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MELISSA LEIGH GIBSON, PHD
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    • SS Curriculum Review
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    • Getting Proximate
  • Home
  • CV
  • The Present Tense
  • Teaching
  • Writing
  • Presentations
    • SS Curriculum Review
    • Big Questions, Big Issues
    • Getting Proximate

the present tense

A collection of writing.
​
​​​​Part personal, part academic. ​
​Always a work in progress. 
​
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La Playa

11/11/2012

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Picture
This is why we moved to Mexico.
Okay, fine, there were loftier ideals mentioned when Fresh first proposed this move South of the Border: Learning Spanish. His career aspirations. Raising a bilingual child. Cultural immersion that could help my dissertation. Affordable childcare.
But really, when I was hemming and hawing about whether this move to Guadalajara was really a good idea, two words convinced me: The Beach.

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Culture Shock

11/8/2012

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Picture
Some days I am so exasperated by Mexico that I feel like my head is going to explode.
The simplest things are difficult. More difficult than they should be, it seems. Like making a doctor’s appointment for Anna. It usually takes at least a week of constant phone-calling to find out whether or not the vaccine we need will actually be at the doctor’s office on the day we’ve scheduled the appointment. Or paying Anna’s tuition, which involved multiple trips to the bank and school before the accountant finally gave us every number we needed to do the bank transfer correctly. Or paying rent, which is only accepted in cash, between 4-8pm, and involves a thirty-minute conversation about the minutiae of our garden. (Seriously? What ever happened to checks?!) Or finding the products you need at the grocery store, which may be there one week but then mysteriously disappear for the next three months. Or getting a straight answer out of the rocking chair makers about when, exactly, your chairs will be ready. Or the fact that bills might arrive after they were due to be paid, and well, if you didn’t know that bill’s due date, you are just out of luck when that service shuts off. The simplest things–paying bills, replacing light bulbs, checking your voice mail–seem infinitely more difficult than they need to be.

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    About 

    While living in Mexico, I joked that speaking Spanish forced me to be far more Zen about life: Since I could only speak in the present tense, I was forced to just live in that present tense.

    This blog began as regular travel emails when I was a naive undergrad exploring the globe, my meditations on wherever I was on that school break (or break from school). It has since grown into something more, a record of parenting, teaching, politicking, community-building, struggling, healing, exploring, growing, and laughing -- a record of my present tense.

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CONTACT

melissa.gibson [at] marquette.edu
office | 414.288.1421

Marquette University College of Education
Department of Educational Policy & Leadership
561 N 15th St | 113H Schroeder Complex

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© COPYRIGHT 2017. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Photos from tedeytan, Stig Nygaard, Matt From London, shixart1985, Ted Rabbitts, fred_v, jfl1066