Wait, it's Thanksgiving on Thursday?

The weather is really throwing me off. Don't get me wrong--the weather has not been awesome here lately by any means...it's actually been a bit chilly (like 60s), but it's not cold weather with leaves on the ground like I'm used to around this time of year. Thanksgiving should NOT be this Thursday. It's weird. It's really surprising me how fast my time is flying by here. I can't believe I'm coming home for Christmas in less than a month! Eeek!

Also, I haven't updated this in a loooong time it seems, so this could be an extra-long entry, or I'll forget about everything I wanted to talk about and it'll end up being rather short. We'll see how it goes.

Everything has been going really well for the past few weeks...the school year for the girls ended on Friday, and now I am working half days at the school helping out in the office (with grades, preparing for registration, all that), and half days at the daycare. Soon I will be working full days at the daycare...which I am kind of looking forward to, but I kind of think I'm going to get sick of it really fast. I really like it there, but the days are soooo very long with so little rest.

Speaking of the daycare, a couple of weeks ago, I was working at the daycare in the morning before I went over to help out in the school for the afternoon. We were outside with the kids, and they were having lots of fun, running around, chasing the rabbits (for some unknown reason, there are like 3 rabbits that are pets of the daycare, and they are always out of their cages when the kids come outside to play, and the kids ALWAYS chase them around and try to pick them up or just touch them, and the three of us who are there ALWAYS have to tell them to leave the bunnies alone....why on earth do they have these bunnies???), swinging, hitting each other, stealing toys, etc. Ah, what fun they were having. Anyway, it was time to go inside for lunch, and I was trying to get some of the kids to go in, which is always quite a task, because of course, no one actually wants to stop playing and go inside. So I decided to make it a game, and I was chasing some of them around and we decided to race to the door that led inside. Wellll, as I was running, I was looking back at the kids, sort of laughing, sort of saying, "VAMOS!"....and I may or may not have run into a tree. Needless to say, the kids just started laughing and pointing. It was super. Haha, so anyway, I had to go to the school right after that, and I realized that I had this big scratch on my cheek from running into this tree....and I had to face a bunch of high school girls. I was considering telling them all these different stories about how I got into a fight or something like that, but then I realized that wouldn't be a very role modely thing to do, so I decided to go with the truth. The whole day, people kept saying, "Kelli, what happened to your face? Are you okay?" And I would have to respond with, "Yeah....I ran into a tree...it's fine..." while shaking my head in shame/trying not to giggle too much. It was a pretty funny week...everyone kept making fun of me for running into a tree....I'm pretty sure I deserved it, though :-) Don't worry, there should be a picture below or above? of me and my scratched face.

That same week was the last week of classes for the girls, so I decided that in English class, we would learn about/celebrate Thanksgiving (since it's obviously not something they celebrate...). So the week before, we learned all the vocabulary and meaning behind Thanksgiving, which was pretty fun, and then the last week, we had a "Thanksgiving Feast," which involved eating some pumpkin pie (which I cooked! I even made the crust from scratch...Sara Storti is proud in Germany), and making some old school turkeys out of our hands. I had them write their name and three things they were thankful for on their turkey. It was pretty fun. Then, with the help of some of the girls who live in the school, I made their turkey hands into a bulletin board downstairs in the common room in the school, and I was pretty darn proud of it. There should also be a picture of that somewhere in here.

The girls had their final exams last week, and I had to proctor some of them, which was God Awful. I'll tell you what....I'm not a fan of the whole disciplining part of teaching. That's like 90 percent of it, so that's good, right? Hmmm....

I love youtube. I'm currently listening to Hanson's Christmas CD (if you can name it and you are not in my family, I'll send you something special), and it's so wonderful. Putting me in a holiday mood :-)

