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?

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.

consular matters

so i'm on vacation now. which is pretty great. i sleep until 8am (still terrifying that that seems like sleeping in) or maybe even NINE. yesterday i was super productive. and today i'm heading to the beach.

my passport needs to be renewed this year. later this year. but i'm nearly out of pages too, so i thought it might be a good idea to head to the embassy and see what i can figure out. well, i get inside and can't quite figure out where i am supposed to go or what i'm supposed to do. so i ask the security guards. well, one of them doesn't speak any english, but i kind of get that there's a ticket machine where i press the black button and then go inside and wait. an english speaking guard confirms. i get a ticket and head inside.

well, my number comes up almost immediately and i'm thinking this could be even easier than i ever imagined. but not quite. what the guards didn't tell me (or i didn't understand. or they didn't understand what i needed. or any combination of those things) i had to fill out a form and get pictures and then take another number and wait. so i head to the forms and i can't quite figure out which one i need.... i ask my pal the guard which one i need and he tells me yes. no, no, which one? yes. okay, no more questions for the guard.

eventually i get the right form filled out and photos and a new number and i don't have to wait too long and i bring it all up to the counter. standing, waiting. i have to go to another window to pay. and then back to another window. (and i had to listen to some annoying woman talk about how she lost her passport and how she's never coming back to costa rica ever like 4 times) okay, your passport application has been approved.

when will my passport be ready? you'll never believe it. 2 weeks.... :)

apparently renewal abroad is the way to go. so this morning i'm off to the beach. in nicaragua.

i am satisfactory!

so i'm pretty pumped. i am satisfactory. i'll explain...

i can't remember if i mentioned this before, but back in november 2007 i took the dele exam (Diplomas de Español como Lengua Extranjera). passing this exam earns you a certificate issued by the cervantes institute in spain on behalf of the spanish ministry for education and science. it's recognized worldwide.

Nombre y apellidos ANN DOREMUS

	Grupo 1		Grupo 2	Grupo 3
	Comprensión de lectura	Expresión escrita	Gramática y vocabulario	Comprensión auditiva	Expresión oral
Puntuación máxima	20 puntos	15 puntos	20 puntos	15 puntos	30 puntos
Puntuación mínima exigida	24,5 puntos		14 puntos	31,5 puntos
Puntuación obtenida	17.0 puntos	13.13 puntos	16.0 puntos	12.27 puntos	24.0 puntos
	30.13 (APTO)		16.0 (APTO)	36.27 (APTO)

La calificación final es de APTO

(ps "APTO" apparently means "satisfactory")

so my certification is at the "nivel inicial" which basically means that i have "sufficient linguistic ability for understanding and responding appropriately in most normal day-to-day situations and for expressing desires and needs in a basic way"

pretty cool, huh? i may try for the "nivel intermedio" before leaving costa rica... we'll see though. i'm kind of busy for test prep just now... i have some school stories and pictures which i'll be posting momentarily...

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! :)

trouble in paradise

well, i think paradise is a strong word for the rainy, dismal, capital city of costa rica at the moment... the "green" season (aka the rainy season) has really been doing it's thing the past week or so. kind of miserable. but that's not what i'm talking about....

so a while ago this panamanian guy moved into what i had previously thought to be a closet just off our kitchen. there was basically a single bed and a dresser in there and that's it. recently the guy living in my old room moved out. and i guess the landlord decided that the panamanian would move in there (they're friends or something - they know each other somehow, i can't quite figure it out). whatever.

there was a little incident the other week on one of my non-sleeping nights (normally i'm a champion sleeper, but every 4 months or so i have a night where i just can't - it catches up with me) where his "girlfriend" stayed over (i'm not really sure on the status of the relationship, but they do have a child together) and they were up all night - talking, listening to music, arguing, etc - all of which i can easily hear in my room. i was slightly annoyed, but i couldn't sleep anyway, so i didn't get too upset about it.

well. last night. a little before 5 in the morning he comes back - clearly from being out all night - with two friends. i was definitely sleeping this time. then they're talking and laughing... and i'm kind of thinking you've got to be kidding me. we have a massive living room *and* outdoor area - both of which are on the other side of the house. a few minutes later i hear our other roommate come out of his room and basically tell them to be quiet. so they were quieter, but like i said - i can hear everything. so they're still up and talking and listening to music - albeit much quieter. but still i have to bury my head under my pillows to get back to sleep.

anyway. this morning (okay, mid-morning) i get up and go out to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea and something to eat. and i notice part of a wrapper of some sort sticking out of my cupboards. i open the door and there's my brand new bag of tortilla chips - nearly gone. i notice a fork on the counter covered with refried beans. and what do you know - they're gone too. in the fridge my new package of salsa is ripped open and half gone. (lots of things come in little plastic packages... it's hard to explain - i'll do a pictorial sometime) at this point i'm starting to get mad.

