what happens in torreon...

well its been a while... i won't bore you with ALL the details, but here's a few... we had a halloween party at one of the american houses and it was super fun. i dressed up as a gypsy and a bunch of the other teachers chose mexican beers and made that their costume. for instance one girl was "modelo" so she dressed up as a model and another was "corona" so she dressed up as a queen bc corona means crown... it was funny, we had a good time. mexicans celebrate the day of the dead on nov 1 and 2, so in school on halloween we had a presentation about the day of the dead which was soooooo incredible!!! the kids were amazing, im so sad i didn't bring my camera, i didnt even think of it - i got to see the altars and the presentation, i just wish i had photos to share with you all because it is really a beautiful celebration of life. it was a very enjoyable day at school.

that was a big weekend, because the next day a huge group of us were invited to a family party at one of my student's houses.

we had such a good time. the food was amazing, of course... and when in a mexican household you eat and eat and eat until you can't eat anymore, and then you put on a smile and eat some more... we had sooo much food. but luckily, they are also super active, so in the span of like four hours we played volleyball, kick ball, musical chairs, had potatoe sack races, jumped on the trampoline, and even had low impact swinging as an activity. we were WIPED OUT by the end of the night. but it sure was fun.

sunday we needed to veg out, so me and the roomies watched the entire first season of 'entourage' haha... don't get too freaked out, it was only 8 30minute episodes, so we weren't tooooo too lazy... that night we had tickets to see juanes, who is quite possibly the sexiest latin singer to walk the face of this earth... this is the second time i saw him and i got a shirt and a jacket, because i love his music and him too... the concert rocked the friggin house, and funnily enough one of my student's moms sat behind us. you never can go anywhere without seeing colgeio ingles family. its kinda nice that it seems like a small town in that way sometimes... it makes you feel a part of the community :)

the week after halloween i was kinda lazy because somehow i really hurt my shoulder. so i had a kind of chill week, both the people i tutor were on vacation of sorts, so i had those nights to myself and i skipped out on the gym so as not to further injure my arm. monday i tutored for an hour and then had the rest of the week off from that. tuesday i was invited to one of my student's houses to eat after school. the mom picked me up from school with her daughter at 2:30 and we ate and talked and hung out forEVER.... her husband is a doctor (and she is too, but she just had a baby so she is home right now). so we chilled at the house talking and talking. i held the baby, which was so nice. i love babies and it was really cool to have a conversation with her because first of all it was all in spanish, and second of all it was so far removed from the same ole stuff. i like the americans here of course, but we live together and work together and sometimes its nice to get away from that for a bit.

i was actually at the house on the night of our elections, and i must say i was soooo glad to be there because it distracted my mind for the hours before the election was called. the mom was so nice, she told me about a million times that their house was mine also and if i ever wanted to stay over they had an extra room, and if i ever needed family time to please call. and she was just so sincere and generous, i was overwhelmed. it was awesome... after she dropped me off at 9pm (haha) i went straight to the election gathering we were having...

we don't get american news here, obviously - and neither can we watch much online becuase our IP address is in mexico and a lot of things from the states are only for national use. long story short, we were listening to cnn radio, all huddled around as if it were 1940. it was 9ish and the count was like 207 to 125 or something and all of a sudden, the radio says "this is unbelievable - radio goes out... - 'just won oregon, washington.... - radio goes out - 'is the new president of the united states...." so there was like a minute we're all sitting around like "what?!? who?!?" until it finally came on the radio again clear as day "obama has 297 electoral votes and is the next president of the united states" and i was soooo shocked. i was stunned, because i couldn't believe we knew the race so early AND because i couldn't believe the guy i wanted was elected.... i was waiting for them to be like "oops we made a mistake" but thankfully that was not the case... luckily we were able to get his victory speech live online and so we all watched it with bated breath.... clearly i cried. i was so happy, i couldn't hold it in... YAY!

anywho... after that was a normal rest of the week, i kind of lazied around nursing my shoulder back to health and recouping myself from a long and fun weekend.

friday the directors of our school organized a tour of torreon and so we left around 3 and went to eat, stopped at a bunch of cool places in the city and got acclamated to our surroundings and finally got home around 6:30. jenna had been invite to a birthday party of her one student, so we went to that which was nice. we got there around 7 (which was when the party was supposed to end - but in mexico nothing ever starts or ends on time) so we ended up playing a ton of games with the girls. another active party full of kick ball, trampoline, red rover (which we taught them), and plenty of fun mexican hand games. jenna and i came home and decided to go to karaoke. we got dolled up and made our merry way to a place jenna had been to once and didn't remember how to get there. haha, 4 U-turns and 70 pesos later we arrived at our destination. we tried to get some songs for ourselves to sing, but alas we were last in line. we watched others sing and pretty much everyone joins in so we did as well, but after a while we got so sleepy from such a LONG day we headed home for beddy bye.

saturday we were invited to a student's ranch house - which is the equivalent to a mountain house or beach house by us. so we drove about an hour away from the city and got to this HUGE ranch in the middle of the desert. they had tons of goats, some that were literally born a few hours before we got there and were tenny weeny. we saw them getting milked, playing, and some of the kids and teachers got in and even held the babies and fed them with bottles (which i found a bit weird, since their mothers were right there...) they had tons of property and 3 4-wheelers, so we went on a ride through the desert, jenna driving and scaring the hell out of me awhile i held on for dear life. we came back and were fed an insane meal of ribs, quesdillas, and veggies, and stuffed with tons of halloween candy for dessert. of course our drinks were always kept filled to the brim. tequila is like water - its pretty much runs from the tap in mexico, so they didn't have any problem keeping our thirst quenched... we climbed the huge mounds of hay and sat at the top for a while looking out at the sunset and the dessert and the goats and their ranch house. it was pretty sweet.

after a while the family decided to take us to their cotton ranch because the goat ranch was really the grandmom's house. so jenna and krista volunteered to drive over 2 4-wheelers while we drove in the truck on the rode. clearly they had no idea where they were going and needless to say, in the dark dessert, without cell phones they got lost. before we realized they were lost we took a tour of the cooton ranch. we saw the humongous cotton gin and all the bails of cotton, we saw all their millions of animals, horses, birds, turkeys, random things. we saw the 'playhouse' which was - no exaggeration - a mini brick house (probably nicer than the 3rd little piggy himself could have made), equipped with a kitchen, bedroom, and living furniture, as well as a cement porch and lawn furniture. it was a sweet little set up, i loved it and i'm an adult, i can't imagine how much fun the kids have with it...

anyway, finally we realized jenna and krista should have arrived by now and i starting getting super nervous knowing they were out without jackets, cell phones, passports, lights even... the dad decided to go look for them and after he hadn't been back for a while the two mothers took their truck and were headed to the police station. en route to the police station, the moms came upon a firetruck, who lo and behold, were giving jenna and krista a lift to the ranch. poor jenna, she was so freaked out i gave her the biggest hug and tried to calm her down. immediately after they got in the mom ran to the kitchen and promptly returned with a shot of tequila. we all decided to have one - and that was how the night ended. on the ride home i got to talking with the one friend of the family who was driving us home, and it turns out he is the uncle of one of my students. and one of my students who i have an extra soft spot for in my heart, so we laughed all the way home talking about how adorable he is and singing along to my favorite, juanes....

sunday we chilled, went out to eat, walked around the mall for a while and saw a richard gere movie. man, he will never go out of style, god he is good looking. the movie was good, a tear jerker - but good.

this week was also pretty low key, i focused a lot on school and had a really good week with my students. we had the book fair at school and so i bought a few fairy tale classics for the classroom that are in english and spanish. i love reading to the class, because sometimes they learn a new phrase or are able to link something else they know to the story and it makes me so happy!!! they are coming along so quickly, they are really a great bunch of kids. it is really cool to see how much they like books though, because once i explained to them they were allowed to look at books during class, so many of them wanted to finish their work so they could choose a book. ohit made me happy - i love to see kids liking to read, especially loving it so much they don't care if it it is their native language or not.