I have a number of favorite kids at the daycare, but I really try not to. It's difficult though, some of them are just so sweet, and some of them are just so....not sweet most of the time. Anyway, Moises, one of my favorite kids, is just so loveable and is always coming up and playing with my hair or asking me, "What is this? What is that?" He's so very sweet when we play together one on one. However. Sometimes, when other children are nearby, something comes over him, and he just will go up and bite them, pinch them, or smack them. Still not sure why he does it, but until last week, I had simply asked him to apologize to the person and told him not to do it again, but it was getting out of hand. Finally, I told him, "The next time that you do that, Moises, you are going to go to the high chair. Do you want to go to the high chair?" The high chair is where they go for time out, and apparently Moises is TERRIFIED of it, because he immediately said, "No, no!" And shook his head. So I assumed that would be the end of that at least for a while.....but two minutes later, he went up and bit another kid, so I had to put him in the high chair....he was just sooooo scared, he started screaming bloody murder, and did not stop for at least 15 minutes. It was AWFUL. It is not fun to punish children. I've had to put him in the high chair a few times since then, and I do not like it one bit. He is always slightly scared of me for about a half hour after I let him down, too....which is just heart-wrenching. I'm positive I can never be a mother. Another reason why I cannot be a mother? Today at the bus stop, I was sitting next to this woman and her child who was SCREAMING at the top of his lungs for at least 15 minutes. Without stopping. Sometimes I think, yeah I could have kids someday, I like them...they are cute. And then there are times like today at the bus stop, when I think, what if my child is like that? I will not like it....I mean, him or her. That's probably not good, right?

So, I've talked about Gloria before, the cook at the daycare, who is like my favorite person ever here in Costa Rica. She's just very sweet and personable, and she cracks me up. For example, the other day, apparently, my other favorite kid's (Dorian) mother told the nun that works there and Gloria that Dorian could not have any fruit. Still not sure why that is, but this is what Gloria tells me. So for snack, Dorian got very excited because he loves bananas, but he wasn't allowed to have one. Gloria is explaining to me that Dorian can't have any fruit, and then the nun left the room. Gloria said, "Shhh" and gave Dorian a half a banana. She said, "Go over there, Dorian so Sister doesn't see!" Haha, I started cracking up, and then Sister came in another door and saw him with his banana. She sort of condescendingly said to Gloria, "So you gave him a banana?" And Gloria said, "Sister, he just loves fruit! He must have just stolen it from another kid..." Then she whispered to me, "Shhh, look how happy he is!" And it's true, he was quite happy. I love Gloria. :-)

Alright, I'm pretty sure that's all I'm going to babble about...sorry if it's disappointing...but hopefully the pictures will make up for it! Enjoy!

Uh...yeah. Kinzie and I went to the Jade museum in San Jose, and it was basically just a bunch of artifacts from looong ago or something, and we found this one. We're pretty mature.

Flor, one of the 9th graders who is graduating.

DORIAN! He's your favorite, too, isn't he??

David...cutest smile ever. However, he really enjoys screaming A LOT. Usually because he's acting like some kind of jungle creature.

Moises! Haha, he cracks me up, and he is in the high chair for snack, so he is not scared of it here...thank goodness!

Sor/Sister Carmen Maria...she is like the mother of the 40 girls who live at this school. Even though is rarely available to answer my many questions, she is a wonderful woman. She's awesome.

The 7th and 8th graders put on a little show for the 9th graders on their last night at the school. Most of them were crying....one of them was rolling her eyes. Irk. Still very sweet though.

I helped Sor Carmen put together all the end of the year gifts for the girls, and while they were at an afternoon mass, I set up this lovely display for when the girls returned.

This is my example turkey for the classes where we celebrated Thanksgiving :-)

This was one of the better turkeys, even though I don't think it has any English on it....some of them didn't get the concept...

....like this one, for example. She drew a turkey in the middle of her hand, which she gave green finger nails. Also, you may note that on the thumb it says, "my fathers" as something that she is thankful for. In Spanish, father is "padre," but parents is "padres." I'm going to guess she wanted to say my parents? I'm a really good English teacher.

Ta-da!

The 7th and 8th graders made these for the 9th graders who are graduating. Each girl received a one with her first initial. They were super creative...I was quite proud!

Helping Raquel with her homework. I'm not very good at being candid. Is that the right word?

Yeah, you can't see my scratch from the tree very well here, but it's the only picture I took of it. That's Felix with me...he's sooo excited to be hanging out with me, don't you think?

The end! :-)

Ello, poppet!

This week was awesome. Awesome.

