Moving Forward by Going Back

In about two weeks I'll be returning to the very first place I was ever a teacher - Japan.

I've come a long way since then. My first ever teaching gig came with about 3 days of training and very little self-confidence. These days I've got grad school and a few years of teaching experience under my belt. My hope is that I find the country, culture, and people that I liked so much the first time around still present, but this time have more fun teaching.

It is also my intention to blog more this year than I did last year. I learned a lot last year, but I'm ready to move forward by going back to where it all began.

Don't tell me what to do!

So I spent 7th period relaxing at my desk, getting a little work done, with my space heater pointed right at me. All three of these things are abnormal for my normal school day. Let me explain.

So for most of the school year so far, the Seniors have been complaining that they should be allowed to leave the building for lunch on a certain day each week. Past Senior classes have done this, and now it's their turn. But for reasons I don't exactly understand, they have been denied this privilege. I think it's something about students misbehaving out in the world, making the school look bad (because they are in uniform). Needless to say, the current Seniors are mad. It's not fair.

What do angry, entitled children do when they don't get their way? First they pout. Then they argue. Then they put signs up around school, because if the rules haven't changed by now it's because no one is listening to them. And when all that doesn't accomplish their goals, they plan to form a small mob in the hallway, barge past the security guards, and go out for lunch anyways. And should any Senior decide that they don't want to be involved in all this and just go to the cafeteria, they are bullied into abandoning their lunches and leaving with everyone else.

Well, when they returned from their lunch out in Pristina they found that they were locked out of the school. I am not sure exactly what consequences await them (if any), but I do hope that something happens.

These students (and particularly the Seniors) believe that if they demand something all together then they must be granted it. On Monday they all came to government class and instead of reviewing for their test on Tuesday they opted to spend nearly the whole period trying to argue with me about pushing the test back. They felt sure if they all asked/begged/harassed me enough that I would change the date. They were wrong, I am more stubborn than they think. Many also threatened to just skip school (the student handbook says if they have an unexcused absence on the day of an assessment that they will just get a zero). But they all showed up. And just when I was hoping that maybe they were figuring some stuff out about how school works, they pull a stunt like this.

7th period is normally my most difficult class of the day. I have a volatile group of kids and lots of attitude and behavior problems. Most 7th periods it is a fight to accomplish anything, and when we do accomplish something - only a fraction of the students are part of that "we". And because there were no students during 7th period today -

I got the heater all to myself.

First Day of School, except not really

So today was billed as the "first day of school" but it's hard for me to feel like that is the correct way to describe what happened today...

Last Friday when we got our schedules (yes, that is when I actually found out what I'm supposed to teach) someone asked, casually, if Tuesday would be a half day like it had been in the past. The response was something along the lines of "hmm, I guess so. We have done that before" (as if this hadn't crossed anyone's mind yet this year). So apparently that was the plan. The students would come in, go in to the auditorium (actually, it's the "amphitheater" - that just seems like a grand description for what this place is) and listen to a little talk by our Superintendent (our new principal is en route from Egypt at the moment). After that the homeroom teachers (not me) would read off their list of students and take them to homeroom where they would get their schedules. The last part of the half day was supposed to be the kids coming around to each of their classes for about 10-15 minutes.

Except, and I guess I should have expected this at this point, that's not what happened.

Last night we got an email with the actual schedule for the day - Welcome presentation in the amphitheater, homeroom teachers - except no student schedules handed out and no shortened classes. No actual teaching required.

So that was day one. *sigh* oh well. I got a lot of organization taken care of in my classroom - which was great since most of yesterday I couldn't even get in there because they were putting in a new carpet. I got my syllabus copies. The carpet glue smell had another day to air out.

This afternoon we got our class lists and I suspect that a large part of my classes will involve me trying to pronounce the students' names and them laughing. Should be great.

The Highlight of my Week

So it's been a long week of, well, not actually accomplishing very much, but doing a lot of things.