wednesday night is 'ladies night' at this one bar in town, so a group of us went - and i cannot believe this, but i went out completely for free on wednesday. i met a bunch of friends of this one teacher who works with us and we had such fun dancing and singing and talking. me and 2 of the other girls were pulled on the conga line and ran through the entire bar, what a workout!!! especially in boots, don't wanna do that again, but at the time it was fun haha... as i was leaving, a parent flagged me down - happy to see i was enjoying myself outside of school and gave me a hug and kiss, she left me with "i'll see you tomorrow morning" i smiled and we left...

well that brings us to today, at school i was greeted by another teacher informing me one of my students locked another student in a 18inch cube locker... needless to say i had a serious talk with them about the dangers of such acitivities and the principal also spoke with all of first grade before calss started. after that, we had a really nice day :) a few of us got pedicures today as a little treat to ourselves and tomorrow morning we are off to zacatecas, a little historical town a few hours away. we have off on monday for 'revolution day' so we are taking advantage of the long weekend to see another part of mexico. well, next blog shan't be so long - i will try and stay more on top of it from now on!!!

hugs and kisses to all :)

the divine secrets of torreon (and gomez)...

so last thursday, which happens to be "lucha libre" night - a few of us went to a lucha show. it's basically wrestling/theatrics with people wearing masks. the point of it is to be entertaining and boy was it ever.... we laughed so hard at the ridiculousness of the first few acts, they don't throw punches, they slap each other... breanna and i were shocked to silence that the entire crowd cheered when one guy SLAPPED another... and then we laughed! it was pretty interesting and fun. one of the american teachers here has a car he drove from arizona where he lives and so he drove us all to the lucha. i thought hecklers in philly were bad, but man they got nothing on the people in gomez. a lot of the time i couldn't understand the slang spanish that was being shouted form drunken audience members, but that which i did get was HILARIOUS!!! almost funnier than the pathetic show they pawned off as wrestling. needless to say it was interesting.

friday i was invited to dine with a student and hiw parents. i wa snervous at first, because the dad is much older and works at the school and rarely talks to me so i wasn't sure what to think. but they picked me up and took me to this tasty restaurant and we had tacos and drinks. obviously there are cultural differences in mexico versus the states that make this situation not at all awkward (having dinner and drinks with the family of your student)... we stayed out pretty late, i actually didn't get home until past midnight. and they invited me to their house for tequila anytime i wanted haha... what a stark difference from the US...

saturday was a chill day - i got a really tasty "lonche" which is simply a huge sandwich with tons and tons of toppings on it.... and that was so yummy i had to mention it here. saturday was blah, we ate at a restaurant by the house late in the evening and then chilled at the house.

sunday was cool though, first we went to "el bosque" which is a park in torreon. they have tons of food and vendors there and a little stageesque area. we went to watch one of the students from our school perform in an orchetrsa. it was soooo good, i was really impressed by the talent and obvious dedication of these middle-schoolers. they played really good music too, it reminded me of this bar by jason where they play big band stuff, because they playe dsome sweet tunes and the different sections would stand up during their "solo" it was cool, i enjoyed myself. this park also has carnival rides, so we took a spin on the tilt a whirl for 70 cents. we were literally riding it for like 3 minutes if not longer. we could NOT stop laughing. we definitely got our money's worth.

later in the day some teachers were invited to a "reliquia" which is an aztec/catholic fusion ritual unique to my town torreon. about 20 people dress in aztec clothing and do all these different dances as an offering or sacrafice to the saints. the music is only 3 drums made out of trashcans and the small dried out squash with seeds inside that the dancers wear on their feet. they danced for like an hour in the middle of the street in the swetlering sun, it was crazy. one dance in particular calls for them to stomp out fire on the street with their bare feet. boy was that a sight to see. so after the dance the family (whoever puts it together) has a huge meal for everyone that comes. the tradition is they are not to turn anyone away and are supposed to invite people even walking by on the street. i went along with 2 teachers that were invited as they extended the invitation to any american teachers and i'm so glad i went. the family could not have been more hospitable or generous. they talked to us and explained the whole tradition to us and everyone came over to introduce themselves and say how happy they were that we could come join in their celebration. they told us to eat as much food as we wanted and to stay as long as we wanted. we sat with the student from our school and talked to him for a while. it was just so beautiful. the family had rented out an entire restaurant to hold their entire extended family and they hired musicians to play and had waiters to serve the food. it was very impressive. while we were eating the family kept coming over and asking us if they could get us anything and even the student, harrison is his name, served us 3 types of cake. we finally had to tell him we were too full to try another piece. but it sure was tasty!!!! as we went to leave, the family insisted they drive us home instead of us taking a taxi, so we even got to drive in style. it was really really cool. i was so happy to go and take part in such a unique tradition that i otherwise would never have known about.

this week at school has been pretty good. i feel like everyday i am able to be more and more of myself with my students because now they know what i expect and i don't constantly have to model the little things, i can actually trust them to do it on their own - so i can tell them jokes and talk to them about things that are non school related too. i like it, i feel like i am making connections with my students now. i have been to a few soccer games and practices and so i have talked with some parents and done things like that, which also makes me feel more connected to them.

this weekend is a big weekend!!! there is a halloween party at one of the american houses on friday, so everyone is dressing up - which should be fun. then saturday a group of us were invited to a picnic that a few families plan together a few times a year - so i am going to that. saturday night i may or may not go to a halloween party at the first grade spanish teacher's house. it depends if someone else can come with me - i know her, but i don't know any of her friends, so i might prefer some back up haha... we'll see. anyway then sunday we are going to a JUANES concert, who is my ultimate favorite latin singer. i saw him in costa rica and it was one of the best concerts ever so i am super excited. after that election day... which makes me a tad nervous, but i suppose what will be will be.... anyway love to all - GO PHILLIES (so sad im missing it - but you know how it goes....) and happy halloween!!!

busy busy bee

so it has been a very busy past week. i started going to the gym on more of a regular basis, which will hopefully be tuesday, thursday, and fridays. the aerobics instructor is HARDCORE!!!! we do so many repetitions of everything... we are all sore all the time, but i think it will ease up in a bit. anyway i like destressing by going to the gym, i have been a lot more at peace i think with school and life in general lately.

wednesday i tutored and practiced spanish with one of the ladies from school. it makes me so happy when i speak spanish because i feel like i get a teeny bit better every time and i am just so shocked when i can have lenghty conversations about things and be understood. it is really cool speaking in a different language. i think i appreciate it more and more as i get older.... anyway thursday rained A LOT!!! so we kind of stayed in and i had some schoolwork to do.

friday was a gym day, so we did aerobics then i cooked dinner for the house and we all kinda chilled and i did some more schoolwork. next week we have exams for the end of the 2nd marking period, so we each had to make 4 exams and study guides for our classes. it has been a lot of work...

saturday was alllllll about exploring and getting things done. i got up early and had gottten info about a hair salon from a student's mother. i took a walk there and got a much needed haircut and color which made me feel like a million bucks. as is the custom in mexico, men always honk and whistle and yell out the car window when americans walk down the street. well this particular morning i was walking by the unviersity just as a sports bus pulled in with the team on it. not only did i get whistles and yells, but it was multiplied by a whole soccer team.... at first i trid to ignore it, but alas i succumbed and smiled and waved, because truthfully they were complimenting me, why not show some appreciation??? it made me laugh.

when i got home we all had made plans to go to a mall that apparently has really good shopping. so we headed in taxi to Galerias, the mall. we spent a while there, we snacked and got some specialty candy - which was fun. sidenote about candy in mexico, well torreon - it is mostly dried fruit and it is ALL covered in chile powder, yes folks, that means lollipops and candy apples dipped in chile powder.... so i was happy to find a candy store that sold americanesque candies.

i found a really cute maxi dress and got that and was on a mission to find comfortable work shoes. when i had no luck at the mall erin and i decided to hit up the center of town where there are tons of stores and street vendors. we found some pretty adorable things and clothes and after much trouble i finally found the right shoe. interesting how the shoe stores work. shoes are on display in a locked window case with numbers and the price of the shoe on a label. you tell the employee which number shoe you want and what size (i wear a size 25 in case you were wondering) and they get you the right shoe only to try on.

