Decisions are made...The email update, blogified.

Here is the update on our lives in Monteverde.

What many of you have been waiting for is the answer to a nagging question. Are they going to really go away for two whole years and leave us in the lurch? Well, the original answer was yes. And in many ways I wish that I could stick with that answer. This teaching gig has been the one I have liked the most. This community is just as great as the one we have back in Montague (heck their names even both start with Mont so I miss-write them constantly). We have played more gigs and gotten more involved with the contra dance scene here than we ever would or will in the states (because without organizing it, there wouldn't be a dance, even if we only have three this year...). I see monkeys, tucanets, mot mots, and various and sundry other wild things on my walks home. There are almost daily rainbows...(sometimes multiples, and often more than one a day in the season we just finished). Anyway, you get the picture. If someone were advertising an amazing place to go and live while the US economy is in an uproar, this location couldn't really be beat, well, aside from the 12 or 17% cost of living increase this year.

That said, we both have been struggling mightily with homesickness. Even though the community is great, it's not ours. Even though the school is great, and there is a library, I have to say confidentially that the library pretty much sucks when you want to read young adult fiction that was published within the last ten years, and that's certainly not the fault of the volunteer librarians who have no budget. It can be tedious to download anything at an average rate of 2-4 kbps. That's the rate my first dial-up connection was in high school. And, perhaps most importantly, we have come to a place of balance with where we want to be.

jordan wants to go back to her work as a librarian (though of course this is one of the hardest times to get work when libraries are often the first cut). If you have any sway in the budget process at schools, now is the time to exert your power. I am ready to be brave and try something I am not certain that I'll be good at, or even like. I am ready to not take my work home every night and that obviously means a career change. While the two possibilities remaining from my list of five possibles upon graduating from college are massage therapist or rock star, I'm not feeling quite that brave. Much thought has been going into the possibilities, and a whole lot of research on the ridiculously slow internets, and I think I might have been right when I was 3. I think, just maybe, I want to be a firefighter when I grow up. So, upon our triumphant return to the greater northeast, I plan on enrolling in the GCC (or other?) EMT course and get started with dual paramedic/firefighter career training. Of course if you have any knowledge about said career path, and no I don't think I want to do wildfires primarily, I'd love to hear it. Finally, we're experiencing a lot of baby-lust and hope that once we get settled and employed and all of that, we can finally figure out how to get that baby thing happening. I'm not holding my breath, so you shouldn't either, but just be aware we wish we were among those Montaguites who were having babies all over the place this fall...

We can't wait to be back, but if you even have the possibility of visiting, we still have room in March, most of April and all of May. Plus, if you get out of school in early June and want to go exploring in Costa Rica with us, you should let us know. Though it won't be a free place to stay, and we won't be up in Monteverde after school gets out on the 9th, we will happily include you in our plans for the Osa Peninsula and maybe some other locations equally amazing.

Your love and support has been amazing. In some ways, it has caused this perhaps unsurprising turn of events with all of the "Come home now! We miss you!" emails. As always, we skype under the pseudonyms funklera and jorjorjorjor. We are facebooking quite a bit lately if you're on that silly thing, though thanks to the aforementioned slow connection, we're not actually addicted. And gchat works when we remember to log in...

As always, we look forward to hearing from you even if it's a "wish I could visit" sort of email. If you include information about your own life, you know, that makes us feel even more connected. We miss you terribly.

Jordan Enjoys Teaching Again

Is it any surprise that the weather affects my mood? Not really. I'm seriously appreciating the dry season, even when it gets really windy and misty, because I'm not wet. I hate being wet. And there is so much more sun. And when it's warm and sunny I can leave the door open and then Toast doesn't whine at me to sit outside with her. Usually because I do sit outside with her. She wants to be where I am, but wants that place to be outside, so she can be a little whiny. I think she's missing having a constant canine companion. Also, she got spoiled when Annie was wogging (walk/jogging) with her a few times a week and now she wants constant attention. I have been walking her on trails in the woods (or should I say jungle) near the house and we both like that. But Annie has been too busy or sick lately to give her the exercise she wants, but I don't have the same kind of endurance.