At this point I have a pretty good idea of where I live and I can find the stuff that really matters: the grocery store (in fact, two grocery stores), school, the euro store, and ATMs. I'm also able to find places where other teachers live and wander around a smallish area without getting irrevocably lost. I feel like these are all pretty good things, but to call them "accomplishments" seems a bit... of an exaggeration.

I've also met lots of people, about half of whom I have forgotten their names almost immediately. I have a classroom and IDs to log on to the school computers, and I have some supplies to start the year and as of Friday I actually have a schedule of the classes I'll be teaching. Well, probably.

Something that I've been desperate to discover ever since I was hired way back in February is what classes I am teaching. So on Friday we were actually given our schedules. Except that apparently it's not uncommon for people to not even register for school until the first week is already underway. So the schedule I have now could potentially change, but hopefully not too much.

As of right now I am teaching 2 sections of World History (though because "high school" really starts in 10th grade here - and World History is a 10th grade class - it is possible and even likely that they will add another class of World History), 3 sections of US Government (which is actually not even going to be that anymore, at least not exactly, my wonderful department head and I looked at the syllabus from last year and thought that it resembled the US History class far too closely - so we proposed a new curriculum which we are calling "Comparative Government" that will look at different types of government, do some case studies of different countries, talk about civics and citizenship, and changing government through civil and violent means), and 1 section of Geography (which would be fun and a very small class, but if they do have to add another World History this little group will likely be absorbed into another section).

(boy, that was a lot of parenthetical commentary)

BUT - that's not even the highlight of my week. The highlight of my week was that today we went to the mall - which is really like a mall - and I bought a blender. I'm so excited to make myself a smoothie in the morning. :)

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!

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... :)

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.

for you, but not for me

so i woke up this morning (at 10 o'clock!) and i smelled burning. and after i checked that it was not our house that was burning it reminded me.... of fall. of that first cool day where you have to make a little fire and the burning smells different. it smells like fall. well, not for me. i took my breakfast outside and sat in the sun in my shorts and t-shirt. and even feel a little bit sweaty after. the rainy season is doing it's thing - it's hot in the morning, rainy in the afternoon and evenings. but i do miss fall.... not that fact that it leads up to winter (which i don't like) but the kind of crispness of the air. and that smell.

i am sort of starting to worry that it's wednesday and i haven't done any preparations for school yet. i really want to get myself as organized as possible for this last quarter so i can just do it. i had visions of doing a little something for school every day during vacation. oops. in fact i still have last quarter's compositions to grade and comments to write for the report cards. plus i have to do a new bulletin board. i blame my dancing with the stars obsession.

yes i'm doing my grades, isn't it obvious?

yeah.... grades.... i know i should be doing them, but it's so boring. i don't care what happened in chapters 5 and 6 of bridge to terabithia, i'm not interested in the similarities and differences between the simpsons and futurama....

by the way- does anyone remember what books they read in 3rd or 4th grade? apparently the cricket in times square is going out of print and my principal wants recommendations for another book for next year... and i have no idea. all year i've been trying to remember what it was like to be in 4th grade. in all honesty, i don't remember a thing. well, that's not entirely true - i remember doing this project on "gradnickflop" and mr. englund winging pieces of chalk at people in math class. and i was in love with larry kinch. but i can't recall doing any reading in 4th grade.

Buen momento para contestar correspondencia

so my horoscope today says it's a good time to answer my correspondence.

Géminis (21 mayo - 20 jun.)

