Miss Texas

If you're wondering why I am blogging about a beauty pageant participant from the South, I'll stop you right there. This week, my dear friend since 6th grade, Tessa, came to visit Guatemala. The name "Tessa" is not so common in Central America. The closest thing to it? Texas. All week my students kept referring to her as "Miss Texas" and because Miss Texas is so cool she ran with it and maybe even encouraged it a little :)

Tessa arrived on Saturday at noon and Aubrey and I met her at the airport, hopped in a shuttle, and started the quick trip to Antigua. A red-headed dude got in the shuttle with us and after a little small talk we discovered this guy was from Kansas City. I may have yelled at him in my excitement, if you can believe that. He had the greatest story about how he ended up in Guatemala. Apparently, he had a flat tire in KC and when a random stranger helped him out, they ended up becoming friends and this stranger invited him to join him on his trip to Guatemala he was taking... one week later. Of course, he went to Guate with this stranger and is now best friends with the guy and they both visit Guatemala once a year. We somehow got on the topic of the geographical features in North America and Tessa mentioned that a college professor once told her class that the safest place to live in the U.S. when trying to avoid nature disasters is Boise, ID. We all laughed and then our red-headed friend said he grew up in a really small town outside of Boise. I thought to myself, "Self, wouldn't it be crazy if it was that same small town outside of Boise that your mom is from? Yeah, that would be wild!" Oh, of course that is exactly where he was from! Nampa, ID born and raised, turned Kansas Citian, turned Guatemalan explorer. It's a small world afterall.

:)

Aubrey, Tessa and I stayed at the Earth Lodge after eating lots of food and walking around Antigua and ended up meeting some crazies up there. There was one guy who was riding his motorcycle that he built himself around the world, attempting to climb the highest peak on every continent. There was another woman from Canada who was making her way down the coast from BC to Chile. She was probably in her 60's and didn't let anything stop her, not even 13 hour bus rides through Northern Mexico. We also met a couple living in Guatemala City working as forensic anthropologists. The woman was originally from Alabama and had the most beautiful, flawless, Guatemalan Spanish I had ever heard. After a night of conversing with wanderers we stayed in the dorms with some of our new friends and then headed to Antigua with great ambition to do awesome things but not the knowledge to carry any of it out. We pretty much ate, shopped, and got sunburned all day instead :) We did get to eat at a restaurant that one of my students' mother owns so the day wasn't a complete failure.

We love Miss Texas!

Tessa came to school Monday-Wednesday of this week and the kids instantly loved her. I am pretty sure my students are actually becoming convinced that when people come to visit, they are actually coming to see them. They feel so dang special when they have a guest in the classroom and do a great job of welcoming them into the school community right away. The students also thought Tessa and I looked like sisters at first and I even had some teachers at the school ask me if my sister had come to visit :) We made volcanos, wrote fantasy stories about talking monkeys, found the missing factors in multiplication problems, and identified landforms through North America and Guatemala. It was a busy week for sure! It was certainly great having Tessa there for some extra help. Anyway, Tessa said she was so amazed at how proficient the students were in English and we both discussed how ridiculous it is that students in the U.S. are not learning a foreign language until high school. I really hope to work at a bilingual school upon returning to the U.S. if it's possible.

We took Tessa to all the Guatemala City hotspots like the mall and the movie theater that is also in the mall. We saw a movie in the VIP theater, made dinner from the Earth Lodge cookbook, and went to a spa. Tessa and I both lost our pedicure and massage virginity yesterday for a whopping $30USD. It was definitely worth it and we enjoyed ourselves but we also laughed about how low maintenance we are and how it really showed during our time at the spa. I am so happy Tessa came to visit and we both wished we could have one more weekend together in Guate. We are already planning her trip for next year (even looking up flights!) and look forward to adding on to our twelve years of friendship :)

Clean feet!

Tomorrow we have a Professional Development day at school and Colin really invested in making sure his staff develops professionally during the day. He reached out to the teachers and asked if anyone had anything they wanted to share with the rest of the group. Aubrey and I, being the teacher nerds we are, both volunteered and are giving 45 minute presentations to the entire elementary staff tomorrow. I am presenting about the Daily 5 which is a program that fosters literacy independence for students while teachers are working with reading groups. My first cooperating teacher, Paula Barr, discovered it while I was student teaching and I was lucky enough to watch it being implemented in her classroom. I brought it with me to my second student teaching placement and it worked just as well there. I was pretty much convinced after that and swear by the program so hopefully that passion will show through during the presentation tomorrow. Aubrey is presenting about a spelling inventory we studied in college that she is using in her classroom that helps students find spelling patterns and recognize sounds based on the patterns they find. Its a really great program for English language learners and Aubrey has spent a lot of time researching the program and teaching it to her students so I am looking forward to hearing how her students are benefitting from it.  No matter what, tomorrow will be a great day because we get to wear GYM CLOTHES because the P.E. teachers are doing a presentation as well! Oh, its like college all over again :)