I'm only teaching one English class this term and I love it. It's basically an advanced class of five students who are all really interesting and funny and willing to try most anything. So we have a lot of fun together. This week they are reading in pairs either Green Eggs and Ham or The Cat in the Hat to practice the short vowel sounds, especially the short a, which is so hard for Spanish speakers. We'll do some cooking together next week. Maybe macaroni and cheese, the fancy kind, like Ken makes. :)

I'm also teaching a few guitar and violin students, which is going well. I'm kind of tired of the guitar as an instrument. I don't love how it sounds (especially since my baby, my jumbo Martin Mahogany is still in Massachusetts, and I'm playing Annie's Seagull) and my calluses are gone and folk music is boring. But teaching is making it fun again. I like the fiddle better, but it hurts my neck and I could probably use a lesson or two of my own. Instead I'm teaching a 6 year old, trying to do some semblance of Suzuki, and an adult who likes to play what I like to play. I just hope I'm not screwing them up forever. I look forward to getting back to the cello when I return to the states, though I probably won't be able to afford one for a while. Anyone know of an extra lying around that wants to be borrowed?

We're going to Playa Hermosa this weekend because Annie gets presidents' day off for some weird reason. I don't mind. It's time for another surf trip and hanging out reading on the beach. Maybe we'll finally get some photos of us surfing. It's nice to have a reliable, cheap dog sitter just around the bend because now we feel like we can go away whenever we want.

horsies

Here is one reason why I like teaching at MFS:
Any day you can look out onto the playground and field and see horsies randomly grazing.
So there.

Etc.

Well hello there...
Lately we've been a little busy. For example, today I sat down with the computer and did a little google verb meme that I saw on a vlog from Hank Green. This is what I got when I googled my name and a bunch of different verbs...
annie needs to release a live album
annie looks like a bit of gossip
annie says you can’t run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely
annie wants someone to love on '90210'
annie does live here
annie hates shots!
annie asks media to stop publishing untrue reports
annie likes bananas! stinky dog treats; having her belly rubbed; running...and boy is she fast!
annie eats grass
annie wears her holiday best
annie under arrest for poisoning her sister
annie loves God and R~no (R~no is a person that this other annie is apparently in love with so much that her last name on myspace is "loves God and R~no)

Additionally, today we hosted our second open studio book making reality (party). It was good to have a completely new group of people over, but this means that the others who were partway done are now at the same step as the people who started today and we don't have that many curved needles... We'll just keep having book making parties on Sundays and hopefully one of these times I'll get to make one myself. Today's party had some kids, some almost adults and some real adults with kids and stuff. It was good to be helpful, even if Toast didn't really like being ignored. I'm looking forward to the day when one of my students (who did come today) actually gets the book down in writing that he wants to put into the book he was making. We only damaged the table a little bit with the rotary cutter...We miss the self-healing cutting mat more than I can say. And, you know, once we've gotten the ability to pay the morgtage worked out again and have acquired a couch and a bed, I'm really looking forward to purchasing a paper cutter.

