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.