Buen momento para contestar correspondencia. Lo mejor es que se deje llevar y no oponga resistencia al amor. Ganancias económicas aseguradas. Un dinero adeudado podrá tardar en llegar.

it also says i'm going to make economic gains and i shouldn't put up any resistance to love.... but i'm going to focus on the correspondence for now.

grading "season" is nearly over. i wasn't fully prepared for what this was going to be like.... as the first quarter wound down i found that there were a few quizzes i hadn't graded yet and i had tests planned for the last two days of the quarter. then there was all the calculating, entering them into the online grading system, writing comments, entering conduct grades, attendance..... it was all a bit much. and because though it doesn't really seem like it i am giving grades for 4 different "classes" (reading, spelling, written expression, and oral language) to all 41 of my students.

needless to say i procrastinated as much as possible.... it's what i do. plus i was kind of distracted. but i finally got everything in, and after one terribly boring meeting to review the grades and the comments, and another batch of "corrections", i think i'm finally finished. the only thing remaining is meeting with all the parents to give them the grades. which, in my opinion, seems like an enormous annoyance. i mean, i know we're a private school, and the parents want their kids to do well. but sometimes they don't! and the thought of having to defend the grades that their lazy children *earned* is exhausting.

*phew*

part of my procrastination plan included the imperial festival, which was awesome. and tons of fun. despite the fact that it took us more than an hour after arriving to actual get a beer. at the imperial festival. imperial = beer. but it's just another one of those charming costa rica things, i guess. i mean, to me, and many other non-ticos, it would have been a good plan to have the age verification booth and the drink ticket booth both located shortly after the entrance. i mean, why not get that out of the way. but nooooooooo. anyhow, we had a great time. smashing pumpkins and incubus were great. we got light up slappy sticks (you know, like those things they have at basketball games sometimes). i had the most delicious churros i've ever had in my entire life. good times.

so yeah. i should have some pics coming soon.

little devils

so. well, it's been a few weeks now, and we've had some ups and downs. of course i'm the new teacher, and they're trying to test me a little bit - to see how far they can push me. and until last week i had felt like we were making improvements in a lot of ways. i felt like i had a better idea of how much we could cover in a class and what kinds of things we could do. and i sort of felt like they were starting to behave a little bit better.

well. my director had visited my "good" class a while ago. she had some really good feedback for me, but generally she thought i was doing pretty well, that i had a good rapport with the kids. she gave me some pointers and we arranged for her to visit my other class a few days later. my "bad" class.

so she shows up. and generally her thing is "don't even pay attention to me. this is your class, i'm not going to interrupt or try to contribute unless you ask me to". well it was near the end of the class and i had just handed out some quizzes. then i was trying to get everyone's attention to say a few more things and then off to recess. "trying" being the operative word in that sentence. they had actually started completely ignoring me. walking around, having their own conversations, general chaos. so she asks if she can say something. she actually yelled at my class. this is not how pan-american students behave. you are disrespecting your teacher. you're not listening. you're not being kind (some kids were kind of harassing other students to find out how they did on the quiz).

so i finished the class and the students left. and we talked. i was really, really frustrated. and thank god she was completely helpful and supportive. i continue to be frustrated, despite the fact that the behavior has generally improved since that incident. and somehow i still like my job. hmmm.

now yesterday i made my first student cry. oh yes. in my "good" class we were working in groups on a set of tasks about the book we're reading (the cricket in times square). most of the groups are mostly staying on task. one group of three boys (couldn't be avoided - we have more boys than girls in fourth grade) were being generally loud, disruptive, disturbing other groups, throwing bits of eraser (a very popular activity in fourth grade), a dictionary was thrown and ripped. after i had repeatedly talked with the group, tried to get them focused, asked them to quiet down, stop throwing things, i told them they were all getting conduct warnings.

these warnings need to be signed by myself and the student, and then brought home to be signed by the parents. at the end of class i wrote them and handed them out. two of the kids were clearly not happy (not that i think they were sorry about the behavior, they just didn't want to have to tell their parents). but the third. he's generally a good kid. talks to much and doesn't always pay attention. but mostly good. he actually starts crying when i give him the warning. sobbing on his chair. so i try to talk with him about how he was behaving, what did he think about the way he behaved, was that appropriate classroom behavior? he wouldn't talk.

then at recess i was accosted by a mob of my students - from both classes - they had the explanation. S. had told them that it was all F.'s fault - he had thrown things and ripped the dictionary - A. didn't deserve a warning, he's a good student. obviously i explained that this was not up for negotiation, but some of them still kept trying. slightly flustered, i figured it would be best to go speak with the pedagogue. i explained everything and she called the parents to explain before the kids got home. and that was that.

