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.