Oops!

Okay, I’m not even going to try to apologize for not blogging. I learned my lesson! Waiting this long just means that I have WAY to much to write about which means it takes longer to write which means I put it off even longer. Basically, I won’t let it happen again (yeah, right)

Okay so, I’ll give you a lame excuse that will also substitute as an update. So, I recently became the assistant kindergarten through second grade basketball coach, started taking salsa dancing lessons, and began tutoring a new student three days a week after school. So here’s my weekly schedule:

            Monday: Staff meeting before school, teach all day, tutor after school

            Tuesday: Teach all day, tutor after school

            Wednesday: Third grade team planning, teach, tutor, (try to) salsa dance

            Thursday: Office hours, teach, coach soccer

            Friday: Community service meeting, teach, coach basketball

None of this includes my meager attempts at working out, playing guitar, excursions to the bank/grocery store/other errands, skyping, grading, etc. Luckily, I love to stay busy so this schedule looks like a dream come true. However, I have yet to make blogging a priority in the schedule so I’ll try to get the “Most Improved” award for that one. Keep nagging me though; it helps to know people are actually reading!

I’m trying to recall what I talked about in my last blog but I’m pretty sure two weekends have passed since then. First weekend: Tom’s birthday. So Tom put in some pretty hilarious requests to the party planning committee (consisting of Aubrey and I) and we definitely followed through. We had a raffle, a sweet birthday cake, everyone had to bring a dish that started with the letter “T,” and Aubrey, Blake and I went in on a deep fryer for Tom since he loved to fry things and he usually does it in a nasty old pot on his stove. It was really kind of nice to stay in town for the weekend and just kick back with all of our friends and laugh at all the antics that ensued while preparing for the party, enjoying the party, and cleaning up after it.

Tom's "T" shaped cake

Second weekend: Makenzie’s birthday. Mak D had fewer requests for the committee because she just wanted everyone to have a good time and that is exactly what happened. She did envision a super awesome cake and Aubrey and I tried to make it come to life. After a night out of trying to dodge creepy Guatemalan’s with all of our homies, Makenzie, Katie, Camille, Aubrey and I headed to the beach in Katie and Mak’s new car. The beach was great and relaxing and Aubrey and I went on a midnight search for sea turtles but the best adventure was on the drive there. Basically, putting five North American’s in a car heading to a town no one had been to without a map was the best idea we ever had. First, we went through Antigua which was entirely unnecessary but also entirely hilarious. Makenzie was driving and still getting used to the “topes” aka speed bumps. After hitting our heads on the roof several times, one big bump successfully spilled tomato juice all over my legs. Since it was awesome, we laughed hysterically and pulled over to a hotel we had stayed at a few weeks before to get cleaned up. Katie remembered that she had left TWO pairs of pants there and thought she would try her luck at finding them. Low and behold, the front desk had her jeans in a plastic bag with the date and the room number taped on the front! Katie was as happy as a clam and I was a clean as someone who quickly rinsed tomato juice off her legs with a wet paper towel :)

After finding Katie’s missing pants, we decided to get a map and try our luck again. After a few more hours of driving we found ourselves in a super crowded town that looked like it might be promising. We drove and drove until suddenly Aubrey yelled, “Hey guys, guess what?! The road ends!” And, sure enough, the road just kind of ended again. We had a good laugh, turned around and asked some guy on a bicycle if he could so kindly point us in the right direction. He decided to have us follow him on his bike instead which we thought was the funniest thing on earth. Five chicas in one small SUV following a little Guatemalteco on his bike; classic. The little man told us to make a few more turns and we’d be well on our way. We gave him some money because he took a good ten minutes out of his day to help us and he looked genuinely shocked. He was just doing a kind thing for some strangers, just like everyone else does in this country :)

Well we headed towards a town called Ixtapa which we were told was neighboring the city of Monterrico which was where we were trying to get. We pulled over one more time to ask an older gentleman which way to go and he gave us a few directions following by another 25 kilometers. Ha! We were not even close to where we wanted to be and we thought that time for sure we had arrived. Anyway, the whole trip took 5.5 hours. On the way back? 2 hours. Sometimes getting lost is the best part though.

This week I started tutoring a third grader after school who is new to Inter. He went to a great school before but it wasn’t bilingual so this kid knows almost no English. His parents don’t speak it either so he is really going to need the extra help. It was so interesting to work with him today as I figured out what he does know, how he learns best, and what really gets him excited about learning and life in general. Simply going over vocabulary by reading, writing, speaking, and hearing the words was truly not working for him. So we started to act out all the verbs we were learning. By the end of the hour, I was having him “walk slow,” “run fast,” kick, throw, jump, sit, stand, read, write, etc all by running around the classroom and acting it out. It was so fun! Though tutoring is going to be an extra challenge with the language barrier, I feel so good about it. I can really see him soaking up knowledge and it is such a cool thing to watch. I really cannot wait to see how much English he knows by the end of the school year.

Last, but not even close to least, ALLISON IS COMING TOMORROW! Holy cow, I can’t believe its already here! We have a super busy weekend planned but we are all so excited (we being me and my homies, my students, and Ho). I will definitely have a lot to blog about over the next week so I’ll try harder to get at it. Maybe I’ll have Allison do a guest appearance on the blog and write an entry for me? Thoughts? Are you actually reading this? :)

Good night!

p.s. I’ll post pictures later; for some reason my computer is currently not reading my memory card?