Blog Numero Dos

So, since I don't really have anything else to do, I'm going to quick write a blog about the funny things that happened to us yesterday. Because it's funny and pretty classic for us. :)

So, in my previous blog, I mentioned that we have been exercising and that we ran to town together yesterday. We finished with school at 3 and the plan was for all of us to put our exercise clothes on, leave our things at school, run down, get a ride back, and pick up our school things before getting home.

I left my room to go change, but first I had to bring my copies to the office, so I dumped my clothes and tennis shoes outside the office and filled out my copy sheets. I was probably in the office for two minutes, but when I came back out, my tennis shoes were gone. I started looking around, couldn't find them, asked the cleaners, my principal, and the other teachers. The kids had just left on the bus, so I was kind of afraid that someone had taken them... on accident? on purpose? Anyway, the point was everyone was ready to go and I was still standing around in my uniform and only high heels to walk in. :) The other girls decided to continue looking for my shoes while I changed into everything else. When I was finished, the girls had just returned from their quest- with my shoes! Apparently, our other principal, Mr. Calderon, had thought they belonged to one of the kids and had taken them and gone around to all the buses seeing if someone forgot them. :) So, I quick threw my shoes on- by now it was 3:15 and we really wanted to make it down to town before the bank closed at 4. We all threw our things into Catelin's room and started down the road. It was a really great run! It's a nice, easy decline so you can still run and not feel like you're going to fall down the whole mountain, but it's not completely flat so the running is a little easier. All four of us (Jennifer, Catelin, Shelly, me)ran for basically the whole time. We got down to town at 3:40 and Catelin said, "It'd be really nice if a moto came by on this road to bring us to the bank so we make sure we don't miss it" and probably two minutes later.... a moto taxi came and we hopped in! We found all the things we needed, our moto taxi driver friend, Mauricio, picked us up at 4:58 - two minutes early!! (usually they're anywhere from 30-60 minutes late haha), and we were on our way up. All of us were talking about what a great afternoon it was and how there'd been no problems like we usually have. Shelly and Catelin had made some great, random purchases and Jennifer and I had bought popcorn and knock-off M&Ms for our Harry Potter marathon. As we were nearing the school, Catelin pulled out her key to her room and..... it was not the key to her room. It was the key to our house. We quickly remembered all the things that were in the room- all of our school clothes, our school work, our keys, computers, cell phones.... We stopped at the school anyway to see if anyone was there with a key to the classrooms... Shelly broke the fence (although if you ask her about it, she will say it was me. It wasn't), and Don Juan, the 'guard' asked me who all the girls were with me- I told him they were teachers and he asked if they taught at a different school! haha so he kind of thought the girls were just breaking into the school and besides that, had no keys to anything. SO, we got back in our moto taxi, without any of our things, and headed up to our house. Luckily, Catelin had left her computer with all the Harry Potter movies downloaded at home; unluckily my speakers were still at the school... but we still managed to watch some of the first movie as long as we sat very quietly. We still ate our popcorn and M&Ms, and had a good night together. This morning, we walked back down to the school, and someone was there with keys so we were able to get our things. Which is why I have my computer and am able to write to all of you! :) Pretty eventful afternoon and evening :)

You Make the World Taste Better.

Dr. Pepper. I am currently sipping on a Dr. Pepper. It is so delicious. We went to Santa Rosa last week and did some major shopping and I found DR. PEPPER!!! (It's not something they sell here in Gracias, so it was a pretty big find. :))

Some other things that I have bought/experienced/found that have made my world taste better.....


Four CDs for Four Bucks off the streets
* Selena (classic!)
* Michael Jackson's BAD (everyone here knows all of MJ's songs...)
* Vicente Fernandez (he's super famous here and every week when we drive down to
town in Mr. Rodrigo's truck, we listen to him)
* Shakira (she sang for the World Cup; I had to get it!)

Christmas
In my family, we always decorate and start getting into the Christmas spirit during Thanksgiving break. So, I'm a little early BUT last year I was not prepared for Christmas at all. There are no commercials for holiday shopping, no Christmas lights, no snow (!!!), no special church services, no trying to take a perfect Christmas picture, no putting together Christmas cards... you get the point. Last year, I got home and, besides the wedding craziness, I was shocked to find out that Christmas was coming... and the goose was fat! ha. Anyway, this year, I have started with the Christmas music playing, I've bought decorations, I found Rudolph on YouTube and watched it, and I try to wear hats and scarves as often as possible even though they're not that necessary. :) I also bought some EGG NOG!

