Home Sweet Home

Costa Rica is becoming home. Slowly but surely. What makes it "home" for me?

Cooking. I'm enjoying trying out new recipes and knowing where to buy ingredients. We eat lots of fresh fruits and veggies -- carrots, cucumbers, zucchini, avocados, peppers, pineapple, bananas. Fresh spices -- cilantro, garlic. I love mixing it all together and seeing what happens.

Fabric. Kim V. and I went shopping for fabric for curtains in our classroom, and maybe this is a bit too domestic for my nomadic lifestyle, but I LOVE all the textures and colors of fabric. I bought two yellow fabrics to make curtains...

Spanish. Mi vocabulario es pequeno y mi grammatica es pobre, pero aprendiendo poco a poco cada dia. (My vocabulary is small and my grammar is poor, but I'm learning little by little each day.) It's a good challenge, a tough challenge, but each day I learn something else.

Kids. My students are another healthy challenge for me. Enough said.

Sunshine. Ha, it's crazy that it's November and I can still sit out in the sun. It's as if summer has just followed me. I don't mind, not one bit.

Friends. I didn't know these girls before moving to CR, but when you are the only gringas around, you become pretty good friends, no matter what.

And, my bed. I spend 7 or 8 hours a day sleeping on our rock-hard bed, so I figure it better be homey with my blankets from college. Que bueno!

Blast from the Past

Students at Sojourn are required to wear uniforms (gray T-shirts or blue polos), and about every other Friday, the Student Council has a "Fun Friday" where students can dress up. I think the idea is to make up for the uniforms the rest of the time. Last Friday was "Blast from the Past"... and me and the roomies had way too much fun deciding what to wear. Here's what we eventually came up with:

And then our neighbor Steve saw the fun on the porch and decided to join:

Peggy and Kim V. at school were rocking the outfits of the past as well. . . ha, our teaching staff has way too much fun!

I think I'm having too much fun...

We went to a Saprissa game yesterday and ... as Trish says, "Well, adventure # 19!!" (meaning, we've already had so many adventures, so why not another one??) We read on the Saprissa website that women wearing purple shirts got into the game for free, SOOOO :) we got the bright idea to go for it.

When we got there, we found the ticket office and discovered that we could only get in for free IF we were with a man who was paying for his ticket... This is so random, and I can't believe it worked out, but there was a group of 4 ticos buying tickets at the next window and they overheard our dilemma. They offered to "escort" us into the game so... we got in for free. It was a good opportunity for Spanish practice.

The field! We were sitting up really high and the wind was cold. I mean, COLD! Ha, this was the first time I can say I was truly cold in Costa Rica... and it was probably about 55 degrees... not as cold as Chicago's 33 right now!

The 4 musketeers -- Laura, me, Trish, Kim.

Roomies! Kim & me.

Bubble Pens, Tempers, and Saprissa

The latest discipline problem: bubble pens. They are nifty, bulky pens with bubble solution in the middle and a bubble wand at the top. I turn my back on the class for one minute and when I turn back around there are bubbles in the air... "Um, why are there bubbles in here?" Girls start giggling... and I confiscate the bubble pens.

Ha, when I'm teaching and trying to explain something, it seems that anything and everything pops out of my mouth in trying to get the point across. For example, I am trying to explain what a "temper" is... so I compare it to a bomb. "When you begin to lose your temper, it's as if you just lit a really short string on a bomb. You need to know when you have to step back from a situation in order to make the string on your bomb longer. If you don't take time away from the stiuation, your bomb will explode for sure." ... Hopefully that was a good analogy?

My old classroom is depressing right now. I took down all the posters and moved all the books to the other classroom. I had several students today mention that they already missed the books. Yay, they miss reading! :)

The BIG MOVE of my classroom is happening tomorrow afternoon. I've got parents, students, and the basketball team coming to help. I'll be sure to take photos of the mass chaos! :)

We are learning multiplication this week in Puzzles, and I made up a simple game by the seat of my pants today called "Flash Track", basically a gameboard that each player progresses on as he/she answers their times facts correctly. The students seemed to enjoy it :). Any way I can get them to practice multiplication facts and have fun at the same time is wonderful!

Plans this weekend: fabric shopping with Kim V., basketball game Friday night (I'm the photographer!!! YES!!), phone calls to family and friends, and a Saprissa game! (For those of you who don't know, Saprissa is one of the two popular soccer teams here... photos to come :)).

Mail Shout Outs!

Thanks to Jaclyn Miller for yet another letter! YEESSSS!!

And also, thanks to Jenny Olson and her creativity in writing a whole letter in Spanish... when I translate it with my Spanish dictionary, I will write back! ha, I'm learning more every day.

And a thanks to Scholastic Book Company that sent me a free teacher tote bag along with my subscription to their magazine... however, I had to pay $16 to get it through customs. Whoops.

p.s.

Check out Kim's blog for more of our weekend adventures. Our neighbors had us over for Costa Rican cooking lessons... all in Spanish!

Moldy Shoes and Changing Classrooms

Yup, you read that right. Our shoes molded. Trish stepped in mud and green mold appeared on her shoes a few days later. I put my favorite gold shoes on this morning and halfway through the morning, my feet were disgustingly sweaty and gross... I took my shoes off and the shoes reek. I mean, really reek. Ha, sorry if stinky feet is a huge turnoff for you... but it's true. It happens to the best of us. So here's photos of our shoes before saying goodbye with the trash pickup tomorrow.

A long story short: Principal Reilly approached me on Friday asking about how I would feel about changing classrooms. At first, I thought she was just asking my advice about how I would feel if I were someone else who had to change classrooms mid-semester.... but then I realized she was serious. I asked when this move would be happening, and she casually answered... "Oh, next week sometime." Oh my. So today after school, I was taking down posters and washing my beautiful painted windows... The good news is that the 5th and 4th grades are moving into the just-finished building. Our classrooms are on the second floor, complete with a balcony and gorgeous view of the mountains. Wowee... Photos of both my current depressing classroom with nothing on the walls and my new exciting classroom (also with nothing on the walls yet, ha)!

And here's a few photos of this past weekend. We explored the northeast suburb of Moravia and it's artisans shops. We were Christmas shopping :) and spending way too much money, ha.

The crochet work on a hammock. Beautiful!

My friend Laura who is currently a student at ILE, but taught in Honduras for 2 years before joining the Costa Rica crowd. She leaves in December for Argentina.