well i tried on many shoes and finally settled on 2 pair of nicer sandals for work. but the one shoe was a tad large in size 25 so i settled for a 24 (size 7). they bring out the left shoe and put it in the box and you pay for it. no trying on of the left shoe necessary... when i got home, i realized the right shoe fit perfectly fine, while the left shoe was a bit snug - because no one has EVER tried on the left shoe and the right shoe is pretty well stretched out... alas, what could i do? the left shoe fit, just not 100% comfortably - so i wore them one day and i will wear them another in hopes that the left shoe somehow manages to catch up to the wide width of the right shoe... all for a pair of shoes!!! oh mexico.

well our day did not end there, we wandered around the centro for a while, walked through parks where people were slow dancing to live music and vendors were selling water ice and drinks and elote. we indulged in some horchata, a delicious drink made of rice and water and had some elote, which is corn OFF the cob with cheese, butter, mayo, chile powder, and lime all mixed in. sounds interesting, but it is tasty - anything with that many calories has to be good is what i say. good thing im heading to the gym 3 days a week!!!

we continued walking and happened upon a catholic church. we went inside to take a look and noticed a wedding going on, we stayed for a bit and observed the ceremony in spanish and the wedding dress, which was ornate and large.... we even stood in witness to the marriage along with the rest of the guests. it was pretty cool. we found an underground canal, called la perla that was used way back when for something or other haha.... either way it is now open to the public during the day and is sort of like a museum. it was a nice and cool down there - a little relief from the sun.

we headed back to the house a little after that and i had to get to school to watch my students play a soccer game. the Copa Libertad, (Freedom Cup) went on until sunday so i went to watch a game of theirs. all the families were there and i ended up talking for a while to the director of the school and to the mothers of some of my students. all in spanish of course which made me happy and i think them too :) my students won the game and again i was pulled onto the field to sing their congratulatory song and make a london bridge with our hands. it was nice to feel included. i enjoyed myself.

when i got home a few of us went out to a chinese restaurant for dinner. it was tasty and rather empty so we got impeccable service. there were a few things missing from the menu that we wanted to ask about, but how do you translate chinese to spanish??? lucky for us we had charlie, who speaks cantonese. he explained the dished we were wondering about and we got some special dishes made. here we were in mexico, listening to 3 guys speak cantonese. it was pretty cool and i think it made charlie feel good, because he doesn't speak much spanish so he was able to communicate with someone other than us for once. it was nice. the food was tasty and the leftovers lasted a couple days which was also good.

after dinner we walked around the park a bit then headed home. i tell you saturday was quite a busy day, i was up at 8am and went to bed around 1am, but you know i had a full and satisfying day. i liked it.

sunday was a day of rest. i relaxed a while, did some grading that i had been puttting off and rested my aching legs from aerobics. monday was long as usual with a nice school day and fulfilling tutoring session and tuesday was also busy.

i had a good past 2 days at school, i feel like i am able to be more pleasant now that the kids know my rules and routines and i can be more of my happy go lucky self. they responded well the past few days to me too so i was pleased. i needed a nap after school today because boy have i been busy and monday was LOONNGG!!! so i napped and then had a date with a spanish teacher at school to practice my spanish and her english. did that for a while and had a really good conversation and then i went to aerobics.

i must say, it is nice to have a full schedule again. i can't stand sitting around with nothing to do and so even though i am more tired these days, i can say i'm not restless. it's a good feeling.

as for living with people, it is hard haha.... the grass is always greener i suppose. i used to always say how i wish i had a roommate at home, but now i see the pros and cons of both situations. i love my roomies, don't get me wrong - it's just living alone definitely has its perks.

well i will leave it at that, if anyone even read this far haha. love you and miss you hasta luego

football is freedom...

so this week has been really good. on friday i went to one of the american houses and we hung out - which was fun. saturday i was super sick (which may or may not have been related to my friday evening activities...) but i kind of chilled all day nursing myself back to health. at night we went out to dinner and then we saw mamma mia... SO MUCH FUN!!! i love musicals and meryl streep - so you couldn't go wrong!

sunday was nice and very relaxing. i went to the supermarket solita and got tons of fresh fruit!!! yum. so the meals in mexico are as follows breakfast, snack around 11, lunch around 3, snack/dinner around 9... at school we only get like 20-30 minutes to eat and it was so rushed the first month and a half i decided to just take a small snack like the mexicans do it. i was eating a big meal after school anyway, so i figured that could take place of my lunch/dinner. so i have adapted my eating habits to the way of the land - i eat a small breakfast and a snack of fruit at 11, then i have a big meal at 3pm after school and usually later in the evening i have a small snack. i hope it does my body good!!!! i even found soymilk and some organic things in the supermarket - which was better than finding pure gold haha!!! i was happy about that.

anywho - after food shopping on sunday erin and i caught a taxi and cabbed it to this park called el bosque. it was so nice, there were tons of vendors and food stands. we got our favorite drink, horchata - its sooo tasty and delicious. we treated ourselves and just sat and talked in the park for a few hours. the time really flew by.

monday was hectic as usual with school tutoring and then private tutoring but i like to be busy so i didn't mind. juan, the driver was like 20 minutes late to pick me up and i had just gotten off the phone with my mom, so i was a bit sad trying to hold back the tears. thinking of how everyone is seeing each other this weekend and how jason and kim were at my parents and how i haven't talked to them in a while and blah blah blah. well anyway in an attempt to conceal my sadness i overcompensated and i guess seemed really angry. so he asked me point blank "estas enojada conmigo" are you mad (for the lateness factor) and i was like 'no' and i tried ot leave it at that, but he kept asking me... so i had to let him in on the fact that i was saddish and missed the family and i almost started crying right then and there - but he realized it and let up. it was kind of nice though, to not be let off the hook. normally in the states people just ask, how are you and you say fine regardless of how you really are feeling. i liked that he was not overbearing but sincerely interested. i felt better after i told him how i really felt.

tuesday i came home and watched a movie called Bella. it is an independent film that i really enjoyed. i reccommend it to anyone interested in movies that are off the beaten path so to speak. and it was set in nyc and nj so it made me happy to see some east coast!

after the movie i went to the gym to do killer aerobics with erin and a few others. it was intense, but fun. it was nice to be out of the house on a weekday... imagine that!!!

so i had started last week helping one of the administrators with her english conversation and she paid me. i got to thinking and i asked her if instead of paying me she could do an hour of spanish for an hour of english, so i went to her house on wendnesday after i relaxed for a bit and we spoke in english and then spanish. it made me so happy, i felt like it was the first time i actually had a conversation in spanish here. i am trying so hard to plant the seeds of friendships and just relationships in general with mexicans, but it takes time.... so i was really happy.

juan, the driver for the family i tutor for picked me up from the admin's house (isabel). he speaks only spanish so that is another nice way to practice. i had a good lesson with mauricio and man is he smart - it is so refreshing!!!! i like it a lot. and well the parents are never home, but their maid is so nice and the boys are really polite and sweet. also i speak spanish with juan which is cool - i may have invited myself over to his house haha. i told him i wanted to meet his wife and kids and he said definitely, and i tried to explain how i didn't want to force him into hanging out with me but i think that message may have gotten a bit muddled. he understood all the same.

so there is a soccer tournament at school this week, la copa libertad, the cup of freedom - because clearly football = freedom... no but it was really fun. my students are in a few games so i took my classes to see them play and it is actually really exciting. when i went to my spanish class tonight i walked by the game with a bunch of my students playing just as they were winning the game. at the end the families of the winning team do a bridge with their hands and cheer "ole, ole, ole, ole, ingles, ingles' (that's the name of our school/team) so the parents saw me and asked me to some on the field to make the bridge for my students. they were shocked to see me there!!! i hope they were pleasantly surprised haha, i thought it was really cool.

lastly, i have made friends (at work anyway) with the 1st grade spanish teacher and she doesn't speak any english. we're going to try to get together to have a lil' intercambio of english/spanish and she is in her 20s so she said she would invite me out with her and her friends when they hang so i can meet more mexicans and see torreon. i also talked with the computer teacher today, it was funny - i was commenting on how hansome the soccer coaches are and it brought us to the boyfriend question. i didn't think she had a boyfriend for some reason, come to find out she is married - she just doesn't wear her ring to school because the girls NEVER stopped bothering her about it when she first started. so that was surprising, but she too invited me to hang out with her and friends. i was really hapy about that.