Exerciseeeeee
We've actually been doing a lot of exercise as a group which has been pretty great. Last year, I started taking advantage of having a beautiful mountain trail to climb/run/walk plus I was dating the PE teacher so I felt a little pressure to be a tiny bit athletic. :) I'd usually go running on my own and enjoy it, but this year Catelin and I have been going pretty regularly and the other teachers will join us when they feel like it. We walk or jog or lift weights (the weights we use at the school are actually bottles filled with sand and some metal poles that the guys attached cement-filled containers to... pretty nifty even though I'm not great at explaining :)) and do some ab stuff. Yesterday, all of girls ran down from school to town, walked around down there and caught a taxi back up. It was pretty great. :)

Cooking
I've discovered that I enjoy cooking, and I can usually do a pretty decent job. We're thinking of making a Honduran cookbook of all the recipes we've used down here :) All of our meals are homemade so we do lots of internet exploring for good recipes. So far, I think our greatest hits have been our chicken strips with onion rings, Chicken alfredo pasta, delicious homemade pizzas (we're making that tonight!), and mashed potatoes (the mashed potatoes are just delicious; it's Catelin's recipe- we could probably eat them as a meal themselves :))

Well it is 10:25 on Saturday morning and I am out of things to do! :) Maybe I'll write another blog... :D

I got some money cuz I just got paid... now how I wish I had someone to talk to!

My Saturdays here in Honduras are a little different than my ones in the US. First difference: In the US, I try to sleep to at least noon, but usually shoot for 2. Here, I get up at 7:30 (on my own, without an alarm clock :/) and do something productive. I now understand why my parents always suggested that we do our Saturday lists as quickly as possible, without putzing, so we could enjoy the rest of our day responsibility free! The last few Saturdays, however, have been busy with our Fiesta Tipica, trips to Santa Rosa, and end of the quarter grading. I was feeling pretty stifled in my messy room, not to mention the fact that I again let laundry get out of hand. So, I woke up with the intention to do some pretty intense cleaning.... and that is exactly what happened! I took pictures so you could be a part of my productive Saturday!!


First things first, I decided to sweep out our kitchen. There was a box in our corner that has been there since we moved in and since I was doing the intense cleaning session, I moved it! Behind the box was this... a black, gross-looking thing attached to our wall by a webbish looking thing, surrounded by this weird yellow tint....




After dousing the unidentified object in Raid to make sure it wasn't a spider, (although, looking back, I'm not sure why a spider would be trapped in its own web) I pulled the thing off the wall and brought it out to investigate with my Exact-o knife. It was a cocoon! There was a butterfly/moth waiting to be metamorphosized inside!! It was pretty cool; kind of a bummer that I accidentally killed it, but I brought it to show my kids at school so it ended up as a learning tool :) I've also decided that if I could choose my life path over again, an entomologist (vocab word this week... a scientist who studies insects :)) or some other outdoorsy scientist might be a close second to teaching. :)





Catelin and I always get up early on Saturdays and make yummy milk-sugar-cinnamon rice. mmmmmmmmmmm so I ate some of that :)


Our neighbors offered to let us use their washer, so I collected all my school uniform clothes and combined them with Catelin's, Jennifer's and Shelly's. Catelin went next door to supervise. The family doesn't have a dryer, but after the clothes are washed, they keep them in the washer on spin cycle without water before hanging them on the line. sweet!



I decided to organize/rearrange my room. This is the before picture...


While cleaning, I had CSI on... I'd never seen the show, but this summer, I found seasons 1 and 2 at Half Price books for 10 bucks each! Now I'm addicted!!


Mopped and swept (I almost said broomed-darn lack of English! hahaha) the living room...



We decided to have a massive kitchen clean. All the roommates joined in! We dusted; we swept; we organized our food pantry....



We even cleaned out the fridge! While cleaning, Catelin knocked the olive oil lid behind the refrigerator, so she moved it and found a very, very mushy pineapple. Don't know how long it had been there haha




Our pila faucet decided to break this morning. Gushing water everywhere...



Here's the guilty party. The PVC pipe just randomly broke apart. And the key of the faucet fell off.



Burning garbage!!




I did some laundry of my own, and then Catelin brought over the laundry from the neighbors to hang up!




