My class at the institute!!
the current ping-pong champ of costa rica and my new tropical bug friends
The birthday boy! Hah! the new convert to football?
Saturday, November 1, 2008
WOW…so it’s already been a week that I’ve been here. How loco that the time moves so quickly. It’s definitely been quite a week at that. I got to spend the day with Edisson on Monday, my last real ‘vacation’ day until school started and I left for my new homestay. I sadly began the indoctrination process as I bought him 2 UofA shirts, but I was nice in that one conveniently was all in Spanish (Los Gatos de la Universidad de Arizona…genius!) however, those of you *gasp Devil fans will be pleased to know that without my prompting, my parents bought him an ASU hat to complete his football fan attire. Maybe someday he’ll actually be able to use those to cheer for the best team (wildcats, of course).
My class began bright and early Wednesday morning. I went to my homestay on Tuesday and they’re really a lovely family. It’s a mom and her 3 kids: an adorable little 5 yr old boy who thinks he’s a monkey and is always climbing all over me and talks so fast I can barely understand his Spanish,but he’s cute for sure, and 2 other girls maybe from 12-14 or so. The first night we had dinner and I realized quickly that my Spanish is desperately going to have to improve seeing as they speak absolutely no English. Yay. The grandma also lives here and I think another son, and there’s really a steady stream of people coming in and out that I think are all relatives. I just found out a few minutes ago though that there are 13 kids from the grandma (WHAT??!!??) and apparently they’re all coming over tonight for carne asada to celebrate the grandma’s birthday. I was told so that I ‘wouldn’t be scared.’ Hehe, it’ll be an interesting one, for sure. But I do love this normal little family, and they are all very kind. My room is rather large…probably bigger than my room at home. It has 2 beds to choose from (my books and homework got one of the beds) and there’s a bunch of drawers and dressers to put all my things. The nicest feature I must say is I have a little television with like 100 cable channels, of which about 30 are in English, so now I can keep up on the latest shows when I find them, as well as follow the election coverage on my choice of cnn, foxnews, or the crazy local news I get from Colorado (strange?). I sadly have yet to figure out the hot water situation and can’t seem to get any…so needless to say, I’m really awake every morning with the blaringly cold shower.
As for my school, it’s a lovely institute with tons of rooms and computers with internet, as well as a steady supply of hot coffee and tea. My class consists of 8 other people, all ranging from the older folks who are looking for a career change after years of working one job, to others like me who are joining the ‘let’s live abroad…oh wait, I need money so let’s try to teach English to pay for living abroad!’ mentality. It’s a great group and we’ve got a stellar teacher from South Africa who’s constant stream of energy is an inspiration. We had our first ‘teaching’ lessons yesterday morning. Rather interesting, especially since I chose the lame but yummy topic of teaching how to make smores. Regardless of a bad lesson, I guess chocolate helps to smooth that over. Not that I’m trying to bribe my students into liking me though, of course.
I now have a nice 3 day weekend and only have class next tues-thurs. Life is rather great this week until the last 2 weeks, which I’ve heard are rather akin to a hell-like situation of long days of class and then my own 90 minute English lessons I have to teach each day. Lovely. Meanwhile, I’d rather not think about this and enjoy my last bit of stress-free time till things heat up. Therefore, I’m going to go out for a walk and perhaps eat at this cute café I found with a huge 3 course meal with coffee or tea for about 4 dollars. Gotta love it.
That’s about it for now. I’ll try to start writing people as soon as I can track down some decent stationary, oh and find the post office in this hopelessly confusing city. And I only have internet at the school, so I’ll be writing and updating when I get a chance. I’ll post some pics if you’d like to have a gander!
WOW…so it’s already been a week that I’ve been here. How loco that the time moves so quickly. It’s definitely been quite a week at that. I got to spend the day with Edisson on Monday, my last real ‘vacation’ day until school started and I left for my new homestay. I sadly began the indoctrination process as I bought him 2 UofA shirts, but I was nice in that one conveniently was all in Spanish (Los Gatos de la Universidad de Arizona…genius!) however, those of you *gasp Devil fans will be pleased to know that without my prompting, my parents bought him an ASU hat to complete his football fan attire. Maybe someday he’ll actually be able to use those to cheer for the best team (wildcats, of course).
My class began bright and early Wednesday morning. I went to my homestay on Tuesday and they’re really a lovely family. It’s a mom and her 3 kids: an adorable little 5 yr old boy who thinks he’s a monkey and is always climbing all over me and talks so fast I can barely understand his Spanish,but he’s cute for sure, and 2 other girls maybe from 12-14 or so. The first night we had dinner and I realized quickly that my Spanish is desperately going to have to improve seeing as they speak absolutely no English. Yay. The grandma also lives here and I think another son, and there’s really a steady stream of people coming in and out that I think are all relatives. I just found out a few minutes ago though that there are 13 kids from the grandma (WHAT??!!??) and apparently they’re all coming over tonight for carne asada to celebrate the grandma’s birthday. I was told so that I ‘wouldn’t be scared.’ Hehe, it’ll be an interesting one, for sure. But I do love this normal little family, and they are all very kind. My room is rather large…probably bigger than my room at home. It has 2 beds to choose from (my books and homework got one of the beds) and there’s a bunch of drawers and dressers to put all my things. The nicest feature I must say is I have a little television with like 100 cable channels, of which about 30 are in English, so now I can keep up on the latest shows when I find them, as well as follow the election coverage on my choice of cnn, foxnews, or the crazy local news I get from Colorado (strange?). I sadly have yet to figure out the hot water situation and can’t seem to get any…so needless to say, I’m really awake every morning with the blaringly cold shower.
As for my school, it’s a lovely institute with tons of rooms and computers with internet, as well as a steady supply of hot coffee and tea. My class consists of 8 other people, all ranging from the older folks who are looking for a career change after years of working one job, to others like me who are joining the ‘let’s live abroad…oh wait, I need money so let’s try to teach English to pay for living abroad!’ mentality. It’s a great group and we’ve got a stellar teacher from South Africa who’s constant stream of energy is an inspiration. We had our first ‘teaching’ lessons yesterday morning. Rather interesting, especially since I chose the lame but yummy topic of teaching how to make smores. Regardless of a bad lesson, I guess chocolate helps to smooth that over. Not that I’m trying to bribe my students into liking me though, of course.
I now have a nice 3 day weekend and only have class next tues-thurs. Life is rather great this week until the last 2 weeks, which I’ve heard are rather akin to a hell-like situation of long days of class and then my own 90 minute English lessons I have to teach each day. Lovely. Meanwhile, I’d rather not think about this and enjoy my last bit of stress-free time till things heat up. Therefore, I’m going to go out for a walk and perhaps eat at this cute café I found with a huge 3 course meal with coffee or tea for about 4 dollars. Gotta love it.
That’s about it for now. I’ll try to start writing people as soon as I can track down some decent stationary, oh and find the post office in this hopelessly confusing city. And I only have internet at the school, so I’ll be writing and updating when I get a chance. I’ll post some pics if you’d like to have a gander!
p.s. pics are of: of course, coffee break here…Edisson’s sad birthday presents, and the resident ping pong champ of Costa Rica (there was a party for the youth group at church last night and some fierce ping pong going on…but seriously, Edisson was nearly a national champ in Colombia when he was little, so I’d have to say it was like watching Forrest Gumps ping pong amazement hehe. Jk. It was super fun though) and a monstrously ginormous bug I found at the church.
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