all in all it was a pretty busy week. tutoring, the gym, and spanish class kept me busy and i hope this weekend brings more activities :)

a wee bit

well today we had a science lab - my students are learning the parts of the plant and so i took them to the science lab and they looked at different potted plants and took them out of the soil to see the roots and they were amazed!!!

but it brought up a really unforeseen moment of weakness. i guess it was just the feeling of the dirt in my hands, the smell of flowers and dirt, and the sight of the pretty potted plants - but it reminded me so much of the mini garden i planted at my apartment in jersey and then of the garden jason and i planted together in philly. i was literally blindsided by homesickness.... i nearly started crying right there in the middle of class, i had to start talking to a student and get a quick hug to bring myself back. i knew if i kept thinking about it there would be no stopping the tears....

i don't know where it came from. i mean of course i miss everyone. i wish i could say i was having so much fun and made so many friends i was too distracted to notice, but it's simply not true. i suppose i do have fun and i have made friends, it's just very different than costa rica in the sense that we were always out doing something, speaking spanish, and meeting people. i don't know - this is not like that. i'm trying really hard though... anyway ugh, i feel like all i ever do is whine on my blog - has it become irritating yet???

what you see when you look up

so things have been going pretty well this week - not sick thats good!!!

i got paid for a bunch of tutoring hours, so i feel like i have some cash and can save a little more of my actual paycheck. one of the administrator's at the school asked if i would come to her house to give her an hour of english conversation lessons - so i did that wednesday and asked the other people i tutor for if they could pick me up at her house instead. she lives in the same development as them, so i think it was more convenient.

but it was really cool going to her house because, first of all it is absolutely gorgeous. i mean nicer than homes i have seen in the states. she lives in a sort of complex with her house connected to her parents house and her sister's house as well. it was so beautiful. they have a pool and a jacuzzi... pretty sweet. enormous and extravagant rooms filled with art and furniture. really nice.

so i tutored isabel for an hour - we just talked politics. i had the stevie song prepared for her as well, but she kinda pushed that aside and had a bunch of questions she wanted to ask me... i was happy with that, cause i love talking about obama :) then i went to tutor mauricio. he is 12, so i started by finding out if there was a girl he like. of course there was. he would NOT tell me her name, but he described her to me which i thought was a very good exercise. then we read an article about gas shortages after the hurricanes in the southeast. he is so smart, i love it. i mean i can literally see when he has a moment of learning, it's so refreshing and honestly rewarding.

and their driver juan is really really nice. he only speaks spanish, so i get to practice speaking with him and he gives me good tips about torreon and the surrounding cities and things.

today we had our spanish class, which was fun. but also ugh. it is an hour class and there are 11 people in it, so i don't like that. i mean i like everyone in the class, i just wish it was either longer or there was another section of the class so we could split up. i just feel like its too many people who want and need to practice speaking with too little of a timeframe to do it.

also we had a faculty meeting on wednesday and sometime last week i had talked to the principal about how it's really hard to meet new people, when the school is constantly cautioning us of all the dangers in torreon (newly arriving with the drugs moving closer to here) and that we shouldn't go to "unsafe" places. but truthfully, we have no idea what is or isn't safe or where to go to meet reputible people. i asked if she could arrange some sort of tour of the city so we could become more aquainted with it and if they could facilitate in us meeting more mexicans.

SO at the meeting, the administrators came up with 2 things. they are setting up a program where they ask families of colegio ingles to invite a teacher or two to dinner at their house. this way we can interact with more of a family and with authentic mexcian culture. i was super happy about that. AND they are doing a bus tour and dinner 2 or 3 fridays from this week. i am super excited about that. i thanked them soooo much today, because i honestly feel like everything i ask of them they try to do their absolute best to acommodate me. i asked for tutoring and got it, i asked for tour of torreon and we're getting it, i ask for meetings with parents and i get them, i ask for anything i feel and i get it.

it's interesting because i know there are a lot of things that are different here than they would be in the states, teaching wise, and i sometimes get frustrated. i have been getting more and more used to it though. the other teachers i feel are having a little tougher of a time with it. i feel like i have had experiences with plenty of materials and little administrative support and i much rather forego the materials. and truthfully - for a "developing country" i think they have a lot more than i initially expected... so i'm good with that. anyway i NEVER get emails anymore, whats up with you all!!! it's not even the holiday season yet. tell me what's going in in YOUR life, cause i am missing everyone... love to hear from you!!!!

oh what a little sunshine will do

well i am happy to report these past few days have been a bit better. im not sick anymore, so that is a plus!!! here's the rundown

saturday
went food shopping in the morning and got tons of fruits and i found soymilk, which made me very happy!!!! i got salad stuff and was generally just happy to fill my cart with healthy food instead of meat, meat, meat... after shopping i hung around and kind of did nothing for a while.

there was supposedly a 'youth meeting' at the church i went to last week. i don't consider myself a youth, but the church assured us there would be others our age there. well when we got there it was full of 15 year olds... i wanted to leave immediately because i felt OOOLLLLLDDDD and inappropriate... we were heading out the door when one girl stopped us and convinced us (and by us i mean the other girl i went with) to stay... i couldnt leave her, so i stayed. it ended up not being horrible, haha - it is cool to hear spanish in a very different aspect... so after that i went to hang with some other american teachers that live a few houses down. we had a good time. two of the girls in that house are for mlast year and they know a bunch of mexicans, so they were there and we were speaking spanish which was sweet.

sunday
i kind of lazied around in the morning and then a group of us went to a soccer game for the local Santos team. some people were scaring us prior to going, saying it was super unsafe and we would be harrassed as foreigners and blah blah blah. we decided to try it out anyway... we went and since the game had started already these people sold us tickets (and by sold i mean scalped) on the road for 150 pesos instead of 200, which was sweet.

we got inside and found a front row seat, the entire stadium is just cements bleachers, no individual chairs... so we sat on BURNING HOT cement. luckily we were shaded, but the cement had gotten ridiculously hot from the beginning of the day. so pretty much immediately after we arrived a group of guys swarmed us and started chatting us up. they were kind of hmm - not creepy, but persistent i suppose is the best word. they were actually nice, one of them spoke in english and was talking to me the entire game, all i wanted to do was watch it!!! it was nice though because i spoke to him in spanish so that was good. he was super goofy. and they were like all about buying beer, but i didn't have any on account of my recent stomach issues. they did buy a bunch of rounds for the others though.

after the game we went outside and got these sandwiches and juice from a vendor... oh my word, no words can describe how delicious this sandwich was.... pork, avocado, tomato, mayo, onion, jalapenos, mustard and a million other things all thrown onto a toasted roll. it was delicious!!!!

monday
today is my LOOONG day, because i have lunch duty at school, tutoring at school from 4:30-6:30, then private tutoring from 7-8ish... so i am wiped out. BUT private tutoring was soooo much fun today!!! i love the boys i am tutoring, it's really nice because they know a lot of english and the parents just want them to keep up their skills. so today i brought a stevie wonder song that i have on my ipod and whited out some of the lyrics and had him listen to it and fill in what he could. then we talked about it afterwards. it was 'heaven help us all' so it has a lot of figurative language and expressions that he wouldn't know otherwise. it was really cool and it lent itself to so many other conversations, war, poverty, racial tension and more. i was soooo happy that he understood it enough to learn from it and he really liked it. so after the hour of dissecting the song and meaning he listened to it again and said he really liked it :) which clearly, if you are into stevie wonder - you are good in my book.

the other good thing about private tutoring is speaking spanish with their maid and driver. they are really nice and it is nice to have someone to speak spanish with one on one... i had a good past few experiences :) well anyway - tomorrow is a pretty open day, we will see what it brings! tata for now

what you can get for 12 bucks....

soooo school was pretty uneventful this week. i had been feeling increasingly exhausted since monday and by wednesday night i was not feeling well at all. luckily the people i tutored cancelled - well not so much cancelled as just didn't show up without a phonecall... so i rested.

thursday rolls around and i had a terrible night of sleep on wednesday because my body ached so badly and my stomach hurt, so i didn't know if i should even take medicine for the back in case it reacted with the stomach... i went to school feeling crappy, because we have NO sick or personal days, if we take off because we are sick we don't get paid. so i figured i would give it a shot.

