Happy Father's Day!

First of all, Happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there (especially my dad <3 )!

This is going to be a short blog only because I don't have a ton to tell you. The week has flown by and I can't believe tomorrow is Thursday already! Crazy!!

I do have a funny story about one of my 6th graders, though. We have a Writer's Workshop every week where the kids draw a picture one day, write things about the picture the next and than write a paragraph on the last day. One of my 6th grader, Mariana (who happens to be one of my most challenging students as well), drew me (yes, I was flattered). The next day she was writing sentences about her picture and one of her sentences said, "The teacher has skin the color of milk." The funny thing is, Mariana, like many Ticos, is very light skinned. In fact, her skin is lighter than mine right now just because I have been spending some time on the beach. I was laughing when I pointed this out to her. I do not think she was nearly as amused by the whole thing as I was.

Only a couple of more weeks until we have two weeks off of school...I am looking forward to the break! Hope everyone's summers are going well so far...

Hey All!!!

I know I have not posted in a while and for all you ¨regular¨blog checkers, I am sorry. The sibs were in town last week and so I did not make it to the internet. We were too busy taking underwater photos and trying to find cheap drinks (easier said than done, trust me!). I almost didn´t come to the internet today in efforts to save 1 mil, but being faced with the option of checking e-mails and facebook or staying in the classroom and working, I chose to splurge.

Teaching has gotten a lot better (keep praying that it stays that way) due to the bribing I have been doing with the school supplies sent down by SSJ´s fifth grade class (now sixth grade!). Thank you again! I did have to break up two fist fights yesterday, though. I think there must have been a full moon or something. I had two second graders (a girl and a boy) get into it as I was walking out the door at the end of class. They were pretty easy to break up because they were young. Later that day, I had two sixth grade boys get into it, throwing desks and everything. I was a little less willing to get in the middle of that one, but I ended up not getting hurt so all is good. Things are always interesting...

Rebeca, Jenny, Luis and I have been making jewelry the past couple of nights. My sibs brought down a bunch of beads and my host siblings love it. After dinner, we sit around the kitchen table and make all sorts of things. They are really cute too, because they always ask me if some color combination is ugly or not before they actually start stringing the beads.

Tomorrow is Friday and I am looking forward to a nice, relaxing weekend at the beach (hopefully no rain). I hope everyone has had a great first couple of weeks of summer! I love hearing from you so please keep commenting! Chaoito!

It´s been a week!

So, a couple of short little stories to let you know what I have been up to lately:

Last weekend was midservice. Yes, I know, already half way through right?!?! I had a hard time believing it too! It feels like I only just arrived. It was a great weekend though. We spent four days in San Jose catching up. We also ate amazing meals! They were great for the four days, but when I returned to Manuel Antonio my stomach was super upset. I think I am going to have a hard time adjusting to ¨real¨ food when I return to the states.

We got a cat! The other night, I was filling up my water bottle in the kitchen sink and there was a little cat sitting on our porch. It has been in the house ever since. It is super cute...not fully grown yet...and really sweet. It follows me around wherever I go and is always rubbing up against my legs. Rebeca wants to call is Tigressa (since that was the name of one of their old cats) but I am calling it Marcela. We are not even sure if it is a girl or boy, but I figure it doesn´t really matter.

I broke up a fist fight on Tuesday. Everyday this week, for about an hour and a half in the afternoons, the students running for student council are given the opportunity to campaign. This results is about an hour and a half long recess equipped with balloons and flying candy. During the ¨propoganda¨on Tuesday, two third grade girls started fighting. The fourth grade teacher broke it up and than left. About five minutes later, they started going at it again. I had to break them up this time, and decided it might be wise to seperate them a little further. It was pretty exciting stuff!

Lastly, Rebeca and I were eating soup for dinner the other night and Rebeca had ants in her soup. She would put one on her spoon, look at me and than slurp it down. Although I really did not find it that gross (I am sure I have eaten my fair share of ants since I have been here), I would react and she would crack up. We started joking that we should always eat hormiga (ant) soup. I told her that they added protein to her diet and she just looked at me like I was crazy. Who knows, maybe I am?

The bros and sis are coming down this weekend - definitely looking forward to seeing them!

Not the best weekend...

Well, I guess disappointments (sp?) happen all over the world. This weekend was supposed to be the weekend I went into San Jose and ran a 10k with my director and the other volunteer living with me in Manuel Antonio. By Wednesday, both of them said they would not be running, but I really wanted to do it so figured I would go into San Jose and run the race solo. I told my director, who lives in San Jose, because she was going to have to sign me up for it. She said she would sign me up and drop my race entry off at the hostel I would be staying at. When I arrived at the hostel, there was no entry and no response when I tried to call her. I continued to call her throughout the night, only to get transferred to an answering machine. I figured I would still go down to the place of the race and see if I could sign up there or if they had some type of record proving I had signed up. When I got down there in the morning, my name was not on the list and I could not sign up the morning of. So I went back to the hostel thinking I would try calling my director one more time to see if she knew what was going on. No answer. I am guessing she just forgot to sign me up which sucks. To make matters worse, upon arriving at the hostel, I had free internet (which is good, yes) but received more than one disturbing e-mail about things going on back in the states. I had a nice healthy cry in the shower back at the hostel this morning. A cry provoked by frustrations with my director, news from home and hormones (sorry boys).