so story time is over (wow, this is a pretty long post). i'll leave you with a couple of pictures from my classrooms.


my 4A classroom. this is my homeroom. i did the rainbow bulletin board seen here. it's covered with their "mind maps".


i have the same board in 4B.


and this one i'm pretty proud of: in my homeroom again it says "shoot for the moon- even if you miss you'll land among the stars" and i have all of their names written on little stars. so cute. :P

tico names and toblerone

week two on the job and in the classroom. monday was pretty bad... i really yelled at my bad group. really. but they've been a little better since then. i'd like to think that i'm getting a little bit better at handling them. but i'm not actually convinced that that's the truth. they've stopped asking what time it is and trying to show me that *their* watch says it's time to go. and there have been much less requests to go to the bathroom. progress...

it's possible i've nearly got everyones' name. and that's no easy feat. my homeroom group isn't too bad - i've got two ximenas, an andres and a jose andres. and a jose luis. in the other group i have a maria paula, a maria fernanda, and a maria alejandra. also an alexandra maria. two daniels and two danielas. and alberto and ricardo look so similar that i screw it up if i see them separately... and sometimes if i see them side by side, too.

in other news i've developed an obsession with toblerone. now if you know me, you know that i'm not really crazy about chocolate. i mean, it's not that i don't like it. it tastes good. but i'd rather eat something savory. the truth is, i'm not sure i've ever had toblerone before. but i got some for valentine's day. chocolate and almonds, sounds good... awwwwwww yeeeeeeaaah.... :P

big week ahead...

so last week we had MORE orientation. which was less useful than the week before. one of the presentations we had to listen to was more or less a science presentation. there were pictures of the brain. and neurons. and synapses. oh yes, and it was all in spanish (my vocabulary does not include that kind of stuff. i don't think it's terribly useful) the point was (i think) that not everyone has the same capacity to think in certain ways. or something like that. anyway. there was also the communication workshop. in spanish. so clearly we were really on top of that communicating thing. since i understood about a third of what was said. all in all a frustrating week. but i got some stuff done in my classroom (pics of my cool bulletin boards next week) worked on my lesson plans (which have to be approved - that's kind of crap) and am starting to get pretty pumped for the kids to actually show up.

so tomorrow we have just one last meeting (which i imagine will be pretty useless) from 7:30 to 9:30 then i have the rest of the day to get myself sorted out for the week. actually i did my "lesson plan", and i use that word loosely for what i have planned for next week, yesterday and i'm feeling pretty good.

went out to watch the celtics beat the spurs this afternoon. always a good time. and tomorrow i'm back to waking up early (i slept until 9:30 today!) and tying up some loose ends. hopefully my copies got done and the supplies place got the stuff i need to finish decorating my class. and then i'm teaching! :)

who doesn't love orientation?

it's so.... uh.... exciting? no, that's not right... it's... okay, so it's kind of boring. this past week was new teacher orientation (next week is ALL teacher orientation... not sure if i can handle another week...). so i spent the week trying to get myself used to waking up early. and learning about my new school. which was mostly not that interesting and not that helpful.

i mean, we talked about stuff like what things we're required to have in our classrooms (emergency class list, whistle, place for late slips), attendance procedures (must be put in the box outside your door by 8am), discipline procedures (academic warnings, conduct warnings, detentions), how to get things you need, how to go on a field trip, and on and on. useful, but not terribly interesting.

but then what was irritating was some of the questions people were asking. now, there are no stupid questions, right? but do we really need to know *right now* if we are supposed to write the time we are leaving for a field trip on the board in the office or if the secretary does it? (the answer is no) obviously there has to be procedure for everything, but we're not going to really, really get it until we actually have to do it. and when that time comes we will be working with a team of other teachers. and they know what to do.

