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...