We solved the gusher by turning off the water (I did learn something about problem faucets last year...), stuffing a plastic bag down the pipe, and covering it with another plastic bag, and covering with tons of duct tape. The result looked a lot like a bird, specifically an eagle. We put some eyes, a beak, and named him George Washington. :D He lasted for a few hours...





Shelly and I wrung out a sopping wet, very heavy comforter. In the middle of it, I was quickly reminded of a scene from Swiss Family Robinson when Fritz wrestles an anaconda in the river. LUCKILY, Shelly was also raised on this movie and kindly re-enacted the scene!!!!




We have some metal chair and couch frames that are strung with this elastic string to make the seats. GREAT invention but... the metal legs do not sound that great scraping across our tile floor. So, Jennifer and I used the handy duct tape and cardboard to make some protectors. Perfect!



We add blankets to make it look more homey and comfortable :)



Saturday nights we have 'Favorite Movie Night'. We began with Tyler's favorite, "Tombstone", then Shelly's favorite, "Rookie of the Year", Jennifer and Catelin's fav "Wizard of Oz" and Maggie's favorite "The Notebook". This weekend it was my turn and all my favorite movies are epic three-four hour, so we constructed a massive bed to sit on. (Despite appearances, those couch things are NOT that comfortable :))



MY FAVORITE MOVIE OF ALL TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TEN COMMANDMENTS!!!! Unfortunately, we got about 20 minutes into it, and the DVD decided to stop working, so we switched to The Godfather. Still good, and Marlon Brando is great but.... you just can't beat Charlton Heston! :/



All in all, it was a pretty eventful day. After I loaded all these pictures onto my computer, I fell asleep, kicked my camera onto the ground, and it promptly stopped working. Unfortunately, that means I can't show you my 'after cleaning' room picture, but I promise it looks much better. Little disappointed about the camera :/ I'm not sure it's going to come back to life, but if not, I suppose I can add it to the Christmas list along with a new Ten Commandments DVD :)

Miss VP and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Thursday I had a terrible day. I'm pretty sure it started on Tuesday. We didn't have school on Monday so 1) my kids were thrown off and 2) I was thrown off. I usually use Fridays to plan everything, which I did, but I also use Mondays to put everything in order- copies, homeworks*,review my plans, blah blah blah. Suffice to say, without Monday, I just could not get it together! By Thursday I was back on track, but my kids still weren't. The day started off with me passing back tests and a girl telling me it was my fault that she didn't get a good grade. This is the third time (with three different students) this has happened, and it made me so mad! She also made a dirty face, AND it was in front of the other students. So... I marched her out into the hallway and talked her about being disrespectful. Good start. Another thing about Thursdays is that I don't have any breaks. Usually because of the Spanish classes or PE, I have time to work, but on Thursdays I teach all day with my sixth grade and the music classes. My kids were really obnoxious and talkative, so I knew it was going to be a long day with them if I didn't gain control soon, so I was pretty mean after asking them 3 times to stop talking. There's a saying in education that you should be a witch until Holloween- but I just don't enjoy that very much! However, I was too nice last year, so I decided to do the whole witch thing. Thursday.... it was easy :)

I had a bunch of kids with allergies that were sneezing- which is fine, I can't be mad about that. However, all the other kids in class decided the sneezing and coughing was a good way to get attention so I had a whole class of sneezers and coughers. One student decided to take it to the next level and started gagging over his desk... complete with spit dribbling out of his mouth onto the floor. He went out to the hall! (after bringing in paper towel to clean up his drool)

In reading, I had 6 students that hadn't done their homework. Common occurence (my kids do NOT do their homework!) so they got recess taken away. I also tried to read a story and have a discussion, and I had to stop every two minutes to write names on the board of people talking during the story... I got to 8 students on the board in 20 minutes(an average day is 2-5 in an entire morning).


In language class, we are learning about quotation marks so I had copies of a story with a lot of dialogue and I called 5 people up to the front to act out the drama The other students had to highlight the talking parts and add quotation marks.... didn't happen. The people in front tried to read and no one paid attention. I think I had 15 out of my 24 students talking. I had the drama kids sit down and everyone put their heads down. I'm pretty sure they had their heads down for a good five minutes and then I lectured. I told them how disappointed I was with their behavior throughout the week, and that I was very frustrated that I couldn't do fun things for a class. I told them I was going to be a mean teacher for the rest of the day so to look out!!