the most beneficial part of the week was meeting with the 5th grade language arts teacher. she told us all about the books we can use, gave us some ideas about how she does here quizzes and tests and assignments. and come to find out the curriculum map i was given in december is not entirely correct... so that was a little annoying. but now i have a very clear idea about what i need to do and what i can do. so things are good.

we have today off, which is pretty exciting. so i got to sleep in. until 9 o'clock! (it feels a little sad that that feels late now) and i'm off to my old stomping grounds of san pedro in a bit to meet some friends for lunch. i think i have to relax as much as possible so i don't lose my mind next week. as soon as the kids show up and things start happening, i think it'll be fine. it's all this antici......

.......

.......

pation.

santa ana

so i'm here... moved into my new pad in santa ana. so far, so good. i moved in last night. my room is a little bit smaller than i remembered from when i saw the place a week ago... but it's fine. i just don't have a desk, which i had gotten pretty used to in my other place. so we went on a mission today to see if i could find something... but no luck.

spent my morning chilling at home with the dogs. they're pretty fun. one of them is actually curled up on my bed with me right now (his mom calls him a traitor!) chili and brownie:


the rest of the house is super cute too. there are sofas in the living room!!! which is pretty exciting. but no tv there... but i have one in my room, so i guess that's pretty good.



so yeah, things are pretty good. i start going to school next week, for new teacher orientation and what-not. the kids start back on february 11th. until then i'm laying low, and trying to figure out all this teaching stuff.

:)

the hard part is over

well, part of the hard part is over. even though school ended last week (my new school) the teachers all have to come in this week to finish up grades and talk to the other teachers about the students for the next year. so i've kind of been doing double duty this week. though i didn't have any grades to finish or anything, i had to go in a couple of days this week... which was pretty exhausting. (it's a lot of bus time to get there from my current apartment). but now i've got a curriculum map to edit, some books to peruse, and see ya in january.

just one more week of my old job - and it's the easy part. since the kids program finished last week, i have friday afternoon and saturday off this week and next. which is awesome. from here on out i have REAL weekends. so next week i have two classes with my one-to-one guy, and two lesson of revision for my ibm classes, then two lessons where they'll be taking their exam. easy-peasy.

of course the part of the hard part i still have to do is find a new place to live.... but i've got a good portion of january to sort that out.

in completely unrelated news, i get this newsletter from a website called boots 'n' all and one of the stories really made me laugh. so i thought i'd share it. it's about driving in india. i actually had this idea when i was there of doing like a guide to driving in india, in a funny way (which is surely not an original idea, but still). because let me tell you they are insane. but i never actually did it and i sort of forgot a lot.... this brought it all back. enjoy!

what are you? in 4th grade?

so my "test" turned out to be nothing like i was expecting, but still pretty difficult. actually it wasn't a test at all. at least not in the traditional sense. i went in and after waiting for over 30 minutes i went in to talk to the administrative woman who i had been speaking to on the phone. basically she just wanted to get to know me a little better, get a sense of what kind of person i am and stuff. the snag was that her english is not that good, and my spanish is not that good. i mean i can get by, but i can't do interview BS in spanish.

so the first part of the struggle was figuring out what the question actually was. "how your family?" (do you have brothers and sisters? where do they live? how is your relationship?) "how your career?" (where do you see yourself in 5 years?) etc. we actually had a really nice chat, even though i wasn't really sure what the questions were sometimes and then i was trying to answer in a way so that she would understand me. obviously not the ideal interview situation. the last thing she asked me to do was draw a picture of a person, any person (clearly some sort of psychological profile type test) and write 2 paragraphs about anything. (i decided to tell of my love for gallo pinto).

i could have sworn she told me she would call the next day and tell me the grade. and after a moment it occurred to me that she probably meant what grade i would be teaching. so i was pretty excited. the next morning i had my one on one class and then i hung around school for a little while so i wouldn't be on the bus when she called. well, she never called on wednesday. or thursday. then i was starting to get a little worried, but when i had spoken to the principal the week before she had told me that she would be making hiring decisions by the end of the next week.

