Humility Lesson for the Day

Ever dreamed there was a mosquito swarming around your head? And have you dreamed that you are swatting it away but it keeps coming back?

Yup, that happened to me last night. Except I think the mosquito was real and my dream was an interpretation of the attack happening to my face. That's right... my face. As soon as I opened my eyes this morning, I knew something was wrong because my right eye was swollen almost completely shut. I could hardly open it! I looked in the mirror with my other unswollen eye, and there... was my eye. Very swollen.

I asked Trish if a swollen eye was a good enough reason to not go to school and she said no. So off I went to school with my best professional outfit to help me feel more teacher-ly and no makeup to not irritate my eye more.

For about the first hour of school I was able to laugh about the strange looks people were giving me. I explained my situation rather eloquently. I walked around the halls with confidence.

And then about the second hour, I got tired of it. I just wanted to look normal, to have people look at me normally, to not have to explain a million times all the theories on what was going on. By the end of the day I was walking around with my hand over my eye after breaking down in tears when I saw my puffy, red, golf ball size (okay, not really that big... but it sure feels like it!) eye in the bathroom mirror.

Final theory. That mosquito in my dream was real. I have another bite on my left eyebrow, and my right temple and cheek. There are also bites all over my left arm. The mosquito feasted and I... learned humility.

Can we learn something else tomorrow? And can it not involve my face?

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Goodbyes

It's official! Trish and I will be moving in together again this Wednesday, and we are getting really excited. I gave a couple gifts to my tico family to show my appreciation...

flowers for Blanca...

and some photos of the family and me!

and then Blanca surprised me Saturday morning with this jar she had painted. It's a Raggedy Anne doll that she renamed Kate...

and here's the gift tag painted on the other side.



AND there was a huge cake waiting for me Saturday morning! This is only half of it after we feasted for breakfast, haha.

and a side angle. This cake is so good, it deserved 2 photos on the blog!! Wow, this family has been good to me. I reminded Blanca I am only moving 2 blocks down the road, and ManRi started laughing at Blanca's exaggerated sad face expression. I am sure I will still see them often even when I don't live with them!

Zoo!

We turned our classroom into a zoo last week with our final projects for our first animal unit. I was blown away by the students' creativity!!!

golden retriever 3D poster

Dolphin aquarium and dead snake in jar

Butterfly garden

Lion hut?

and baby pandas!

Having Too Much Fun ... Again

The Sojourn teachers went all out for Blast from the Past day... We've had lots of dress-up days lately, you've probably noticed, so here we are again!

And the fourth graders all dressed up... We had Al Capone, Cleopatra, a pioneer, mother Mary, Johnny Appleseed, Vikings, and 50s girls... Quite the mix.

me as a Greek, and Trish rocking the 50's housewife look.
and the hair! I put leaves in mine and we put a small tupperward container under Trish's french twist to get it to be a classic beehive. We didn't have enough time to tease it, so we took a shortcut.

and Mariana won the prize for the best-dressed in 4th grade!


And of course, another embarassing moment happened. A tica teacher asked me what my costume was, and I said, ''Soy igriega!!'' which means ''I am a Y!!''... what I meant to say was ''Soy griega!'' (''I am Greek!'') which is way too close to how to say Y in Spanish... Yup, Trish and I had a good laugh about that one...

Recent Thoughts

Ready for the randomness?? Here goes!

I just got back from a pilates class with a real-live instructor!! Ha, I have done pilates in the past, but always to a video. This instructor was hardcore too... telling me to squeeze my butt harder or to point my feet or to straighten my back. Oooo I'm going to hurt tomorrow...

Trish and I have decided it's time to do life a bit more independent again, and we found an apartment that's cheaper than living with our families! It's really nice too... we'll each have our own bedroom and bathroom, and there's plenty of room to host Friday night events :). Photos to come once we've moved in...

We also house-sat and babysat this past weekend, and I am once-again reminded how thankful I am that I am not a mother yet. The 3 year-old woke up and cried for what seemed hours both Friday and Saturday night. Sunday morning in church was a bit rough as we were all (Trish, Lindsay 17 years, and me) nodding off a bit during the sermon... Whoops.

I am feeling much better after my bronchitis episode. Thanks to so many for the encouragment to keep resting... Yes, Mom, you were right that I needed to stay in bed.

Until next time!

4th Graders' Writing Journals

Three times a week, we have a ''10 Minute Writing Frenzy'' when the students write and write until the timer goes off. It's always interesting to see what the students come up with.

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Today I saw Lucas seek well... he is a boy bout it doesn't matter he is my friend and when he came to school I was surprised because of his eye and now is 12:56 and were at righting workship and he's writing bout he look like he is really seek and his eye is itching poor Lucas and he said that yesturday he was in a fight and somebody had the purpose to kick his eye really really really poor Lucas and today I feel bad for him bout I know that if I put a prayer request on the tree of pray request that Lucas is seek and that he feels bad Jesus will help his eye and his body to feel well and thats why I want and at recess I want to see Lucas on Monday run and jump and scream and because I say Lucas is my friend and when one friend of mine feels bad I need to help him and that is what Im going to do.

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My nicest dream was to go to Italy and visit the leaning tower of pizza and go to get inside it and visit Venecia and build my own hot dog shop right there.

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''Do you want to visit Tasty World?'' the boy asked me and of course I said yes. So we saild. When suddenly the water turned chocolat milk and all other icecream flavors. So I took a jar and got some tasty water. Then we got to land. The clouds were cotton candy and the house were made of chocolat andd yumy candys. Every thing in that world was candy and things your parents don't whant you to eat.

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Today I had fun. I got to dress up like a G.i. Joe. I wish the G.i. Joes were real. it would be cool. today I learned about how a farmer compare to God's job in chapel. I realy like pumpkin seeds. there fun to eat when there fried. infact, I wish my mom could cook some but we can't grow them hear.