We had recess next, and then it was back to a three-hour block of class. I had scheduled to play a game for spelling, but instead just had them study silently at their desk and turn in a sheet with the words copied. In science, we are learning about insects and the different orders of insects. I had a poster board and had asked students to bring insects to put in the chart. IT WAS CHAOS. The kids were throwing bugs at each other, not getting their notebooks out to copy descriptions, and not paying attention to me yelling at the front of the board. So.... I took the chart down, put the insects away, and told them they had to do the chart on their own.

ANYWAY, it was just a bad day. I think I was most frustrated by the fact that I really wanted to do some great activities- not so my kids would like me, but because I really think it is better to learn through activities instead of just reading out of the book. So, I'm not sure what I'm going to do to fix that problem. I've done a lot of positive reinforcement, both individually and collectively; I've punished individually and as a group; I've had serious talks about respect.... nothing has really worked. It just looks like it's going to be a problem, and I don't think it's fair to the 6-7 students that are attentive and ready for class every day.

Am I just beating the teacher-horse dead? :)

copan ruinas

Sorry I haven't written for awhile. I always get to the stage where I've opened up my computer, gotten myself situated to write a blog (in bed, itunes, something to drink), and opened my blog page and then... I just sit here. I feel like I have nothing to write- or too much to write :) I think the second year around thing is difficult because most of my experiences are basically the same (well at least the exciting ones), so they don't seem blog-worthy :) This last weekend for example- I visited Copan Ruinas for the fourth time (the town that has the Mayan Ruins). It was a really wonderful trip- we had Monday off from school, so Shelly, Catelin, Jennifer, Tyler, Maggie and I were able to take a trip. It was actually kind of fun because I was able to be the little tour guide as far as setting up a place to stay and giving options for what we could do while we were there. We ended up staying at my favorite hostel, Iguana Azul, going to the ruins (with a tour guide... I memorized everything he said so when all my friends and family come to visit me, we don't have to pay more :)), and going on a horse tour with a silent, walking guide. (little disappointing :)) It was a nice way to relax and hang out with all the teachers without talking about school all the time. :) I've held off on sharing my innermost secrets with this group of teachers for awhile (which, I know, is a huge surprise to anyone that knows me!) but this weekend was a nice time for all of us to open up a little bit more and just enjoy the company!

Copan Ruinas is a big tourist pull for Honduras, so there's actually a lot of people (shopkeepers, hotel and restaurant owners, moto taxi drivers) that speak English. That part of the touristyness (yes, I know that's not a real word) of the town was pleasant, but one thing I did not enjoy was the tourist side of things. There were big groups of English speakers (Americans or Europeans) everywhere and it made me so uncomfortable! I think the reason is that I want to fit into the culture and prove that I'm kind of a part of Honduran culture :) So, I tried to do things that would prove I had been in the country longer than a week :) The funniest part was that I didn't realize I was being so 'defensive' until the end of the trip. In Honduras, when you passed someone on the street you always say, "Adios" instead of "Hola" and anytime you see someone eat (doesn't matter if you know them, if you're walking to your table at a restaurant, or if they're eating on the side of the street) you always say "Buen Provecho" (Have a good meal). So, I tried to excessively greet people while walking around town. Also, they have all their prices in dollars, but I insisted on only being told the Lempira price (well that one was reasonable; I don't have any dollars here :)). I even asked if they had pataste at one of the restaurants, which is a kind of vegetable that I'd never heard of until coming here. :) SO, it was an experience. I wasn't expecting to feel such a loyalty toward the Honduran side of things :)

Speaking of, I bought some typical (I don't know what this translates into in English, the kind of things they had in the olden-days haha. So in the US, maybe hoop skirts or bonnets or something :)) sandals to wear for our Fiesta Tipica next weekend. We sell typical food, the kids do typical dances, and we wear typical costumes! Should be fun :)

girls just wanna have fun

I learned two new words/phrases this week that will forever remind me of fall.

leche de burra (donkey's milk) or if you prefer...
leche de ornitorrinco (platypus milk!)

