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! :-)