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To A Person Who Changed My Life
On Tuesday, I went out to dinner with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ultimabaka, and in the midst of your usual conversation, he passed on a bit of sad news that he'd gotten by way of a girl he knew when we were in high school. Mr. Lugo, Lugo 先生 to me forever and always, had had a heart attack and was in hospice care. It didn't really hit me then - I was upset, and wanted to know if there was anything I could do, but it still didn't really sink in. On Wednesday, an e-mail from Minh found it's way to me conveying the same information. I wrote to the original sender and asked to be kept informed. And today, Lugo-sensei died.
Mr. Lugo is the man. When we used to talk about him when we were in high school -ultimabaka, claireon, Evan, Minh, even Adam (who didn't have him!), and I, that's how we'd always talk about him.
After my junior year of high school, I spent the summer having a major life crisis. I went to do an internship at NYU in physics - I wanted more than anything to be an astronomer - and it was a raging disaster. I'd meant to do an Intel project, and had been signed up for an elective to support that, but with the internship a wash I now found myself with an empty slot in my class schedule. Sitting in some pointless early-in-the-semester meeting my senior year,ultimabaka said I should take Japanese.
I said he was crazy. I had been watching anime for less than 6 months, had no interest in Japan, and - asultimabaka well knew - languages were my kryptonite. I'd nearly failed Spanish one semester, and it had taken me two years to learn how to study, and even then my grades were memorization and luck - nothing I learned stuck with me. I'd vowed I'd never take another language again.
Somehow, though, the baka one convinced me - I think he just wore me down, and I figured I didn't have anything better to do. Terrible case of senioritis, crises of faith and insecurities about my future, I think I figured that if I blew my GPA it hardly mattered any more.
I'd missed the first day or two of classes when I settled in to the back seat of the third row of the Japanese classroom. I figured that some Japanese person would be teaching the class, and it might be mildly interesting. It was sort of a shock, then, when this bearded, balding guy comes striding in like he owns the place, and introduces himself as Mr. Lugo, but for this class we can call him Lugo sensei.
Lugo sensei was like no other teacher I've ever had. If you said something stupid or made a really blatant mistake, you'd get insulted. He used to curse - in English, in Japanese, and in Spanish, the subject he "normally" taught - and we all thought it was about the coolest thing ever. In retrospect, he was a lot more like what I'd expect out of a college professor than out of a high school teacher. He was crass, he gave a ton of homework, his tests were hard; I studied more for his class than any other course I took my senior year. We all hated him sometimes. Yet he made me WANT to learn. He made me WANT him to be proud of me. He made me want to study and get better and do well, to show up every day. I used to not want to miss his class. For our quiz on hiragana, he promised that the students who got all 50 questions right would get a prize. We all knew the prizes would be stupid, but damn if we didn't all try to earn the damn thing anyway (ultimabaka got one - I missed by one point, I misspelled とうきょう as ときょう. (that says Tokyo, for those who can't read hiragana :) ).
Lugo sensei would rage up and down the aisles of class, teaching us, pushing us to speak and use what we were learning, telling us that he'd learned hiragana in two days and we were the luckiest little you-know-what's on the planet to have a month. I loved Mr. Lugo's class, and I loved Mr. Lugo. He was like a whirlwind, always so full of energy, always ready to answer our questions - even the stupid ones - he'd make fun of us, but he'd still answer it. He was like your crazy uncle at school, I knew that if I'd ever really had a problem - even in another subject - I could have gone to him and he would have understood and tried to help.
By the time came for me to choose a college, I still didn't know what I wanted to do with myself. I hated school, I was sick of studying, I never wanted to work for a living, I didn't know what I'd ever do with myself. I'd hardly bothered applying to college I was so burnt out. I had to choose, though, between SUNY Binghamton and SUNY Geneseo - both good schools. Only two things ended up being my decision makers. And one was that SUNY Geneseo only had 1 year of Japanese, whereas SUNY Binghamton had 3. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but thanks to Lugo sensei, one thing I knew for certain was that no matter what else I did, I'd continue to study Japanese.
That interest, from him, carried me through all 3 years of Japanese at SUNY Binghamton, carried me to a half dozen Japanese history courses, carried me to a degree in East Asian Studies, and 4 months in Japan. And even when I forget all the fancy grammar and vocabulary from my later years, my foundation in the language is so strong that I never have to go all the way to the beginning. Sure, Sode Sensei at Binghamton had a hand in this, but in truth I remember distinctly that I had it when I entered her class in fall of 2000, had it because I had learned what Lugo sensei had taught, knew it like the back of my hand then, and I still do now.