well my kids were really well behaved, i told first thing "Miss Emily feels really sick today, so please cooperate and listen really well today". they actually did, which i was surprised about because when i taught high school and i told them the few times i wasn't feeling 100% they could care less... i was pleasantly surprised by their excellent behavior.

in my second group of kids i have one little boy who is a terror!!! haha, we're trying some things but he has a lot of behavior issues, so i didn't know how this class was gonna take me being sick. funnily enough he was the one coming to my rescue, when the class got out of hand he would speak on my behalf, "silencio, la Miss no puede gritar esta enferma!!!" adorable... my knight and shining armor "silence, the teacher can't yell she's sick!!!" that made me happy - maybe there's hope for him yet, haha...

anyway around 1:45 i was feeling awful and my kids were at a special class, so i went to my supervisor and told her i didn't feel well. she got the nurse to come check me out and lo and behold i had a temperature of 39 degrees celsius, which for us americans translates to like 102 F... not cool. she had someone else wrap up my class for me and i sat in her office and started crying, because no one likes to be sick... especially when you're not home and sick, and then when you're not with people that love you unconditionally... i didn't think anyone was gonna take care of me and i would be sick and left on my own in mexico.

to my rescue came krista!!! she is a canadian teacher that was here last year. she has lived and taught in mexico for like 5 years, so she is pretty familiar with things. she offered to walk me to the doctor down the street. now let me tell you, there is universal healthcare here through the social security office which is long and sometimes unreliable if you just wake up sick one morning. social security goes by appointment and sees only 3 people a day that don't have an appointment. in a city of 1 million people it can get overwhelming... anyway there is also private healthcare for those who would rather have a doctor's immediate attention and who can afford it. but there is also generic healthcare... which is where i went.

i got to the doctor's office at 2:30 and was the next person in line. i saw the doctor for about 15 minutes and he prescribed 2 things for me and a clear liquid diet... his exact words were "go home, boil a chicken, take out the meat, bones, and fat and drink the chicken water" to which krista and i asked "will a bouillon cube work?" - clearly we thought of something he hadn't and he assured us bouillon cubes were A-ok... after i paid $2.50 for the doctor's visit, i went to pick up my meds, which cost a total of $9.50... so for a doctor visit and meds, i spent a grand total of 12 US dollars... just that made me feel better!

i went home and slept and slept and felt much better the next day, my stomach still a littley iffy, but overall better. unfortunately i had to miss the first spanish class which pissed me off, because i have been waiting for this to start and finally it did and i missed the first class. UGH!!!!

now a moment of truth - (not that everything else was a lie, you know what i mean) i feel like i'm kind of at a low point. heres the thing... i want to speak spanish, that is a HUGE part of the reason i took this job... but i do not feel like i am getting the chance to do so, because i teach in english all day and i live with americans. there is not much to do in our town except go to bars and stuff on the weekends, but truthfully it is a tad unsafe lately because there is a new access to our town that is allowing drug dealers and the like to come in. so the option of going out at night isn't super safe either... i feel couped up inside and i am really dissappointed about that... i know things aren't always as you imagine them, i'm trying to figure out my purpose here, and i'm hoping it gets better because right now it's only october and i feel like it sucks... im just bored, all we do at our house is work, cook, eat, and watch movies and that's no fun all the time.

well hopefully things start looking up, krista and i are going food shopping today and possibly to the bank for a bank statement (they are not a courtesy, you have to ask for one...). maybe we will go to a museum or the park "el bosque" which is like 30 blocks long and supposed to be pretty sweet. we have church tomorrow... i don't know - i know you're all thinking that sounds like a lot of stuff, but i don't want all of my fun to be pushed to the weekend... i mean even in the states you have diversions during the week.

i think i need some cheering up... i did NOT feel like this in costa rica, because we went out EVERY SINGLE NIGHT... here, no one wants to go out - or it's not reccommended to go out at night... oh well... sorry to be such a debbie downer, its just how i feel lately...

how the other half live, or isnt it more like the other 1/16???

so.. this weekend was pretty sweet. friday night was a chill night, we had grades due today so we got a bite to eat and then kind of worked on grading, watched a show or two, and overall just relaxed form a long hard week.

saturday rolled around and i was set to start tutoring for a particular family. they said they would pick me up at 10:50 at the school, so i headed over to the school and waited patiently... getting more nervous for every minute that passed, i tried to reassure myself that things happen and duh im in mexico which operates on a different time clock... so i talked with the cleaning lady and security guard for the school while i waited. finally 20 minutes later, the boy (an eighth grader) i am tutpring approached me and i was relieved to know it was all going to work out. we drove to their house and i spoke Spanish with whom i presumed to be the dad...

anyway we pull up to this gorgeous house, beautifully decorated with tons of art displayed on the walls and just a really nice home. i was impressed.... they had a huge backyard with a trampolilne and a life size doll house, i met their cleaning ladies (which i later found out one is a cleaning lady and the other is a nanny that lives with them). so anyway - jorge, the boy i tutor broke out his books and we started in on his physics homework. how happy was i that i took that class in high school!!!! he is a really bright kid and very organized and speaks wonderful english, so i feel like for him it is less tutoring and more reinforcement to keep him sharp. as a teacher i applaude that effort, but i sometimes think that can also be a deterent for kids to enjoy learning.. i digress.

so after we finished up a few practice problems and reviewing it was time to go and so jorge called his mom, who was out and couldn't take me home - at which point he says "let me call the driver" yes, you heard me right, the driver... i was shocked, here the guy who picked me up was not his father at all, but the driver for their family!!!! so he called juan and he came over to drive me home. i have to say even though i was shocked, i was very grateful because i don't want to be taking taxis all around town to places i don't know just yet alone... and also its free!!! so that is pretty sweet too.

while we waited for juan to arrive, jorge gave me a tour of the house. it was mexican style but definitely could be something found in the states, kitchen, dining room, living room, play room, 4 bedrooms, and ananny suite... a backyard and front yard and garage. apparently the mother owns a gym and the father sells instruments wholesale. who knew that was so lucrative??? surely not me... but anyway tutoring is supposed to be 4 - 5 hours a week, so i am hoping that money can pay for my groceries and if i want to go out during the week at all. and then anything else i have to pay for, like traveling anywhere and my student loans (of course!!!!) will come from my paycheck. its a pretty sweet deal!!!

after i got home on saturday i wanted to kind of lazy around so i read for a while and napped, which was definitely necessary... when i got up i did grades for and chilled at the house. everyone went out to eat and work on grades at another american house, but i stayed in. i felt like i needed some alone time, just to work peacefully and without distractions. it was nice to have some space from everything...

sunday came around and i was supposed to go to a rodeo with the roomies but that kinda fell through, which in the end i feel like happened for a reason. instead i went to church with a canadian teacher, krista, who also teaches first grade at colegio ingles and i really enjoyed myself. the church was within walking distance to our houses and it was a baptist church. the beginning part of the service was all singing and the words were on an overhead projector so i could follow along, which was nice. and then we set our prayer intentions together, read some things, listened to the sermon, then the new people were asked to introduce themselves. it was really nice because even though the belief system is very different from my unitarian church at home, it was also very similar. and i took away from it the positive things i believed in. the people were so incredibly welcoming and kind and the pastor asked me to introduce myself and so i did and during and after church so many people came up to me and said "que dios bendiga" 'god bless you' and "bienvenido" 'welcome' - i felt very happy. also, it was nice to get out of my americanized routine and to hear spanish in a totally different context... all in all it was a very nice experience. and you know what not a bad way to meet local mexicans.

later in the day another teacher erin and i went to starbucks, haha - another hip place to meet mexicans and use our spanish... unfortunately the guy behind the counter wanted to practice his english - and i feel like it is rude when someone speaks to you in your native language and you respond in their language, its almost as if to say 'you don't speak that well in english, so i will make it easier on you and speak spanish"... i know when people speak to me in english after i have spoken spanish i am a tad hurt and then i lack confidence in my language skills. so needless to say, i spoke back to him in english. but the frappe was tasty enough to make me forget about speaking english. erin and i hung there a while just talking about tons of stuff. she is 25 and even though mostly everyone here is 22 or 23 i feel like there is a big difference between where they are and where i am in life. not to say one is better or worse, just that i guess my job experience is makes me feel a lot older than them sometimes, because most of them are striaight out of college. and of course that is not a bad thing, its just interesting seeing where i was two years ago in their shoes versus how i feel about my career and life in general now. i learn a lot from them too, especially about the computer and technology... thank god i have them!!!!