First, Kaitlyn Tretter answered that random question that I asked at the end of my last post. That made my week as it is. But other good things happened, too. :-)

The daycare was awesome on Monday...the kids were so good, and I don't think Hector beat anyone up the whole time I was there. I had a talk with Sor Carmen about what I can do in the afternoons at the school and how I can get the girls to respect me more, and I think she gave me some good advice, and it seemed to help the rest of the week. The classes that I taught went super well, and all of the girls participated very well. The class that has really been giving me the most trouble loved the game that we played so much that at the end of class when the bell rang, they were all shouting that they wanted to keep playing because the game was tied. I took that as a good sign. Next week is my last class with each section that I teach, because the week after this week, the girls have finals, and then they are done for the year! I decided that I wanted to teach them about Thanksgiving, so for our last class, we are having a Thanksgiving feast (AKA I'm making pumpkin pie) and practicing using the vocabulary that I taught them dealing with Thanksgiving. We will also make turkeys by tracing our hands, 3rd grade style. I'm pretty excited about it. I also think I'm going to be doing some activities with the girls this week in the afternoons, which I think will be super fun. On Thursday of their last week (finals week), we are going to watch Elf, and I'm pumped about that.

On Thursday and Friday of this last week, the girls had a spiritual retreat (8th graders on Thursday, 7th and 9th graders on Friday), and Sister Carmen asked me to go with them. I was kind of skeptical of how well the girls would do with the retreat, because they are always way too cool for school. At the beginning, they were all saying that they didn't want to be there and that they didn't want to do anything, but by the end they were all participating and having loads of fun, and when a couple of girls who were leading the retreat gave their testimonies, almost everyone was crying and hugging each other. Pretty good for a day long retreat I would say. It was very interesting to get closer to the girls in that way, and I think a lot of them are going through a lot more than I expected, and I'm so glad that I am here helping this group of girls. I just sort of felt on the retreats that I was right where I was supposed to be, and I haven't felt that since I've been here, so that was an awesome feeling.

So this weekend, Gabe and Kinzie weren't here - Gabe went to his family's house and Kinzie went to a finca with one of the women that she works with - so it was just John, Liz and me here. On Friday, though, someone that John met in Guatemala when he was studying there this summer contacted him and said that she was passing through Costa Rica, so she decided to come visit for a couple of days and stay with us. Her name is Hester, and she is from England, which was AWESOME, because I got to enjoy a British accent all weekend. However, I had to really try very, very hard not to speak to her in a British accent as I did to my friend Tom that I met in Guatemala, who told me my accent was "piss poor." Anyway, all four of us went to that dance class, and I had a blast, and I think I'm actually getting better...and maybe gaining some coordination? Crazy, I know.

Finally, Liz is at the movies right now, and she called me to tell me that they are selling advanced New Moon tickets for the movie that comes out in 2 weeks (you know, that one about vampires and werewolves)....so she got us some tickets. I made her read the book a couple of weeks ago, and now we are both very excited for the movie. Nerdy? Perhaps. Don't judge us.

JimBro!

Well this last week was rather eventful, so get excited. But not too excited, because I can't remember about half of the things I was going to write about...hopefully they will come to me.

Last week at the high school was a rather rough one....on Tuesday, I had the worst day of work EVER! One of the classes that I taught was just absolutely terrible...I've never been disrespected like that before in my life. I won't go into a lot of detail, but I am no longer certain that I'm cut out for the whole teaching thing (and don't you worry, I'm not basing it on that one day). I am really struggling defining and keeping separate the two distinct roles that I have at the school. In the mornings I am an English teacher, and in the afternoons, I am a mentor. Basically, I hang out with the girls and help them with their homework or just chat with them. When they see me in that role, it's hard for them to see me as an authority figure or as someone that they need to see as a teacher. Needless to say, I had a little chat with Sor Carmen (the nun in charge if you will), and I think that things will go better from now on. I think I will also be doing some more fun activities with the girls in the afternoons which I can plan, and I am very excited about that.