On Friday night there was a cabaret. This guy Hank puts them together, making posters, getting the space, organizing the acts. He's a genius with slide shows. Anyway, we were later on in the show which was of course a good place to be. I can't say that I ever really like going first, and things got moved around and that was good because the guy who was supposed to go before us, and actually has a weekly gig at Moon Shiva, wanted to go first so he could get home to his baby. I'd never heard him before and we asked someone if he was going to be a lot better than us because we were nervous, having virtually no time to practice. Anyway, the good news is that he got the crowd warmed up and it just kept going from there. Our friend Tim doesn't normally play his own stuff but he did and it was just lovely. jordan said he reminded her of Dave Mallett. I just can't get enough of listening to him sing. So mellow and beautiful. There were a bunch of movies between the musicians: an older movie from my school that was an ironic take on bullying and a video put together by some younger kids (maybe around 10-12) that was a long string of mini-vignettes. I LOVED IT! It opened with a sketch about a box alien - her face was altered by her computer - who was asking for donations because her eye had been destroyed and there was a war happening on Mars. It just didn't stop. Their comic timing was genius and I especially liked the ones that reminded me of movies my friend Christine and I made with her little brother Billy when we were kids. One of my students performed too and she did a fine job, though I know that she and her accompanist didn't have enough time together, just like jordan and myself. Tricia did the Jabberwocky and that totally made my day. That brings us, of course, to our playing. We played Good Riddance by Green Day, Through to Sunrise by Girlyman and Quest for Spinach. It was a crowd pleasing sort of set. There were so many people singing along to the first and last songs, and I have to say, since Tim et. al. had been playing up the comedy, there was a bit of hamming it up between songs and as we were tuning. I ended up telling the story of why my name isn't Funkler and jordan made fun of me a bunch. All in all, a good night. There were a bunch of Mt. Holyoke students there (and some from Goucher in the same program at the Institute) so they were excited that we said the word Massachusetts and are more excited than I am that I'm legally married.
Anyway, there is a large tired factor happening at our house tonight. No one wants to cook and the pizza guys in Turners don't deliver down here... Oh well.

A slightly embarrassing photo

Here is a photo of us talking to Tamara via skype. You, too, could have this amazing opportunity to see us make funny faces and wear scarves on our heads. It was good to talk to Tamara. Hi Tamara!

It's raining today, which is common in the rainy season, but now it's the dry season so it hasn't really rained for weeks. It reminds me that I like the dry season.

Annie went on a ridiculously long hike yesterday. And now I will write about it. We met up at this end of town and then walked through Santa Elena, Cañitas, and then past a bar that is quite literally the only building on the road in the midst of farm fields. The views across back to Monteverde were awesome and at every stop the folks I was with (and Toast too) pulled out the binocs to see what we could see. The middle of the hike was a hill that may or may not be called Pinnochio Hill in spanish because it sticks up steeply into the sky. We watched cows being herded from a distance that made them look like micecows. Toast thought she could herd them using only occasional barks and a stare, but they didn't listen very well to her. We could hear the caballeros even though they were far away, and that in and of itself was pretty fun. Toast clearly wanted to go and help with the whole situation, even though she's still rather afraid of cows and horses. On the way back we went past a hill where the kids had bags filled with something squishy (I assume grass of the long variety) and they were using them to slide down a hill. They were clearly having an awesome time and some of the high schoolers I was with reminisced a bit about how they had done that a bunch when they were younger. It was fun to go for a hike with students I don't teach because then even though I answered some geology questions for them about geology I don't really understand well enough, I got to be friendly and funny and all of my normal things too. I'm going to figure out if there's a way to get my 5/6 class out to the cliff with the nifty columnar joints, but from our viewpoint, I think it might be a scrabbling adventure. Anyway, I didn't get too sunburnt and I had a good time and Toast was tired for at least 4 hours afterwards. We were out for about 7 hours so I was hopeful for a tired dog today too, but oh well.

The guy skyping next to us is talking about how his hotel was burgled and they managed to get into the safe. He lost $10,000 and is talking very calmly about it. I can't even imagine. The only time I held that kind of money was when my father wrote me a check to help with the down payment on a house, and I kind of freaked then. That is such a huge amount of money to me to posess all at one time. But I guess we all have different lifestyles.

My Instructions

So Annie instructed me to write about a few things and I figure it's been too long since I contributed, so here goes.