so malita and charlie are huge chicago bears fans, so every weekend they try to find the game on at this one restaurant called opas. they have super tasty food, which is always a good thing. soooo the bears played the eagles last night - let down!!!! but malita and charlie and i went to opas to watch the game and get some dinner. its sweet because this restaurant always has music videos on the tv screens and on the loudspeaker, so we were watching the eagles game, stevie wonder, tina turner, and jon bon jovi came on the music videos, and i ordered a beer and a burger... it was the quintessential american (if not south jersey/philadelphia) experience... it made me laugh thinking i am in mexico, granted taking advantage of lots of mexican things too, but having such an american experience...

well i have tutoring again tonight - so hopefully that goes well. the driver for the family is picking me up and dropping me off, which is super convenient. today was a long day though, because mondays i have "lunch duty" so i have to monitor the hallways while i eat, then i have after school duty this week which means i have to stay after for an extra 30 mins to help the kids get on the bus and yada yada, then i had afterschool tutoring that is required by the shcool and my tutoring is on mondays form 4:30-6:30, now i'm waiting for juan to pick me up for private tutoring... hectic day - but truthfully i am glad to get it over with on mondays, since i have most energy on mondays.... aiight send some emails and comments my way. i miss you guys!!!! mwah!!!

bridal showers and positive parents...

well it's been a while, but i guess i have just been preoccupied. school is going well, grades are actually due on monday which is surprisingly early - but since they get report cards 7 times a year, it makes sense....

so this week at school was pretty uneventful. life goes on as normal. it has been quite rainy, which means the mosquitoes abound in my classroom in particular... and they are very bold little suckers... i got a bunch of bites THROUGH MY PANTS!!! ouch... but i have been nursing my wounds ever so tenderly. so late last week a mom had been trying to get a hold of me for a meeting during the day, well i had to change the time once, then she changed the time. finally when she came to school, i was in the bathroom because it was my five second break and what do i hear as i'm doing my business but "Miss Emily..." hahaha luckily i was just coming out of the stall, but how funny is that??? She followed me into the bathroom to speak with me. so i step out of the stall and before i can even make it to the sink to wash my hands she leans in for the side cheek kiss and starts talking. i know it sounds really over the top, but i found it endearing in a way i suppose is hard to translate through the computer. it didn't bother me, i thought it was kinda funny actually. all the parents are really nice and thoughtful.

i had a student last week that went to disney world for the few days we were off of school. he came back this monday and gave me a donald duck pen from disney. i was sooooo touched, that they thought of me and honestly as silly as it sounds - to get something from the states was really sweet. i made a thank you note and sent it home immediately!!! how nice of them. another parent, who knew i had gone to mazatlan last weekend sent in a note specifically to ask how the trip was. i like that parents are involved in school so much that talking to the teacher in the morning or afternoon is an available option. i am happy with that set up.

one of the really young teachers just got engaged at our school, so they invited all the elementary school teachers to a "bridal shower" at our principal's house. so there were maybe like 12-15 teachers at the house and it was a nice little pot luck. the food was super tasty. i was sooo excited to go to our principals house, she is super nice - actually all of the administration is really nice, but there is something so classy, so eloquent about her. so her house was gorgeous and FULL of artwork. she is very artistic, she has all these paintings and sketches in her office at school and i commented on how nice they were one time. her reply "oh anyone could do that, i just read this book" so you see she is also very modest. anyway tons of the art in her house was her own originals and one was a replica of a frida kahlo painting. now - some of you may or may not know this, but i went to see Frida Kahlo's collection on a field trip this past april with my class. so i have seen originals - i was FLOORED at how authentic it looked. absolutely amazing. her home was just the right size, with a huge patio in the back and tons of plants, cacti, and trees. the tile outside was inlayed with mini ceramic tiles too, very detailed - but not overly ornate.

the food was delicious, and all the teachers were really laid back and have such a good sense of humor. there is a saying that is very "torreon" and that is "andale pues...", which our supervisor ana says all the time. so jenna and i were telling pati (our principal) and ana (our supervisor) how funny it is... we did our impression of ana and she was all about it. we also told them how happy we were to be in an authentic mexican home and hinted at having us over the other people's houses soon. they all said yes haha - only time will tell.

as for the bridal shower, it was interesting. there was one gift - a crucifix and bible wrapped in cellophane against an upholstered piece of wood, to put above the married couple's bed. pati started the celebration by offering some advice and said everyone would go around the table and offer their own insight. i know i speak spanish, but i was nervous - i have never been married! and to speak in front of all these native speakers, well it was a bit nerveracking at first. i got over it and all the mexican teachers were pleased that we all (the 4 american teachers) spoke in spanish. after that we ate the pot luck dinner, a tasty salad, mixed vegetables, and cheese crepes... YUM, we are sure to get the recipe from our principal cause it was damn tasty!!! not only does she keep a beautiful home, paint, cook, and run a school - she even plays the piano. we were like "pati, tell us what don't you do???" she laughed and of course said she was mediocre at best for the piano... yea right. needless to say it was a fun evening.

i am happy to report that an advanced spanish conversation class and literature class starts next thursday. here is the thing, it is kind of a time of caution in torreon. there are some drug issues happening and so the school tells us it is not the best idea to go out to places unknown at night. well clearly, EVERY place is unknown to us so out contact with the spanish language has been limited at best, because we teach in english and live americans. so i am happy about the class getting underway. also i start private tutoring on saturday and i will teach wed and fri evenings. i hope the extra cash is enough for groceries and such so i can save a little more. now with the economy eekk...

one final story then i will call it quits. jenna and i decided to go out for a bite to eat at our favorite lil place, forgetting it closes at 4pm... so we tried another place but were unsatisifed with the choices. se threw out the idea of taking a taxi to this really well known restaurant, so we went. and boy am i glad we did. i never had such good food in my life. the chips were so light and salty, yum. the rice and beans, perfectly seasoned and light, yet filling. and the salsa was spicy but tasty and the horchata (which is a delicious milky type of juice) was to die for. i haven't had juice like that since costa rica, and i've been chasing the dragon ever since. well now i am pleased to say i have found the best place for juice in torreon...

so we decided to walk home and see the town a bit. we walked into a few stores and all of a sudden we hear "MISS MISS" (which is the infamous name for any and all teachers)... so they go "Miss Emily, Miss Jenna" and we realize one of Jenna's students and one of my students is in this minivan calling us from the road. the mom yells out "do you want a ride" - while shes stopped at a red light. so we quick run through traffic (don't worry it was stopped as well) and hop in. haha that would NEVER happen in the states.... she was so nice, she talked to us the whole time in spanish and asked us about school and ourselves and she dropped us off at the house - it was really cool. and random haha but i liked it.

well ladies and gents thats whats been going on in my neck of the woods... and of course i have been keeping updated on the US... how is it over there now, is everything like it was when i left or are changes happening a lot - gas prices, prices of food, people losing jobs??? i feel aware of whats going on but strangely out of the loop since im not there, im only reading about it. how about this one of the mexican teachers here who picked us up for the bridal shower was telling us her and her husband were thinking of buying a house in texas, but they don't know anymore because they think the US is going downhill. just one person's opinion, but i was like - if a teacher in mexico thinks the US is in bad shape that isn't good....

casi gratis...