Also at work, the food is awful. I'm pretty sure I've talked about this already, but the cook at work knows very very very little English, which is fine, because I know Spanish, so we just speak that. But she, whenever I tell her that I don't want something (like a vegetable, or a salad, or some sort of spinach pie...yes spinach pie...), she says in the most condescending way possible, while shaking her head, "Oh my Gooooood!" And I stand their awkwardly and giggle, hoping that she's joking. Anyway, the other day, she said that at least 5 times, and then she finally said she would bring me my drink in a few minutes and that I should go sit down and eat (in a different room). So, I'm eating my lunch, which wasn't that horrible that day, thank goodness, and in walks one of the nuns with my drink. I tell her thank you, and expect to be left in peace, but she sort of just stared at me for a while. Finally, she says, "The cook says you are not eating." I motioned to my plate which was quite full with rice, 2 weird fat hotdog things (YUCK), and a large potato. (Time out - Alanis Morissette is singing the national anthem at the world series? Where has she been for the last 10 years?) I said, "I eat a ton! This is a lot of food! .... Don't you think?" She gives me a stern look and says, "The real problem here is that you are not eating salad." I tried explaining to her that I usually like dressing on my salad, and that I cannot eat lettuce and tomatoes plain, especially when I don't even like tomatoes! She just sort of nodded disapprovingly (sounds like an oxymoron, but boy would you be surprised) and walked away. We will see if they force-feed me veggies this week, but I promise you, I WILL vomit.

In other news, I saw a sign at the daycare with detailed cartoons about how to "hacer pipi" (go peepee) and how to "hacer popo" (go poopoo). I had a nice chuckle about that.

This weekend, Brother Jim, or "JimBro," (as Russell-the-king-of-nicknames once called him when I mentioned him on Skype) came down to do a fall retreat with the five of us and to be here for the final vows of 3 new friars on Sunday. For our retreat, we went to this beach house that the friars here have on the Pacific side. It was AWESOME. We were right on the beach and we had a pool in our back yard...it was so cool. It was very relaxing and a great environment for reflection. We all talked about our community and how we think everything is going so far, and I think we are all doing very well for the most part. We talked about what roles each of us fill in the community, and people said that I was the most loveable of the group, which I found very uplifting and quite the self-esteem booster. :-)

While at the beach, Father Mike, who came down with JimBro, said mass for us, which was really nice as the sun was setting beautifully over the ocean. After his homily, where he talked about giving things up to God, Brother Jim had us take these little fancy paper bird like things that Jeff (one of the Syracuse members) made for us and write something what we wanted to give up to God on it. Well, apparently, this fancy paper is fancy because when you light it on fire, you are supposed to throw it and it does something sweet. Wellllll, we weren't sure what that was exactly, but of course, I was the lucky first one to try it, so I lit my paper on fire, and threw it. Yikes. A flame about as big as my head appeared for about 2 seconds and the wind seemed to blow it back toward the group, so we were all pretty sure that we were going to die, but immediately, it went out and disappeared (I guess that was symbolic or something). Anyway, that is the story of how I almost lit myself on fire. It was rather exciting.

Yesterday, we came back from the beach and went to the mass for those friars who were taking their final vows, which lasted for TWO HOURS. It was like the Easter Vigil except I was totally unprepared. The Litany of the Saints (that's what it's called, right? You know, the Saint blahblahblah, pray for us...?) was at least 20 minutes long, and the whole time, there was this woman who was not even a little bit on key that kept starting the "pray for us" part a little too early. Haha, Kinzie and I couldn't stop laughing for a while.

After mass, there was this fabulous feast that was by far the best food that I've had in Costa Rica--chicken, salad (with dressing!), rolls, and, wait for it....CHEESY POTATOES!!! That's right. It was awesome. But then the cake they served was just wrong. It was some sort of flan that I was pretty not okay with. But I had cheesy potatoes, so life was good.

Okay, maybe someone can help me out here. Liz and I have been trying to figure this out. When I was at home, I can't remember why, but I had this random flash to this episode of some TV show or part of some movie from either the 80's or early 90's, and I cannot figure out what it is from. Here is what I saw in my head, minus the faces of the actors: This family who was kind of poor has a daughter who wants to go to the prom, so they buy her this pretty dress from a thrift store, but it has a big ink stain on the hip, so they cover it with this huge flower (lucky for them, this was stylish then). Prom comes around, and the daughter dances with the hottie of the school who the evil, rich, popular girl has a crush on. So this evil, rich popular girl goes up to the poor girl and tells the whole school that she has her old dress on and she RIPS off the flower to prove it! That's all I remember, but Liz and I cannot seem to figure out what on earth this is from, and it's driving us crazy. We tried googling dress with stain show/movie....didn't work so well, as you can imagine.