Meanwhile, word filtered through the Stuy graduates that Mr. Lugo had retired. I can't recall exactly how that story went any more, only that that irascible man who was always abusing us hadn't told he was retiring because he thought he'd break down in front of the class and cry, and there was no shot that he'd let us see him be such a ninny. I was so upset when I found out that he'd left; I remember going back to visit Stuy in early 2001 and it felt so empty, because of the 5 teachers there who really meant something to me, three had left (Mr. Lapolla went to a higher paying job, Mrs. Stewart, late Ms. Stillwaggon, and gone off with her new husband to start a family, and Mr. Lugo had retired) and I haven't gone back since - I loved Mrs. Rubin and Mr. Gern, but not being able to see the others just made the exercise feel hollow. I even wrote a letter to Mr. Lugo, which Mrs. Rubin kindly consented to pass on for me. I still don't know if it ever reached him.
Would I be who I am today with out Lugo sensei? Maybe I would. It's tough to know. Maybe it was the act of taking Japanese at all that pushed me in the direction I've gone. But I don't think so. I hated language, and I was CERTAIN that I couldn't do it. He made me see that I could do it. He made me want to do it, want to keep trying. I would have walked on coals for that man, because if he'd told me to do it I would have been convinced that I'd learn something from the experience.
In the course of writing this, I wanted to show you all a picture Lugo sensei instead of my half-remembered description of him, a man I haven't seen since spring of 2000. With that in mind, I pulled down my year book to see if he was in there. He isn't. Instead, there's this. So instead of Mr. Lugo's portrait, I've got a doodled little demon, and simply the message, Claireさん がんばって EJ ルゴ. Just like him! To that I say, ルゴ先生！本当にどうもありがとございました。私はいつでも忘れません。忘れられません。
After I posted this, I sat down the year book determined that he had to be in there SOMEWHERE. I was right. Mr. Lugo, hiding in the picture of his homeroom.
ultimabaka, and in the midst of your usual conversation, he passed on a bit of sad news that he'd gotten by way of a girl he knew when we were in high school. Mr. Lugo, Lugo 先生 to me forever and always, had had a heart attack and was in hospice care. It didn't really hit me then - I was upset, and wanted to know if there was anything I could do, but it still didn't really sink in. On Wednesday, an e-mail from Minh found it's way to me conveying the same information. I wrote to the original sender and asked to be kept informed. And today, Lugo-sensei died. Mr. Lugo is the man. When we used to talk about him when we were in high school -
ultimabaka, claireon, Evan, Minh, even Adam (who didn't have him!), and I, that's how we'd always talk about him.After my junior year of high school, I spent the summer having a major life crisis. I went to do an internship at NYU in physics - I wanted more than anything to be an astronomer - and it was a raging disaster. I'd meant to do an Intel project, and had been signed up for an elective to support that, but with the internship a wash I now found myself with an empty slot in my class schedule. Sitting in some pointless early-in-the-semester meeting my senior year,
ultimabaka said I should take Japanese.I said he was crazy. I had been watching anime for less than 6 months, had no interest in Japan, and - as
ultimabaka well knew - languages were my kryptonite. I'd nearly failed Spanish one semester, and it had taken me two years to learn how to study, and even then my grades were memorization and luck - nothing I learned stuck with me. I'd vowed I'd never take another language again. Somehow, though, the baka one convinced me - I think he just wore me down, and I figured I didn't have anything better to do. Terrible case of senioritis, crises of faith and insecurities about my future, I think I figured that if I blew my GPA it hardly mattered any more.
I'd missed the first day or two of classes when I settled in to the back seat of the third row of the Japanese classroom. I figured that some Japanese person would be teaching the class, and it might be mildly interesting. It was sort of a shock, then, when this bearded, balding guy comes striding in like he owns the place, and introduces himself as Mr. Lugo, but for this class we can call him Lugo sensei.