...a phrase we were trying to figure out all weekend. it literally means "almost free", but really does that even have a meaning??? it was the joke of the weekend in lovely mazatlan - "casi gratis"...

so we embarked on our 12 hour bus trip at 8:30pm and truthfully is wasn't that bad, aside from some irritating passengers that luckily fell asleep rather quickly. we pretty much slept on the bus and arrived in mazatlan at 8am, to a beautiful, warm beach. we grabbed a taxi and headed to our wonderful hotel. the hotel "la siesta" was right on the beach front, with a cute little balcony that overlooked the ocean view. we kinda unpacked, showered, walked around a bit, ate breakfast and then napped. we found the cutest little place by our hotel, it was the center of old mazatlan complete with a tree and bench filled square and tons of restaurants surrounding it. the weather was divine, cool and comfortable - not humid, just divine...

day1
we walked around a while longer and took the bus into town, walked on the beach, shopped a little. i bargained a lady down from $38 dollars to $20 for a sassy lil dress, that i will be wearing to work in the near future... needless to say i was proud of myself... sooo after that we took the bus home and found a cute lil place to eat, the waiter was adorable. he was a big muscular guy, but totally soft spoken - we found it rather endearing.

we headed to the beach for a bit and stayed until we watched the sunset. it was spectacular, simply gorgeous.

for dinner we decided to get dazzled up and go out... we made it to the hotel restaurant for dinner and could barely walk upstairs after dinner we were soooo tired!!! i had a delightful margarita, that was PACKED with tequila... it was yummy, but one was enough!!! a man with a guitar asked us for a song so i paid him to sing "la bamba", always the classic... when we went back to the hotel, we slept quite soundly that first night.










day 2
we slept in and woke up to the sounds of the ocean... we hung out a little while on the balcony then headed out for breakfast. what a fun little place. the restaurant overlooked the ocean and had the most delicious food!!! to start we had fresh home baked bread... OH that was the best bread i have ever had... and for those of you who know how i love food... yum - i couldn't stop murmuring "mmmmm"... then i had fresh pancakes with fresh fruit and boy was that good, so sweet i couldn't even finish them, and a fresh squeezed oranje juice to wash it down. it was a breakfast to die for. not to mention how sweet and sincere our waiter was - sooo friendly.

so mazatlan is famous for it's numerous statues, as well as being a center for culture. along the shore there is a huge sidewalk - one could equate it with the boardwalk in a sense. so along this sidewalk are the countless statues of mazatlan. we walked from our hotel (where they begin) for about 2 and a half miles, by which time the sun and heat had become too much we needed to catch the bus. we stopped and took photos of the statues and posed like them for fun, we had a good time... so we went to la zona dorada, which is like the newer section of mazatlan with super expensive hotels and such. we rented an umbrella and hung out on the beach all ding dang day long. it was sooo nice. you can't imagine how many random items i was offered to purchase. if i wanted sunglasses, a hat, a sarong, a towel, jet ski lessons, parasailing tours, jewelry, you name it i was offered to buy it on the beaches at mazatlan. and what is the price of all these fine items??? simple "casi gratis" - "almost free"... there was even a mariachi band in full dress with all their instruments walking up and down the beach playing songs for vacationers. i didn't get a song, but i took a picture.

we bussed back to town and got dolled up for another lovely dinner. we went to the famous pedro and lola's restaurant and i had fish again, with a tasty pina colada... mmm mmm good!!!! mind you this restaurant is in the squre in old mazatlan, so all the tables are outside the actual restaurant and you are dining with masses of other people from neighboring restaurants and taking in all the festivities of the square as well. so while we were finishing up our meal i noticed a mime and a guitarist walking through the square. they saw us and walked right over and the mime did a bunch of card tricks, one in particular that breanna figured out and called him out on it.... he didn't get mad, he did another trick, a better trick... it was really funny, we had a good time. another nice enjoyable day. we went back to the hotel and hung out until we fell asleep.

day 3
ah check out day :( the weather wasn't fabulous for the beach, so we showered and packed and headed to breakfast. our hotel was kind enough to hold our bags at the desk until 9pm when we came to pick them up. well it was hot and humid on monday - ick! not a good day to be without a hotel and air conditioning... but we did it anyway, we had breakfast at the same place and this day we got fresh homemade biscuits YUM!!!! and we had the same sweet waiter....

after breakfast we walked ALL around town, haggard and sticky we finally came upon a cute little cafe and got cold beverages... that was a nice pick me up. we hung out there for a while then headed out again. realizing how much it sucked having bad weather and no hotel in a town not our own plus 5 extra hours until our bus left, we went to the bust station to see if there was room on an earlier bus. alas there was not, but you know what we ventured on yet another bus and took up some waiting time.

from there we found a taxi and asked the driver to take us to his favorite restaurant for dinner. he chose wisely! we ate at the tastiest little place. oddly enough called Panama... it was like a mexican diner in the sense that it had a huge menu and really good prices. it was a very good choice on the part of our taxi driver. afterwards we walked around town a while. i ahd wanted a reall cute halter top sarong dress, so we tried to find one for the right price - but it just wasn't happening. i was extremely dissappointed, because i like dresses and this one in particular was sooooo pretty. but alas, it wasn't meant to be. so we got our things together and went to the bus station.

what an unfortunate surprise to arrive at 9:45 thinking the bus leaves at 10.... we got there and saw it didn't leave until 10:35, ok we were a tad ruffled, but nonetheless fine. so come 10:30 we go outside to catch our bus - what does he do but refuse us entry and drive around the side of the station. curious, after about 10 minutes we walk to the side of the station and there is aour bus getting the royal bus washing treatment... that lasted for an HOUR!!!! at which point, we were more than ruffled and extremely tired...

so we enter the bus and find the bus driver's wife and two kids and their luggage sitting in 2 of our 4 seats. the bus driver tells us to take seat 16 &17 in the back instead (which brings one to the question - why bother to pick your seats when you buy the tickets anyway???) i digress... so breanna and jenna grudingly obliged only to then be kicked out of those seats by other passengers. so breanna goes to the driver and explains the situation, to which he replied "vete" which is a really nasty response, pretty much meaning "go away"... but what are you to do when customer service and professionalism is not upheld in mexico?? i'll tell you - you grin and bear it, because no one cares, especially if you have already paid for the service... so that's just what we did.

the ride home wasn't wonderful, because the driver kept on turning the air conditioning on and off so i was getting a little nauseous. and this bus didn't have a foot rest which proved to be extremely painful. i didn't know this was even a possibility, but my calves and feet were burning from lack of movement in the middle of the night. by morning when we FINALLY approached torreon and i stood up my feet hurt soooo bad. im not even exaggerating in the least, i had the swollen feet of a pregnant woman nine months in... i have pictures to prove it. all day today i have lying on the couch with my feet elevated. and exactly 12 hours later the swelling has gone down, but my ankles are still wider than my toe span...

well folks that was my weekend... the good, the bad, and everything in between. we only have a 3 day week this week WOO HOO... just the break i needed. i hope all goes well, tune in later this week to find out.... i'll put up some new pix tomorrow, for now it's off to bed for me.

to mazatlan we go...

so we're heading to the pacific coast tonight to a beach called mazatlan. it i supposedly one of the nicest beaches in mexico. and get this the travel and hotel only cost 120 bucks for 3 days... i think that is rather cheap :) i guess i will know if the deal was a good one once we arrive, don't fret i will definitely let you know.

anyway, this week at school was much much better. monday was okay and tuesday was so frustrating, my students were so unruly - i had a few moments where i just wanted to sit down and cry... i thought about the problem and decided they have too much on the agenda all the time with a lot of wasted minutes in the middle. so i got to thinking, i had a few copied for coloring pages on numbers and letters for them to color - but i never used them. i never "had time". well let me tell you, come wednesday, the moment one person was finished but half the class was still working i had them color and practice numbers. it worked like a charm - it was peaceful for once, because they were occuppied. you might think this an easy solution that i should have figured out 2 and a half weeks ago, but truth is - i had planned on doing it all along. i simply never thought there was time to do it. i figured there might be less quantity if they have these coloring pages on top of the other work, but there would definitely be more quality of learning if i don't have to constantly wrangle them back in to the lesson. best thing is, they didn't lose out on quantity - they actually gained it, because they want to color they work faster!!! who knew :) oh what a wonderful pastime coloring is... even i love to do it, why wouldn't kids???

needless to say this week went much much better than the past few weeks of constant up and down with a good day, a bad day... totally frustrating, totally satisfying. i hope i have found a good tool that will work for the year. today we had a little extra time in both classes, so we played Miss Emily says, the Hokey Pokey and this cute game "chichi wa, chichi wa, chichiwa wa wa" - i never heard of it before but it was super fun, i learned it at our retreat two weeks ago. anyway it was sooo fun. and i get to make the kids do anything i want, because i lead the game!!! of course i when we played Miss Emily says i made them hold air in their cheeks and pop them with their hands (i don't know how better to explain that - i hope you get it)... anyway it was hilarious. they liked it too.