friday i was running around like a crazy person all day, trying to sort out the end of year stuff for my current kids, and nearly forgot i was waiting for a call. but when i got out of my 3-6 class i had a voice message. rapid-fire spanish this is the pan-american school, looking for ann doremus, call at this number (which even my native spanish speaking friend had to listen to twice). well, obviously i tried to call right away, but being after 6 on a saturday, i knew i would have to wait until monday.

so we went to the beach this weekend. because we deserve it. and i got back just in time for my class, so i called the school from the beach this morning. i talked to the same lady again. she said something.... huh? como? you work pan-american school next year.

FABULOUS

she told me that she still had to speak with the principal about which grade she had decided for me and would call back in like 30 minutes. 4 hours later i called her back. 4th grade. and could i come to the school the next morning.... at 8am. blah. i mean i realize that when i'm in school i will have to be there before that. but for right now i live on the other side of the city and it takes me nearly 2 hours of buses and hoofing across downtown to get there.

so i think i'm going to watch another episode of alias and then it's bed-time. i'm exhausted. had a bit of an ordeal getting back from the beach today... we tried to get the 9:30 bus, but it was full. and the next bus wasn't until 12:10. and i'm supposed to be ready to go at the school by 4. it would have been a miracle if that had actually worked. so i ended up getting picked up in town somewhere and having the other teacher bring my books. so yeah.

yeah me! :)

i hate job searching....

... but i'm doing it. actually, i had started about a month ago (not sure if i mentioned this already). i found 4 schools that i was interested in and i sent them my resume and a cover letter. one of them told me straight away that they did not have any openings for the 2008 school year. two of them i never heard from at all. and one of them called my current employer, who was a little surprised to say the least. and so was i when they asked me about it. i tried to explain it away, blah blah blah, i want to eventually work in a school, more time with kids, some schools don't start until september (which is actually true, but almost all of them start in february - they do southern hemisphere school schedule here).

i mean who does that? calls your current employer for a reference? i thought there was sort of an unspoken thing about that.... but clearly not. so i sent an e-mail to them and to the other two schools i hadn't heard from saying my current employer will not give a reference until we agree on an end date for my contract (until i give my notice, which i hadn't done at that point) but here are two other people you CAN contact IN COSTA RICA.

after that i heard nothing. and things got a little crazy here. i had lots of stuff going on, i had my spanish exam (nivel inicial - which i won't get the results from for about 10 weeks), i was trying to resist the urge to strangle the panamanian in his sleep (he is possibly the most inconsiderate person i have ever met), etc., etc.

well, i finally decided i needed to get serious about the finding a job thing (man, i hate looking for jobs. and apartments for that matter, which i'll have to do soon as i find a job). so i found some more schools that i liked and i sent out my resumes and cover letters again. i decided to send another e-mail to the eager school, saying i've actually put in my notice and my school will now provide a reference, i'm still interested.

well two days later i get a call for an interview! so last friday i had an interview, which i think went pretty well. i spoke with the primary school principal and she had a couple of openings she was trying to fill. she thought i could teach 5th grade science because i had a bachelors of science (i tried to dissuade her on this idea as best i could - computers does not equal science. but i would do it if it was all they offered me.) but the other thing she had, which i told her i was most interested in, was 3rd or 4th grade language arts.

so she said i would have to come in and do some sort of test early this week (hopefully this is kind of like "are you smarter than a primary school student?" kind of stuff and not too much about teaching theory) so i'm still waiting for that call. and she will have made her decisions by the end of this week. which is great to know, but now i've been waiting all morning for my phone to ring to set up the time to do this test thing!

so fingers crossed everyone, this is a great school that i would love to work at!!!

new job and back to quepos

so. i know it's been forever since i've posted... but things are going well.