Lugo sensei was like no other teacher I've ever had. If you said something stupid or made a really blatant mistake, you'd get insulted. He used to curse - in English, in Japanese, and in Spanish, the subject he "normally" taught - and we all thought it was about the coolest thing ever. In retrospect, he was a lot more like what I'd expect out of a college professor than out of a high school teacher. He was crass, he gave a ton of homework, his tests were hard; I studied more for his class than any other course I took my senior year. We all hated him sometimes. Yet he made me WANT to learn. He made me WANT him to be proud of me. He made me want to study and get better and do well, to show up every day. I used to not want to miss his class. For our quiz on hiragana, he promised that the students who got all 50 questions right would get a prize. We all knew the prizes would be stupid, but damn if we didn't all try to earn the damn thing anyway (
ultimabaka got one - I missed by one point, I misspelled とうきょう as ときょう. (that says Tokyo, for those who can't read hiragana :) ). Lugo sensei would rage up and down the aisles of class, teaching us, pushing us to speak and use what we were learning, telling us that he'd learned hiragana in two days and we were the luckiest little you-know-what's on the planet to have a month. I loved Mr. Lugo's class, and I loved Mr. Lugo. He was like a whirlwind, always so full of energy, always ready to answer our questions - even the stupid ones - he'd make fun of us, but he'd still answer it. He was like your crazy uncle at school, I knew that if I'd ever really had a problem - even in another subject - I could have gone to him and he would have understood and tried to help.
By the time came for me to choose a college, I still didn't know what I wanted to do with myself. I hated school, I was sick of studying, I never wanted to work for a living, I didn't know what I'd ever do with myself. I'd hardly bothered applying to college I was so burnt out. I had to choose, though, between SUNY Binghamton and SUNY Geneseo - both good schools. Only two things ended up being my decision makers. And one was that SUNY Geneseo only had 1 year of Japanese, whereas SUNY Binghamton had 3. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but thanks to Lugo sensei, one thing I knew for certain was that no matter what else I did, I'd continue to study Japanese.
That interest, from him, carried me through all 3 years of Japanese at SUNY Binghamton, carried me to a half dozen Japanese history courses, carried me to a degree in East Asian Studies, and 4 months in Japan. And even when I forget all the fancy grammar and vocabulary from my later years, my foundation in the language is so strong that I never have to go all the way to the beginning. Sure, Sode Sensei at Binghamton had a hand in this, but in truth I remember distinctly that I had it when I entered her class in fall of 2000, had it because I had learned what Lugo sensei had taught, knew it like the back of my hand then, and I still do now.
Meanwhile, word filtered through the Stuy graduates that Mr. Lugo had retired. I can't recall exactly how that story went any more, only that that irascible man who was always abusing us hadn't told he was retiring because he thought he'd break down in front of the class and cry, and there was no shot that he'd let us see him be such a ninny. I was so upset when I found out that he'd left; I remember going back to visit Stuy in early 2001 and it felt so empty, because of the 5 teachers there who really meant something to me, three had left (Mr. Lapolla went to a higher paying job, Mrs. Stewart, late Ms. Stillwaggon, and gone off with her new husband to start a family, and Mr. Lugo had retired) and I haven't gone back since - I loved Mrs. Rubin and Mr. Gern, but not being able to see the others just made the exercise feel hollow. I even wrote a letter to Mr. Lugo, which Mrs. Rubin kindly consented to pass on for me. I still don't know if it ever reached him.
Would I be who I am today with out Lugo sensei? Maybe I would. It's tough to know. Maybe it was the act of taking Japanese at all that pushed me in the direction I've gone. But I don't think so. I hated language, and I was CERTAIN that I couldn't do it. He made me see that I could do it. He made me want to do it, want to keep trying. I would have walked on coals for that man, because if he'd told me to do it I would have been convinced that I'd learn something from the experience.
In the course of writing this, I wanted to show you all a picture Lugo sensei instead of my half-remembered description of him, a man I haven't seen since spring of 2000. With that in mind, I pulled down my year book to see if he was in there. He isn't. Instead, there's this. So instead of Mr. Lugo's portrait, I've got a doodled little demon, and simply the message, Claireさん がんばって EJ ルゴ. Just like him! To that I say, ルゴ先生！本当にどうもありがとございました。私はいつでも忘れません。忘れられません。
After I posted this, I sat down the year book determined that he had to be in there SOMEWHERE. I was right. Mr. Lugo, hiding in the picture of his homeroom.
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*huggle* I'm around if you need me for anything sweetheart
-- Gerardo
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