so they are understanding me much better and getting more acclamated to the routine, as am i. all in all it seems to be coming together.

so last night colgeio ingles had a welcome to the new teachers dinner. we played a little game in the beginning and then had dinner, which was rather tasty. unfortunately i was forced to drink coke, because they only had coke, no water, no sprite, no other decaf drink. i am super sensitive to caffeine, but i had to drink it to wash down the yummy shrimp tacos. well i paid for that coke later, i couldn't sleep until 3am!!! so this morning i opted out of a shower and went straight to work. oh well it happens. i got a lot done though, i caught up on my politics. watched lots of stuff on you tube, did some laundry, returned some emails... you know the deal.

well its that time we're heading out soonish, returning on tuesday morning. its an all night bus ride, so im hoping it will go by fast with sleep. wish me luck!!!

you need the sun and the rain to create a rainbow

so last thursday we had back to school night... boy was it interesting. because the spanish teacher and i share two groups of kids, we each had 30 minutes to talk to a huge group of parents.

so Casa C - my house and roomies, head out to the school. for some unknown reason it always seems to rain whenever parents and school come together. all the back to school and parent teacher conferences i had at my other job - it rained. so why was i surprised when it was torrential downpours on thursday for the back to school night here?? because i live in the desert... that's why

anyway we made it to school relatively dry, which was a miracle because none of us brought umbrellas to torreon... when i got there the door to the spanish teacher's room was closed, so i was kind of walking around, but i was a little put off because none of the parents were introducing themselves. fast forward - my presentation was in english with a spanish interpreter (why an interpreter you ask? - because they want the parents to think i speak very little spanish and i would NEVER speak it in english class...) anyway the talk went well and by 8:30 the spanish teacher still hadn't shown up... as i was finishing up, the director of the school, the principal, and another administrator come in the room.

i figured they came in to explain there was a family emergency and miss claudia would not be showing up... not so. they started off "this is not a very easy situation..." everyone is waiting with bated breath to hear what has gone down, and then it came "miss claudia na va a seguir con nosotros..." translation - the spanish teacher for my students either quit or was asked to leave, either way, she's not coming back! i was shocked, my interprester was shocked, the parents were shocked, there was silence. then the fabulous women that head our school chimed in, "what questions do you have for us?", "what can we do to ease your discomfort?", "how can we accomodate in any way?" - even though there are a TON of things about this school i am not in accordance with, i have to give it them, they are so hospitable and compassionate and understanding. and every worry that i have had, if i spoke to my supervisor or principal about it has been addressed and remedied.

at the end of the evening i talked to so many parents and they all gave a hug and a kiss and were so delighted to hear about their children. it was really nice. and they all tried to speak english, most of them are pretty fluent - which is good for their kids definitely. although it wasn't what i expected, with the weather and the absence of my spanish counterpart, it was overall positive.

sooo - remember the lil story about my students turned warriors because they put white paint on their faces???? well i had to send a few notes home that day and the very next day a note came back to me - which was fine... except it was a touch rude. in so many words she called me a liar. i wanted to cry, because why would i ever accuse a CHILD of doing something they didn't... clearly, i held my composure and talked to my supervisor and we went to the principal together.

they both read the note and agreed we needed to met with the parent immediately to set things straight. so on friday i met with her and the principal and actually it went really well. the principal translated (because again they want to make sure everything is understood to the tee, which is good because i felt more comfortable that way anyhow). it was all cleared up and i thanked her tremedously for attending and she recounted her negative comments towrds me. all in all it was good. i was happy.

well this weekend coming up is a 4 day weekend. we bought bus tickets to go to mazatlan which is a beach on the pacific coast. the tickets were $86 dollars roundtrip and our hotel is $15 a night on the beach, with a view. i will be blogging about that next week when we come home. but i'm really happy we have a long weekend (it is for mexican independence day). but we need a break, school is sooo hectic everyday, there are no "prep" periods and lunch is only 25 minutes long. additionally, during lunch you inevitably have students that have to finish their homework or classwork - so in between bites im really still teaching... needless to say i NEED a break...

the other kinda sucky thing is you get no personal or sick days. if you're sick you have to go to the doctor (which is a long process involving the socialized medicine system) and only if they give you a note do you get paid for the day you took off. my poor jenna is sick and may stay home tomorrow, she has a stomach thing... i just hope we are all healthy for this upcoming weekend. aiight ya'll hasta pronto!!!

this goes out to the glinkas

hey there fam!!! i had the most fun and interesting dream last night - you were all in it!!! it was a family picnic that started out in denise and ricky's OLD house... (i'm surprised i can even remember that house, i was so little when you moved). the best was when we had a pinata at the house, and i got the coolest beaded wallet - ah memories...

anyway so it started out at the old house and little ricky was still really little, then (as dreams goes) it randomly was MY old house. i know i know - it's just a house - but i get sentimental, so i was happy to be there... :) everyone was sitting around the kitchen table. denise, funnily enough was cracking jokes to stephanie and steph and i were CRACKING UP!!! whatever D said apparently was a tad racy and steph, blushed!!! which made me laugh even more, because i was so surprised ANYBODY could make stephanie blush!!!

just then i looked over and saw sarah was wearing my clothes and they looked small on her (which i thought was WRONG). so i got super pissed and was like "did you put that shirt in the washer?" and she's like "yea, why" of course i had specifically told her she could wear it if she hung it dry... well in true sarah form she waited until the last minute to clean it and then had to dry it in the dryer. needless to say if the shirt was small on sarah it wasn't gonna ever fit me again. i let her have it - that was the most normal part of my entire dream - me and sarah arguing about clothes... haha

uncle harry was there and looked soooo good. it was really nice to see him. he was in the cooking kitchen area smoking a cigarette, which was sooo odd. what more, no one cared that he was smoking or that he was doing it in the house. i don't know where i got an image of him smoking, because as far as i know he never smoked when i was alive... but i digress.

it was funny because no one's ages coincided. stephanie was like 19, unmarried and sans kids - martha was about 14, little ricky was a baby, but mason was TEN - go figure... i can't say with certainty how old i was, but i feel like it fluctuated between 10 and 17...

flash to me and jason outside playing on the front lawn or porch. we saw all the neighbors cars in the street were really banged up, and if course we knew the culprit was our new neighbor, who had a bad rap as a terrible driver. immediately i ran inside to tell my dad to pull his beloved suburban into the driveway so it didn't get hit. instead of pulling it in from where it was, we took the scenic route.... which seemed a lot like vermont.

we got back and we were in ricky's old house again sitting at the table and mason (at 10 years old) sat down on a picnic bench and whatever he was doing, scip sends him outside, because obviously the picnic bench was inside the kitchen along with the other table. so he ran outside and i thought "boy did he get big fast..." little did i know!

it was a really short dream, but it was the last one i woke up with - so it was fresh in my mind. even though only some people spoke in the dream, i felt everyone's presence there and i miss you so much, but i was really glad to see you!!! hugs and kisses to all :)

here's some pictures from my graduation party 2 years back... you probably never saw these i realize, so why not throw in some good ole family pix??? and some from jess and vinnie's wedding too :) you see on my laptop i don't have as many recent pictures... so you'll have to do without the past 3 family picnics...

tgiF

i have been wanting to post my pictures and finally i have a link on my blog to my picture blog!!! yay, so you can see them. i only have about 50 pix, but i am going to make sure i take more this weekend.

here is a photo of one of my favorite students and arguably the most favorite student throughout the whole school. on thursday the lil cutie came to school with sports glasses on... he looked adorable. later during the day he started crying in class and when i went over to give him a hug and ask what was wrong he told me in spanish "i dont understand you...." oh the poor lil guy.... tear my HEART OUT!!! imagine this teeny weeny lil boy crying in your arms... i felt awful - but i talked to him and he perked right up. oh i love him!!!

well hope you enjoy the pictures, don't forget you can comment now on any blog you want (without any hassle of signing up for anything) and don't forget to email!!!! miss you all