I keep telling myself that this weekend was not a complete waste and not all bad. I got a good dinner and breakfast, took a hot shower and met a couple of nice people at the hostel. I need to remember these things and try not to get hung up on the negatives.

Still, if anyone has a good story or good news from home, I could use some cheering up.

ah, so much going on!

So much to tell everyone about! Where to begin, where to begin???

First off, the other volunteers and I went rafting last weekend and it was amazing! We got a super good deal because we were volunteers (and awesome, really) and had a blast. The river we went on was a mix of class III and IV rapids. The first day we rafted for about two hours and then came to our camp site. We had lunch and then went on a hike to a waterfall. After getting to the waterfall, a few of us decided to hike up and around the waterfall. The guide said it was dangerous because it was so slippery so only a few of us went - and it was worth it! We hiked through a couple of other waterfalls and saw the most amazing wildlife ever! After our hike, we went back to the camp site for dinner and free drinks (told you it was a good deal). The next morning, we played cards all morning and then another couple of hours on the river. It was my first time ever rafting and I have to say, it is something I wouldn't mind doing again!

Today I also had my first "surf lesson". Basically I went to the beach with a couple of girls from TEFL that I had met over a month ago. We were laying next to the surf school and I decided to go into the ocean. I had been in the ocean for about 5 minutes when one of the surf instructors comes out with a board and tells me to get on it. I "surfed" for a little while after that with a little (ok, a lot) of help from the instructor (found out later his name was Justin). I only was able to stand up on the board a couple of times and definitely got thrown around by the waves more than once, but it was awesome! Best thing is, I didn't have to pay him and he told me to come back tomorrow for more! I'll be sure to keep you updated on my progress, although I have a feeling it might be slow.

After my surf lesson, there was a cafesito (basically in Costa Rica, people drink coffee and eat a lot of pastries for about an hour every afternoon) at my school. I went and witnessed a four year old giving one of my fourth graders the finger. Ah, gotta love it! haha.

That's it for now. I guess I didn't have a TON to tell you all! I'll keep you updated!!!

Sunday, Sunday

So, this past Sunday was the first time I went to church since I was in Orosi (my first month here...yikes!). I woke up super early on Sunday morning and decided to go for a run. While running, I had a sudden urge to go to mass. This is weird, I know. Although I would go every Sunday while living in the States, I think it was sometimes more out of habit than anything else. After looking at my watch, I realized I would have time to finish my run, take a quick shower and catch the 8:30 bus into Quepos in time to make the 9:00 mass.

When I arrived at the church, it was a lot bigger than I had expected. The pews didn't all match, which I loved. It gave the church a very "humble" feel. There were also a bunch of white plastic chairs on the sides of the church. These chairs were needed too! By the time mass started, every seat was taken. Mass was packed! It was definitely nice to see such a full church, especially after many months of attending a not even half full mass at SSJ.

I knew that I had made the right decision to come to mass after hearing the first song. It was very simple, and accompanied with clapping (as most of the songs were that morning). The words went as so:

la misa is una fiesta muy algre
la misa is una fiesta con Jesus

Translation: the mass is a very happy celebration/the mass is a celebration with Jesus

I just loved the simplicity of the song and the fact that it was sung by three women who really did not have the greatest voices in the world. The clapping made it perfect. As I was riding the bus back into Manuel Antonio after mass, I was thinking that this song would make a nice little prayer is you replaced the words "la misa" with "mi vida".

My life.

Fire on the Field!!!

I don't know if my mom and dad have shared this story with very many of you, but it is a funny one so I thought I would post it on the blog.

While my parents were here, we had another assembly at school. The first part of it was similar to our last assembly with kids from different grades giving little speeches and the English department singing songs that no one knows the meanings to. Towards the end of the assembly, some of my 6th graders put on a skit. They had dressed up in jeans and t-shirts and brought plastic toy guns to school. They re-enacted a battle of some sort. The entire re-enactment took place around a big fort-like thing they had made that morning with the help of the 6th grade teacher. The fort was made out of cardboard boxes and black plastic trash bags. Towards the end of their "battle", after almost all of the people had been killed (although Tico children have a hard time laying still so many of the "dead" people did a lot of moving around), the few remaining warriors doused the fort with gasoline. Then, they lit the end of a mop on fire and stuck it in the middle of the gasoline drenched fort. It went up in flames, everyone cheered, walked away and left the fort to burn to the ground.

There is a large, black, charred piece of land marking the area of such a heroic battle in the middle of our playground today.