but being the pacifist that i am i don't go banging on his door to yell at him (plus he hardly speaks any english and i know that my spanish cannot convey anger). instead i get myself ready to go to school. i make a bilingual sign which i tape over the doors of my cupboard -
please don't eat my food!!
¡no coma por favor mi alimento!and i leave a post-it note on the panamanians door:
a las 4 o 5 en la mañana ¡callado por favor! puedo oír TODO
(at 4 or 5 in the morning please shut up! i can hear everything)
apparently it had the desired effect. when i got home from school tonight my landlord was in the living room (this is not weird, he lives upstairs and stops down sometimes) and he asked me if i was upset about last night. and i said, yeah, a little. he assured me that it wouldn't happen again, or the panamanian would be leaving, and that he was sorry. so we'll see how that goes... i kind of feel like i'm living in the real world house or something. anyway, just wanted to vent a little.

a first time for everything...

so when i woke up on tuesday morning there was no power. i didn't actually realize it at first. the sun shines directly into the bathroom in the morning, and lights a lot of the apartment. it wasn't until i tried to put on the kettle for a cup of tea (we have an electric range) that i realized i wasn't just sleepy/stupid - the stove wasn't turning on. but whatever, not a huge deal. this is costa rica. the power goes out from time to time. i made a hot tap water cup of tea and got on with my morning.

by the time i left for work around 4pm the power was *still* out. that concerned me a little.

when colleen and i arrived home at 10:30pm and the lights were on in the hall and at our neighbors' - we were relieved. however, when we walked into our apartment the lights were STILL not working. then i started getting annoyed. we donned our headlights and grabbed what we could from the fridge - a little cold pasta, some leftover rice. we decided it was too late to call rita, our landlady.

so first thing in the morning colleen called her, and she sprung into action (she is actually very helpful). I, of course, was still sleeping at this time. Rita stopped by about mid-morning and we had a little chat. or maybe chat is too strong of a word. she talked and i mostly understood. i did manage to explain that we had *never* received any sort of electricity bill (the people downstairs are supposed to distribute them when they come). so she seemed to think that it was because of an unpaid bill.

so colleen gets home and we go out for lunch, since we've eaten all the cooked food in the house already. needless to say i was feeling a little annoyed. first of all with mail in general. seriously, important bills like electricity and telephone are just tucked into the gate or something. no envelopes, and there are no mailboxes. and in theory we could just go to the supermarket and pay the bills - but that only works if we have an old bill to present, so they know the account number (they don't really do mail, so sending checks doesn't work. you have to go to a supermarket or pharmacy and pay in cash.). so we couldn't exactly do that either.

i had to go to work, but colleen was going to be home and try to figure things out with rita. by the time i got home, the power was back. hurrah! cooking! hot water! rotting veggies and dairy products! so it turns out that our bill had not been paid for 4 consecutive months. last year. and obviously recently as well - since we never received a bill. but there you have it - i had my electricity turned off. though it wasn't really my fault. just an interesting life experience.

video store adventures

¥100 can buy you many things. notebooks. hats. scarves. dishes. cleaning products. and 3 nights (5 nights? my memory isn't that good) with an english language video.

something we did almost every week was rent some videos. after the initial fascination with and amusement at japanese tv fades, sometimes you really want to hear english on tv. while 100% worth it, a trip to the video store (like many activities in japan) was an adventure.

of course it always starts with a bike ride... which i generally despised as part of my commute, but grew to almost enjoy for other activities - such as shopping, going to the movies, going to izakayas and karaoke, and going to the video store. bikes parked and locked out front (and most likely on the ground, knocked over by the wind, when we come back out) we enter the store. and thus begins the hunt.

it's the pretty standard video store layout: a section of video games, a new release wall, the curtained off porn section, your standard video genres, and the "foreign films" section - that's where the english language films are. usually there are many english films on the new release wall, and not all of them that new - and you check there first. with the front of the video case facing out, it's easiest to tell what movies they are. not all of the movies have the english title on the case (or it's very difficult to find).

on to the "foreign films" section. at the end of the aisles were mini displays of movies. and then there were the aisles themselves - packed solid with videos. slowly you make your way down the aisles, head tilted and eyes squinting, trying to look for side pictures you recognize or english words. this part takes a long time. every time. no matter how carefully you think you may have looked, there's always some videos you missed.

as you make your selections you have to look out for "the yellow sticker". this sticker indicates that the film is dubbed in japanese instead of merely subtitled (or is it the other way around?). we managed to avoid that disappointment by asking the clerk "english?". even when selecting subtitled movies there always remained the chance that you could miss out on something. if, by chance, there are any conversations in non-english languages... these too are subtitled in japanese. very disappointing. and to this day i still have not seen and comprehended all of birthday girl, in which about 40% of the conversations are in russian.

an hour or two later we emerge with a stash of movies - some old favorites, some we haven't seen yet. we pick up our fallen bikes and make our way happily home.