Getting home from Nicaragua really was an adventure and I'm super glad I speak Spanish because it would have been much harder (or more expensive) otherwise. We left Wendy in Liberia to fly home and figured we'd just catch one bus to the next bus, but Monteverde is pretty difficult to get to by bus. Only four buses go up the mountain each day, two in the early morning (which we missed by about a half hour) and two in the mid afternoon (which would have meant waiting 5-6 hours in the hot sun). I have this instinct to trust bus drivers, but maybe I should stop doing that. When Wendy was trying to get here she told them via my written out phrases that she wanted to go to Sardinal and could the driver please tell her when to get off. Well, he told her she was on the wrong bus (which she wasn't, but she had to trust him) and put her on a bus to a different Sardinal. It doesn't help that there are 4-6 instances of each place name in this country. Anyway, it was an ordeal with her not speaking Spanish and not knowing how to get here. So during our trip home, the bus driver said to take the bus and he would let us off at the turnoff to Monteverde where we could catch that bus. And oh no, we wouldn't miss it. Except we did. So, for the first time in our lives we hitchiked. And it was successful. There was a fair amount of walking first, carrying all our stuff and walking on the highway. And also, I see to have really bad transportation karma. I miss buses, they drive right by me, my schedule is wrong, cars break down, etc. This time I caused a freakin' accident! Well, not really caused, but somehow my bad transportation karma caused the accident in front of my very eyes, just as we were about to start hitching. A bus rear-ended a pickup truck and they dallied in the middle of the road right by a bridge for a long while, meaning that any potential ride givers were held up for a while! So we walked for maybe an hour and were very very hot. Many people honked hello at us but didn't stop. We came upon some howler monkeys in trees above the road and stopped to record some video and then a car stopped for us. He turned out to be really nice. Probably around our age, driving a hand-control car. He said he'd never picked anyone up before because it would be difficult to get away if anyone tried to hurt him, being unable to walk and all. I learned that cars adapted to be hand-controlled can also be driven in the common way with foot pedals. And he told us a bit about his life and we about ours. We only went about 15km down the road and it was fun. It is definitely easier to hitch a ride when wearing a lot of luggage. So he dropped us at the gas station where all the taxis turn to go to Monteverde and hired a pirata (unofficial taxi) for $50 and got home in no time. It was a little more expensive than we had hoped (the two bus system would have cost only $15 total) but we arrived home to find that Toast had such a good time with our house-sitter that she wanted to go home with him.

In more recent news, last week I attended a week-long workshop for language teachers that was basically pointless. Except that I usually find I get something unexpected out of these things. The content of the workshop was nothing I will ever use, but the course was entirely in Spanish I had been feeling like my Spanish had stopped improving because I speak English most of the time, even at work, but this course proved to me that I am more competent and can understand a lot more than I used to. My transportation and food Spanish are really good because I get the most practice with them, but explaining in Spanish my inspiration for becoming a teacher was a bit harder. Still, I managed pretty well and made some Tica friends who teach Spanish locally. They’re really sweet women who speak little or no English and they seem to like me, so now I have new friends. Also, I got to do something I really miss, which is teaching people how to use their computers. Our instructor has a brand new MacBook that she had no clue how to use, so I walked her through a bunch of things. I really really miss my work in the states, books and technology. I have found small ways to teach those things here, but not enough to make me happy. As much as I complained about my job last year, I really miss it. I miss the kids and my colleagues and being around books and having a budget to use according to my judgment. And I miss reading good teen literature. On my trip to the states in November I was given some money by the school to purchase teen lit for classroom libraries but I bought mostly books that I had already read and could vouch for. Now I only have two or three left that I haven’t read and then I’ll be back to complaining about the lack of books around here.

So, of the recent reads, I loved The Hunger Games, Impossible, Paper Towns, and The Graveyard Book, and I got to read the latest Artemis Fowl. And if any of you readers have books to send me let me know and I'll tell you where to send them in the states so a visitor can bring them to me. It's cheaper that way. If you want to see everything I've been reading then check out my Goodreads page .

Other good news: we hired someone to help us with the house cleaning and it's making a big difference in my house happiness. I was not prepared for the amount of mud during the rainy season and dust during the dry season (which it is now) and you really have to stay on top of the cleaning. Which I'm horrible at and hate. So now we have help and I can stop feeling like a bad person for not cleaning my house. I'm great at tidying up at least, and then I know where things are when Annie can't find them, such as her glasses, her planner, her chapstick, etc.

