Finally, Photos of the New Class!!!

Sorry it took me so long to remember my camera... but here they are!

The miniscule desk... crowded with organization, of course.

The carpet, bookshelf, and doorway... and yes, we have hardwood floors!

Another view of the carpet area.... piled with notebooks I need to grade.

Where we spend most of our time :)... I'm so glad it's so colorful!

Teacher Student Swap Day

Tomorrow is Teacher Appreciation Day here in Costa Rica, so today was a dress-up day with teachers dressing like students and students dressing like teachers. The girls were excited to wear scarves "just like Miss Siscoe does all the time." Here's some photos of my goofy students dressed like me.
I was dressed like a student in the school uniform polo, comfy pants, braids, and a pink camo backpack (courtesy of my student Christina :)). Front: Bayley, me, Gaby, Paula. Back: Christina, Rebecca, Katie, Valeria, Nicole.
A close up of Bayley's mustache. He was dressing up like Profe, the PE teacher.

Oh Gaby... haha, she is always making me laugh.

Mis estudiantes tienen mucha energia...

And the neck scarf girls... just like me :). Rebecca, Christina, Katie. Hopefully, I don't often have the same look as Christina, ha.

Adventura Numero 30,000

As Trish and I leave school today to go visit tico families, she says, "Well, adventura numero trenta-thousand!" Nothing like a little Spanglish to get us started. We met 3 host ticas today with the possibility of living with them -- Norma, Maria Carmen, and Adriana. We have another visit on Sunday. Meeting each woman and their children made me feel much more at ease with the decision to move in with ticos. I am excited to learn Spanish... and of course I'm nervous also because I know my grammar is really bad.

Please pray for me. I've never had bronchitis before, but it's certainly not fun. I just slept 2 hours right after getting back to the apartment from our visits. I'm just so... sick. Blah.

Package Shout Outs

Thanks Joann Blum for the goodies from the States! Trail mix, Rice Krispie treats... I am living the life now! ha. Oh, and thanks also for the snowflake garland. It immediately went up above my classroom door... (speaking of classroom, I still need to take photos of the new classroom, don't I? Whoops...)

And thanks to Mom for another package! Lots of fall goodies... and CANDY CORN!!! Yes!!!!!!!!!

(Whew, 2 packages in 4 days!!! I don't know if I can handle the emotion!) :)

Weekend Photos!

We went to the National Theater to a ballet this past Saturday night. I finally have photos! :) The curtain... The blurry ballerinas...

The theater...

Outside the theater...

And the lovely ladies! :) me, Trish, Peggy, Kim, Laura

And I finally went to the doctor's today for this cough that I've had for the last... 2 or 3 weeks, we'll say. My coughing has interfered in many a lesson the past few days and it was to the point that my chest hurts so badly every time I cough... Don't worry Mom... but it turns out I have bronchitis. The doctor kept asking me, "Have you ever had this type of cough before?" I kept saying no, but I don't think he believed me or something. He muttered something about chronic coughing... I sure hope this isn't chronic. He gave me a prescription for 3 drugs -- an antibiotic (which I haven't taken in years, thanks Mom), a cough suppressant, and a mucus loosener? something like that. Woohoo, so I'm currently high on drugs. I just hope there's no severe side effects...

Oh, and I didn't mention that these drugs cost me 1/10th of my monthly paycheck. Drugs here are more expensive than the US and they sure better work...

And to end this post on a happy note, we put up a Christmas tree! Yay for confiscations from Sojourn's random storage closet :). . .

Decisions, Decisions

Well, I wanted to put up photos from the ballet, but they're on Trish's camera and she's currently in the shower... unless I creep through her purse... but that's alright. I'll have to ask her for the pics later.

We're making some big decisions about finances and where to live next semester. Kim is possibly returning to Sojourn as a hired teacher (this semester was her student teaching), and she definitely wants to live with a tico family to work on her Spanish... so Trish and I have been discussing options for what we should do. We could stay here in the apartment and pay more rent... we could get another roommate... or we could just take the plunge (that we were thinking would happen next summer sometime) and dive in with tico families as well.

After talking with Gretel today (she's in charge of tico family housing at ILE), we acquired a list of names and numbers of available families. We'll be visiting them within the next week or so. PLEASE PRAY as we make these decisions! To be honest, I'm nervous about it (of course!) and I want to find a good fit family (of course!). My main motivation for doing something like this is for intensive work on my Spanish vocab and speaking abilities.

My mom says I'm braver than she is. Maybe I'm just crazy.

A Taste of Home

We walked into Wendy's today in downtown San Jose... you read that right, Wendy's. It smelled so much like ... well, it triggered my "home" compartment of the brain... and that doesn't happen often these days. So of course I had to get my favorite junior bacon cheeseburger. YES!

And then another stop off at McDonald's for an Oreo McFlurry. Aaaahhhh, a day of healthy eating, for sure. Healthy in terms of tasting home, anyway.