as follows:

1 ESO (12 year olds, mas o menos): Love me. Are thrilled to see me every day. And, in fact, get a little angry with me when I'm not there.
2 ESO (13 year olds): Far more interested in yelling, screaming, and being anywhere but their chairs. Across the classroom is good, outside of the classroom is better. Sometimes they like to sing. But the common denominator of their favorite activities is NOISE.
3 ESO (14 year olds... are you following the emerging pattern?): Theoretically the highest level of English in the school, as they have been in the bilingual program for four years. However, they are way too cool for school and prefer not to speak English with me. And will avoid doing so at all costs. Real nice kids, I think they just are under the impression I'm a little useless. Ahh... so they've caught on.
4 ESO (15ish): These kids didn't have the opportunity of the bilingual program, so their level of English is lower. But talk to them about something they like, ie, Lady Gaga or facebook or sports and they love me a lot. Except one class that I think hates me. Those damn 3ESO'ers told them about my lack of purpose, creo que si.

Well, as you might imagine, I had a problem with 2 ESO. My teacher had not appeared for the first ten minutes of class (normal in Spain) and I only teach for a half hour. As they were frolicking throughout the classroom and hallways, completely ignoring me (again... the norm with this class); I finally lost it and explained to them, at maximum volume and near tears, that they had to sit down because even though I lack total authority, I have class with them the next day as well. So I will just get them in trouble then, with the social science teacher that they actually behave for. This scared them for the 14 seconds that I was aiming for.

Finally, a guardia (substitute teacher. But seeing how these kids need discipline like whoa, it might have been better if these guards show up with some sort of a weapon.) came in and said he would be there for the class. He asked if I was staying or going and I said hell no, I'm not staying here. For some inexplicable reason, he went downstairs as well. In fact, it was explicable and it was being explained in Spanish. So I didn't quite catch the logico.

Anyways, the so-called guardia needed reinforcement/replacement, I guess, because as soon as we got downstairs, he bailed and some other random I had seen before explained he would be the guardia now. Whatever, I didn't care. I ended up going back upstairs with this profesor to where the youngsters were still wreaking havoc.

Welllllllll... turns out the random was actually the jefe del studio (read: boss. Someone said he was like the deputy, but I think he meant principal. Whatevs.). Best part was walking back in the door, with all the darling little niños still running around and not paying me any attention, and having the principal walk in right behind. Finally, they stopped playing musical chairs and shut the hell up.

Lesson learned: Revenge against 13 year old children is just as sweet.