I start teaching guitar and fiddle lessons soon, so I better go do some planning.

recent adventures.

So, jor said maybe we should write an entry tonight. It's been a while and we've been on a few adventures since either of us last wrote. Wendy was here for three weeks. We went on a grand adventure to Nicaragua. The island of Ometepe was sadly only okay. The water level of Lake Cocibolca (aka Lake Nicaragua) was way up from the rainy season so there was no beach to hang out on. Some of the highlights included going to Ojo del Auga which is a not-hot water spring and you only have to pay $2 to go and play in the water for as long as you want. It was interesting to be there during a time that many Nicas had off as well because it was the weekend so there was a mix of people visiting the springs. I was sad that there wasn't a rope swing anymore, but we saw a bunch of parrots!

Then it was off to Grenada which I think might be jordan's new favorite city. We spent a few days there wandering around, finding food to eat and generally enjoying the ambiance. I've included a picture of one of the many churches around the city. One night jor and I went for a walk and ended up lost in the market (it was HUGE and confusing with so many people) and then in the end of town that isn't on the tourist map across the very dirty river when the sun was just setting. It didn't feel too unsafe, but we were probably the only gringos within a mile radius. It wasn't the side of town where the books say you should always take a cab because of the nervous knife wielding muggers, but we were a bit lost. Then we found the church near our hostel and just sat on the corner for a long time and watched the world go by. Even on New Year's eve at 7pm you can get a haircut in Grenada. During our whole trip, sitting on the corner was the only time that we were bothered by someone past the initial asking for money, and he persisted in bothering everyone else near us as well.

We made a sidetrip to Masaya to visit the tourist/artisans market and the hammock making neighborhood. That market was not nearly as confusing as the one we later went to in Grenada because it was open to the sky and during the day. We found lots of presents for various people who send us letters and emails and read our blog. And wandering down to the neighborhood where the buildings/houses are where they make hammocks was cool too. We got to see them working on them and buy directly from the artists which of course made us happy. jor was set on getting one of the chair kinds and we found a hammock for our friend Nicole too. Mainly it was just nice to be wandering away from all of the other tourists wearing stickers that said things like 303A. Why would you need a separate sticker for the different 303s? Seems like you could just add on a 304... I'm not in charge of sticker making for silly tours, though. I can't remember if it was my mom or jordan who said if they ever found themselves on a tour like that they'd refuse to wear the sticker. I'm still confused why any of us would find ourselves on a tour like that... Anyway, then we wanted to go and see the lake that is right next to Masaya and maybe stick our feet in it. Hah! It is right next to Masaya, that at least is true. You can see where the land stops and the lake begins. And the closest road on the city side is at least 1000' higher than the water level and I'm not sure if there are any trails anyway down the heavily forested steep bank. Looking back at the Masaya section of our guidebook, I guess I should have been reading more closely. "Allow extra time in Masaya city to walk to the cliff-top lookout point near the baseball stadium, where you'll also find the hammock factories." Right. It was a lovely lookout point. And the baseball stadium is named after Roberto Clemente because he died in a plane on his way to participate in the relief for Nicaragua after an earthquake before I was born. My mom asked me if I remembered when that happened, despite her being around for both my birth and Clemente's unfortunate passing.

Grenada was fun for other reasons too. We went to this tasty joint called the Garden Cafe and were going to purchase their scavenger hunt map done up pirate style, but they had run out and then the next day we didn't get there early enough due to our Masaya trip. We also didn't get to eat any waffles at the waffle house and due to an email from Tamara and the missed waffles at her house, I have been craving them consistently for two weeks now.