Why do these remind me of fall? Well, my parents sent me a birthday package (that got here right on my birthday!) that included, among other things of delight, caramel apple suckers. YUMMM. I was eating one at the neighbor's the other day and apparently a slang way to say caramel is donkey or platypus milk. I did not know the word ornitorrinco (the way they were saying it, I thought they were talking about ornito Ringo so I was trying to figure out how the conversation had gotten on the Beetles!) but eventually they were able to describe it to me ... the animal that lives in the sea that has a face of a duck but its a mammal... and then I finally made the connection that they were talking about my sucker. :)

I've really been enjoying my time with the neighbors. Now that I can actually understand most of the conversation and participate a little bit, I like to just go next door or down the road and sit in the kitchen at night with the other women and socialize. It's actually a new experience for me because I don't really talk that much... I just listen. I've noticed in my English conversations that I have a very 'I can top that story!' attitude and I ALWAYS have something to say. I don't think I would have noticed that flaw about myself if I hadn't been forced to sit and realize that I can enjoy the conversation even if I'm not joining in. I've actually done quite a few things in the last couple weeks. I made baleadas in Sonja's kitchen (not very well, they made fun of my slowness but hey... it's a start :)), and then we just sat around and talked after supper while eating oranges with a yummy sauce (pepper, salt, hot chile sauce, a little garlic). This weekend we had a birthday party for one of my friends/another teacher Ana and a girl in K5 named Ana Sugey (sue-hey). The women prepared plates of food for everyone at the party.... we had yucca (which is a root that tastes kind of like potato), cabbage, fried pork, a lemon slice and a tomato slice. I helped out at the house instead of really doing much at the party and it was so fun. The women just joked around and completely include me in their life. Last night, Sonja, her sister Sandra, and her cousin Ellie came over to 'play' beauty salon- they painted all our nails and straightened our hair- just for fun, and just to enjoy one another's company.

I'm happy I'm able to have better relationships with my neighbors this year. :)

regrets.

This blog is about the things I regret doing/not doing with my life right now.

I regret that until this weekend, I'd only done my laundry once since being here. I know, I know. That's college behavior! But, I've been going to my students' games every weekend and the weeks are just too tiring and I really don't like doing laundry.... so I just kept putting it off. Well, enough was enough, I'd put it off so long that I was completely out of all the essentials. Sunday morning I got up nice and early (9!!) and dragged my over-flowing laundry bag outside (which I have since lost. awesome). I threw all the clothes into the pila (a big cement sink. It takes like 20 minutes to fill...) and let them soak in my detergent water for about a half an hour. Then.... I started in. I do my white shirts first (My school uniform is white button-up shirts and navy blue pants or skirts) because I have to scrub out the yellow armpits (this might get graphic kids ... sorry) and if I wait to do that hardcore scrubbing till later, I have zero arm strength. :) So I did my white shirts and then just started pulling stuff out. Most of my clothes are fine if they've soaked. The dirt and odors just come right off and I can just put them right out on the line. The exceptions are my tank tops. Since I haven't done laundry for some time, I've just been re-cycling through my tank tops to wear underneath my school shirt, as a weekend lounge shirt, or to sleep in. All that to say... my tanks were pretty stinky. For those, I employed the magic of Suavitel. This is basically like Downy I think, but it just makes the clothes smell so nice! I have a five-gallon bucket that I fill up with water, pour in a packet of Suavitel and soak the smelly items in for 15 minutes or so.

So Sunday, I did all this. Even with only scrubbing the white shirts and a few pairs of jeans, it still took me like 3 hours. I watched "Breakfast at Tiffany's" for the first half but that finished and I didn't really feel like getting out of rhythm to pop in another DVD. (I had pulled a chair out to our porch and set my computer on that :)) That's another thing I noticed this weekend. Our neighbors have been doing laundry their whole life and they're so good at it. They have this rhythm that they do everything by. I wish I could incorporate sounds into blogging because I can't really describe it. All I know is that I definitely don't have that rhythm so I end up being really jerky and awkward looking. It takes me like ten years to pull soaking wet towels out and wring them. Don Luis (our 'grandpa' neighbor) came over and helped me out which was a little embarrassing because when he saw how many clothes I had, he laughed a little and then went over to his house, got some more twine and hung up another clothesline for me. Awesome :)

I finally got most of my clothes washed and out on the line and was able to go inside in time to make lunch AND see the Broncos game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was on TV here so I was pretty pumped. And yes, I know they lost but I wasn't too upset about their general playing. (PLUS did you guys see John Elway??!) ok sorry. sorry. done with the ranting, be happy I'm not giving you the play-by-play.

Anyway, so I'm reformed. I'm never going to wait like a month and a half to do laundry again. Although my friend Geri reminded me of the time when I was in college and I didn't do dishes all semester. whoops. And there's the fact that all those clothes are still out on the line.....

AHH someday I will be completely put together and organized. haha. for now... I'll just work on being more reasonable on the laundry front ;)