i've been at my new job now for a few weeks and i'm settling in nicely. my classes are good, it's taking a little time getting used to the new books and what kind of things i can do with the materials. but the students are nice. my classes are pretty small (between 4 and 11 students) and they're mostly pretty amusing.

i was observed yesterday by my boss... which was a little nerve-wracking (i don't like being judged...) so apparently i'm doing well except i need to work on my board organization, do more error correction, and circulate through the class more when they're working in small groups (he caught some of my students chatting in spanish, which i didn't notice - but to be fair this is my class of 11, and i'm only one person!)

i actually - technically - have saturdays off now. well, i was supposed to teach a kids class on saturday morning (which would have been my only kids class, and i wanted to teach kids. oh well). but on the first saturday of the new bimester at instituto britanico, it was the last saturday of the old bimester at centro cultural. which i had already told my new boss, so he was going to have someone cover my class for me. it was nick, one of the other new teachers, and apparently they loved him so much that now he is their regular teacher. and i have been moved to substitution duty. in theory that should mean that i have most saturdays off. but. my first saturday i get a call at 7 am (which i tried desparately to ignore, but they kept calling...) to come in and teach a class for someone. and then earlier this week i was informed that i would be covering a class for a teacher who had to go home for her brother's wedding today. well, i showed up, ready to go, got some coffee and headed to the classroom. and waited. for about an hour. none of the students showed up! so i corrected some papers i had and took off.

so now i have a little time to kill. i already bought myself a lovely pinto con huevos for breakfast. and i'm meeting jasmine (the other new teacher) at 1 and we're getting a bus to quepos to meet colleen for a couple of days at the beach. it's very exciting, i haven't been to the beach in forever (feels like - not since easter week in nicaragua!). also i'm hoping to catch a glimpse of the liquor store cat wearing her dress.

i'm currently trying to find a new place to live. colleen is leaving at the end of may and our place in rohrmoser (on the west side of the city) is pretty far from my new school (on the east side of the city). so a friend of a new co-worker is trying to help me find somewhere (he's a little strange, but he's teaching me how to salsa and merengue - which is so much fun!), and i've been e-mailing a girl from craig's list about sharing with her. so we'll see. i technically have my apartment until june 15th, so i have some time and plenty of people in san pedro (near school) who are willing to let me crash with them until i find something. no worries.

new and soon to be one and only

so i have a new job. and when i start this new job, it will be my one and only job. and i'm guaranteed 24 hours a week (and that's full time for english teachers in costa rica). i will no longer be looking for second jobs like it is my job. so that's exciting. more exciting is that i will be seeing an increase in salary. instead of making a measly $5.50 an hour i will now be raking it in at the incredible rate of $6.00 an hour!!! i'll also get a foreign hire stipend of ¢84,000 a month - which rocks and i'll get two hours of free spanish classes every week.

so things are looking good. luckily this new school is running on the same bimester schedule as my current school - so i can finish out my term here (instead of leaving in the middle) and then start my new school straight away. they're also going to get me a work visa. which is a good thing. though i do kind of like the idea of *needing* to go on a mini-vacation every three months to renew my visa. but whatever.

the only bad thing is that colleen is leaving at the end of this bimester. she had always planned to go back to the states this summer for some weddings and to make a little money. but now it's looking like she won't come back in the fall. so i've got to find either a new roommate or a new place to live. that'll be a spanish adventure, for sure.

next week is semana santa - holy week - which means there are no classes. and since i need to get my visa renewed, colleen and i are heading to nicaragua for the week. we have a 10 hour bus journey this sunday, and then we are spending a couple of nights in granada. after that we are heading to the island of ometepe in lake nicaragua. the island is formed by two volcanoes. there was actually an article about it in the paper two weeks ago, and it looks pretty spectacular. we'll spend 3 nights there, do some hikes, see some ancient petroglyphs, and hang at the beach a little. i'm looking forward to it.

i'm not sure how internet connected this island is going to be, but i'll post a full report when i get back, and hopefully some pictures. oh - and also the answer to the mystery device contest. which no one won, by the way. :P