Getting out of Grenada was trickier than we thought it would be. We wanted to take a public bus, but it being Sunday and January 1st, we missed the only one of the day by not showing up until 9am. Fortunately for us, we did run into some other tourists who were in a similar bind, so we chartered a truck (or got some guy with a beatup pickup to drive us) down to Rivas where we caught the next bus to San Juan del Sur and they all went to Ometepe. I have been appreciating riding in the backs of trucks very much since I've been down here, and it was fun to have over an hour to talk with people from all over the world. There were two girls from Berkley, a guy from Switzerland with a very nice camera, a guy from the Netherlands, a guy from Australia and a girl from the UK. I think I saw the guy from the Netherlands on the beach at the end of our time in San Juan del Sur, but I wasn't sure. We made the bus to San Juan and then, despite it being the 1st of January, we were able to secure accomodations despite the multitudes of Nicas and other tourists at the beach for vacation. One of the things I liked best about being here was the fact that the majority of the tourists seemed like they were from Nicaragua or Costa Rica (and probably not many of them due to the prejudices in CR against Nicaragua and Nicaraguans). On the bus ride down my mom pulled out her famous "where's the silk handkerchief" trick to much acclaim from the young folks. She also performed for the family that ran the place where we stayed our whole time in San Juan. Many times. They just kept asking her to do the trick. I love that it is so easy to communicate without words sometimes. The kids (grandkids of the woman who ran the place) were supercute about it and honestly I spent a lot of time wishing that my Spanish had improved much more than it has because even though my comprehension is through the roof compared to where it was in August, I'm still always nervous about communicating verbally. I've been doing some studying since we've gotten home to combat the nervousity. While we were in San Juan del Sur we had a surfing lesson, tried to go snorkling despite the waves and churned up water, went on a day long sailyboat ride, practiced surfing and boogyboarding and hung out at the beaches as much as possible. mmm. I like sun. My mom has a whole new classification system for different varieties of waves including: slappers, whackers, rollers, hoppers, jumpers and others. Plus, jor and I can now both consistently stand up on a board. We're not quite good at paddling ourselves to catch a wave or picking the right ones to catch, but I figure that's one of those things that only comes with time. Plus, I now have an excellent bruise on my left forearm that looks like a shark! Well, it did two days ago. Now it's just a really big blob, so I can't take a picture and post it for you.

Getting home was harder than it should have been, but I'll leave that for jordan to write about maybe later. The moral of the story is that we had a lot of fun on our adventure and I really just wish I had more time and money to wander the countryside.

fostering and touristing

We finally found Flora Segunda Panqueques a home that doesn't involve waking us up four times a night to bark at phantoms outside!!! She's gone to the home of a cousin of our pseudo landlord down in San Luis. He had already met her at soccer that happens on the soccer field in our yard every weekend, so he knew he liked her. We don't know him, but we're pretty sure he's going to be good to her, based on the opinion of the daughter of the pseudo landlord. The relief is sort of overwhelming, although it's accompanied by a realization that Toast will be expecting a lot more from us for a while until she is reaclimated to being an only dog again. And then we're going on vacation on Sunday.

My mom is here and we're planning a trip to Nicaragua. It should pretty much be awesome. Over the past couple of days we've gone to the Orchid Garden, the Renario (frog pond) and learned how to make tamales at a massive tamale making extravaganza today. My mom's favorite frog red eyed tree frog. She liked how colorful it was - it has seven colors - blue, white, red, yellow, green, orange, and black. Here is a picture of one that we did not take. We went as dusk was coming on and got to hear them begin to call to each other. It was not quite cacaphonous. Oh, and there was a fancy dinner and the requisite trip to the farmer's market on Saturday. It's been a little weird to finally be a tourist here when we've been living here for four months. My mom says one of her highlights was that I got to play at the open house that was happening at the yoga studio. It was fun to play with Michael and I got to meet the local Italian who plays lots of different flutes and goes by his sanskrit name. It was a good time and there are potentially options to have a music night at Rio Shanti which would appeal, methinks, to the more laid back musician that is me. Sitting on the floor in a yoga studio is certainly laid back.

