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miscellaneous
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costa rica
Wednesday, November 19
sismo de esta madrugada
apparently there was an earthquake just after midnight last night. everyone was talking about it this morning, all the kids were asking if i felt it.
nope.
i have felt some little earthquakes here and i did wake up for no particular reason at some point last night, though it happens a lot and i don't remember the room shaking or anything when i did. so yeah. apparently the center was somewhere in panama. i can remember once when there was a little earthquake in the northeast - i was living in cambridge and i woke up around 6am or something and i remember thinking that i must have been having a scary dream or something, because my heart was pounding in my chest. but then i sort of realized that my heart *wasn't* pounding, that my whole bed was shaking.
7 more days! the end is in sight, and i'm exhausted and still trying to figure out how much actual class time i have next week during which i'll need to have things to entertain the kids with. i'm already thinking of doing a big crossword puzzle (they love them) with spelling words from the whole year, and then a spelling bee with prizes. thursday i'll probably do my awesome christmas card craft that i did last year with my other kids. we're supposed to have something to do on "accomplishments day" - monday, most teachers are doing some sort of little memory book. i'm worried that i won't be able to sell it and my kids will think it's lame. we'll see.
even though school will be done next week, i still have to go in the first week of december to do all my year-end administrative hooha and clean up my classroom. it's kind of a comforting thought that the next time i have a classroom of my own i'll have a little better idea of what i'm supposed to be doing!
more costa rica
posted at 4:48 PM |
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Saturday, October 18
life is too short to eat fake cheese
so recently i made the decision that life is too short to eat fake cheese. cheese is not something most costa ricans are really into (along with blueberries). but real cheese is expensive. now, i'm a person who is willing to pay $8-$9 for a delicious hunk of gruyere. but what i consider to be "regular" cheeses - cheddar, mozzarella - should not cost the same. but no more will i buy queso tipo de cheddar or queso tipo de mozzarella - i'm buying the real thing, no matter what it costs.
in other news, i read a little article from la nacion about this year's rainy season - el 2008 es el más lluvioso de los últimos 64 años, según el IMN. basically the national weather service has said that this year has been the rainiest for 64 years. so far we have had 2100 milliliters of rain per square meter (or something, the math is confusing) and the normal annual average is 1860mm. good times.
so i'll actually be heading back to new england a just a few days (!) where i was hoping to escape the rain, but i've heard rumors it's raining there too. c'est la vie.
more costa rica
posted at 12:40 PM |
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Monday, October 13
first of the lasts
so last week i had my first "last"... it was our last parent conferences of the year! and i couldn't be happier. i mean, it's not that i mind talking with people... but i don't know. part of it is the language thing - most of my parents speak english, but either way we struggle. i've also been given the impression that it is required that i defend my grades to parents. there is sort of a culture of just getting A's without having to work too hard - so the fact that not all my kids get A's (not even most of them) is kind of a shock to some of the parents. so parent meetings kind of suck. in theory, next time i have to do parent meetings there shouldn't be a language barrier and they're kids might not have been getting straight A's since kindergarten.
so i went to the beach last weekend to "freshen up" my tan for danielle's wedding. i'm a little pink. but it should be fine by the wedding. it'll be a whirlwind trip home, so i make no promises about seeing people who are not living with my parents or attending the wedding. but those are the places i'll be...
well, i'm about to settle in with a bag of popcorn to watch dancing with the stars... :)
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posted at 6:11 PM |
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Monday, September 29
everybody fits in here!
so i think i mentioned before that my principal wanted me to take down my awesome shoot for the moon bulletin board. which i was a little sad about. but i did a little nosing around the internet for generic bulletin board ideas and found this one i thought was cute. especially given some of the meanness we've had in 4th grade this year (isn't it a little early for cattiness? i think so...)
now that i think about it... it probably would have been easier to do a poster and draw on the puzzle pieces with marker... unfortunately that is not what i did - i cut out all those pieces from construction paper. next time.
also, by the way, today was the first day back after vaca... i was kind of dreading it but in honesty, once i was there it was just like it always is. i kind of love it and the kids kind of drive me crazy. we're sort of working on this idea of a "english club" only it's a club they don't want to be in because it meets during recess every thursday... and they have to sit in class with me and speak english. it's a ploy to get them to stop speaking spanish in class. i'll let you know how it works out.
more costa rica
posted at 8:15 PM |
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Wednesday, September 24
why it's so hard (an illustration)
i know i have told some of you that life is just harder here, which is at times pretty frustrating. i have a little illustration for you:
my watch had been slowing down... sometimes in the mornings i had to adjust the time a little. and then last week it finally stopped working. this is slightly traumatic for me - admittedly i have an obsession with my watch, and i use it in class all the time, it keeps me on schedule (yes, there is a clock on the wall, but it's not always subtle for me to check it) and it tells me the date. so two tough days of school. and it's not that i wasn't trying to solve this problem before this - i had been looking around everywhere i could think of for a while to find a battery for it. but no luck.
so i had mentioned my problem to my friend hannia, who gives me a ride to school most days, and she mentioned a place near the supermarket. i had seen this place before, but never been in or really even looked inside. she tells me she took her watch there once to be fixed. they sent it to the main store in san jose or something and it was back in 3 days. so i'm thinking, right, i just need someone to put a battery in, it couldn't possibly need to be sent out.
well, it's wednesday, i've been on vacation for a while now. and today i brought it to the store. i tell the girl what i need. she says i'll need to leave it. sure, sure, i say. for a few days. even though i only need a battery? yes. and do you know how much this will cost? about 1 mil = $2. now to me, that doesn't seem very economical, sending out a watch to have a battery put in that will earn about $2. but that's what i'm talking about. why does it have to be so hard?
more costa rica
posted at 1:03 PM |
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"A vacation, after all, merely rewards work. Vagabonding justifies it."
-Rolf Potts, Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel
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