The orchid garden was amazing too. We wandered about a little bit before getting a tour and walked past most of the flowers that were pointed out to us on the tour. It always makes me happy to learn new stuff and I know my bio background is weak, but it was fun to expand a little. Here's a picture of my mom with some of the orchids that were growing in the greenhouse part of the orchid garden . Oh, and I forgot to mention that my student's family runs it so my mom got to meet one of my kids. We've been running into students all over the place. Makes me happy.

Sometime in the future I'll put up some pictures and commentary about our coffee tour. My friend Carol saved the day with some batteries when my mom's ran out in her camera.

Mamas

So, my mom got here and we've been having adventures. First there was the adventure where she went on the wrong bus to the wrong Sardinal and then there was the part where she was waiting and I was waiting and we were less than 100m apart from each other. And then there was the adventure in the taxi on the way down the mountain where somehow the taxi was going around in circles like it was on ice (but mom wasn't in the car yet, which I was glad about).

We played scrabble with the scrabble folks today and I like them and jordan finally came along because mostly she didn't know where the game was before and it involved leaving home which is where the books and the interwebs are... We visited school and tomorrow there are the standard Saturday activities at the market and grocery and a special trip to eat breakfast out. jordan stopped scratching my head so now writing this blog entry is less fun :(.

Anyway, the leadup to xmas involves lots of activities in this community and some art making for both jordan and myself because we found ourselves in the gift exchange involving gifts that have to be handmade. I'm doing some watercolor collage something or other inspired by my friend Allison who taught with me last year. Oh, and tomorrow I'm oddly playing (and it'll probably sound odd too) for the yoga studio's open house. It's been a long time since I played background music. I'm hoping I can figure out some more music so I only have to bring a banjo and no guitar.. Or maybe Tricia will let me play hers. The options apparently abound.

not a list of complaints.

So, we've been in a bit of a funk lately:lots of rain + missing friends + wanting maybe something resembling winter... It's made it hard to write because we don't want to just complain all of the time. I'm going to try my best.
Over the past couple of weeks, there has been a secret friend thing happening at school. Now, I don't generally like secret friend things because I spend a lot of time trying to think of presents, making them and then trying really hard not to give it all away. The person who organized it looked sad when I said I didn't want to participate, and it's true, I didn't. I would much rather wait around to see who's complaining about not getting presents and then get inspired about them and give them things. So that happened and I got to help the volunteer who has been working with my classroom because he was confused about what he had agreed to. It was so much better to help him make bread for the first time (and make a loaf separately for his secret friend) than it ever would have been with my own. I really rather like that.
My mom is coming down next Wednesday and I'm also really excited about that. We're going to hang out here and do the million things that lead up to xmas around here and then do some traveling in Nicaragua and on the Nicoya Peninsula afterwards. I'm still trying to figure out how to organize the whole trip, and since it's superhigh season I really should get on the reservation aspect of it, but I'm still so busy with school...
That said, my reports are nearly complete. I have to put in some numbers on some checklists, add a couple of final sentences and send things to the people that need them. Oh, and I should actually calculate some grades, but that's in the plan for Saturday when I totally clean my area of the classroom. The paper pile is vying with my high school piles in both height and complexity.
All in all, though, things are okay. Nicole and I just designed and did an awesome project with the 7/8 graders where they had to create an ancient civilization/city and map it and estimate water usages, and represent the other parts of a civilization through writing, art, sculpture and performance. The presentations were today and even though they were ridiculously long, it was awesome to see all of the thinking that had gone into their projects. I think two weeks was the perfect amount of time because only one group was self-destructing at the end and it was clearly because of the people involved, not the project itself. So there. Now, if it hadn't been the end of the semester, I might have actually followed in Emily's footsteps and done the project with Nicole myself, but the whole write a million reports thing kind of got in the way.
I am hopeful that soon this will look more like a traveling and living abroad blog instead of a teaching one.
Oh, and I saw a toucanet this morning in our yard. Like a toucan, but littler. It sounded like a toucan too, but like one with a bit of a cold. And there were multiple rainbows to greet the morning. Doesn't suck.