rep argentina se llama

well well well ~ so i am finally settled in with my host family. they are absolutely wonderful, i have a mom, dad, 16 year old sister, 14 year old brother, and 11 year old brother. also we live in a compound with my mom's three sisters, their families, and my mom's mother. needless to say there is always someone around. it has been super fun so far.  one of the cousin's that lives in our "compound" has been on vacation from university since i arrived so he has been showing me around and he is just a really nice guy - it's def cool to have people around the same age living in close proximity.  i got lucky with my family, they are really really great.  

they prepared a really nice room for me - i actually have internet, tv, d
vd player and a super comfy bed. it's almost nicer than home haha... i got here on tuesday evening and i confessed my dietary habit to my host parents. you see, here in chile red meat and bread are eaten ALL THE TIME. so i admitted to them, what i thought would be my worst secret first - that i don't eat much red meat... they were a lil shocked, but actually took it better than i expected.  they asked if i was a vegetarian and if i ate chicken or fish and when i said, no and yes respectively, they were fine with it.  so then i felt confident enough to say i wasn't much of a bread eater.  oh my word, you would have thought i just admitted to killing their puppy dog.  they just looked at me - and actually we weren't at the house yet, we were somewhere else, and i think the news was so difficult for my dad to understand he stopped the conversation right then and there.  his response was "ok let's not talk about this now, let's wait until we get home" hahaha they were hilarious about it.  not mad, just super super shocked, made me chuckle.

so the very next morning for breakfast was really humorous.  i was last to leave because i didn't have to be in school until 10am.  

my mom left breakfast on the table, and since i don't eat much bread - and thats the breakfast of choice in chile - she left me cereal, yogurt, an orange, a banana, juice, crackers, jelly, bu

tter, hot tea, and milk.  i took a foto of that because i'm not joking half of the table was full of food, for only ME.

of course, everything i do see

ms weird to them, and i laugh a

bout it to myself.  my sister's school is having their anniversary this week and it happens to be a art centered high school, so the entire week has been different dance performances and singing competitions and things like that.  well last night we went, the whole family, to the dance competition.  we left at 7pm and left the school around 11:45pm.  (video of my sister, jareth, to be found at bottom - she is the first girl solo in the dance show - about 3 minutes in)  anyway, my brother, cristian, goes to school in the afternoons and gets home at like 7pm so he did not go to the show with us.  when we called to say we were on our way home, he begged us to stop and get some food for him as he didnt eat anything since lunchtime.  so we stopped and bought "completos", which are huge hot dogs in a hoagie roll with tomato, onion, avocado, mayo all busting out.  so here we are at midnight buying 7 completos.  we got home and everyone was sitting around the table eating - and i thought, omg this is hilarious, this would never happen in my family at home... i had to take a picture, and the family's response "emily you are so weird" hahaha.  so all of a sudden my dad heard the tv from the bedroom

 and a famous person from our town was on the late show, so immediately everyone gets up and runs into my parents' bedroom with their ginormous hot dogs and proceeds to crowd around this tiny tv in their bedroom chomping on our completos.  at that point, i just told them i wanted a picture and had to forego the shot.  but it was a priceless moment.

as for my school, i start teaching on monday.  i will teach each class one time a week and i have 4 grade levels, so i will only have to prepare about 5 different lessons each week.  sounds easy, but it is super difficult because all of the activities are supposed to encourage speaking and as i observed in the past two days, my students either can't or are too shy to speak.  it is going to be a challenge, but i am definitely up for it.  

everyone at the school is sooooo nice and very very accommodating.  it is called "La Escuela Republica Argentina" and it is 2 minute walk from my house, really convenient.  also, my youngest brother, bastian, goes there so i have company walking to school and home everyday.  he's adorable by the way.  love that lil kid.  you all know how affectionate i am, and he starting giving me hugs and kisses the moment we met.   just adorable!!!

anyway, the school ~ when i first arrived they said there was no room for english - but the contract between the government and the school stipulates that there must be a fixed english room available.  well i asked if i could use the library as my place but there wasn't a chalkboard and it obviously is not meant to be a classroom.  they of course told me yes and were really apologetic about it.  well when i went in on thursday, my 2nd day, the director called me into his office to tell me about a possibility.  there is a new computer room for the kindergardeners, but they have class in the afternoons and i teach only in the mornings.  so he thought i could use that instead.  so in less than 24 hours i went form having no classroom and no chalkboard to having a computer room equipped with 2 humongous white boards AND a smart board!!!! im super excited to use that because i think i will be able to work with lots of different media and the kids will really enjoy that.

but you know - there is a very interesting dichotomy here.  you see, in many latin american countries toilet paper is not found in bathrooms.  you either pay for it outside or bring your own.  so imagine - my school bathrooms have no toilet paper, but they have a smart board.  i found that interesting... 

santiago to antofagasta

1. me in antofagasta (my city)

2. the andes mountains view from the bus

3. dancers that performed at a welcome lunch for us

4. group of volunteers at the "end of training party" the Ministry of Education had for us

5. my roomies and i in santiago in the capital building

yes, i made it safely to chile.  the first week was super intense, full of training and getting to know people, with a splash of seeing the capital as well.

we trained on how so many topics, ranging from teaching english to 100% beginners to what a bbq in chile really means (that you start partying at 1AM and hang until 6AM).... very interesting stuff.

as i said i met lots of cool people, of course the more interesting i found to be from england and new zealand.  we met the minister of education and had a foto with her, we also were permitted to go inside the equivalent of their "white house" in santiago.  it was pretty cool!!!!

we got in free to see an East Island exhibit in the museum and one evening i went with some girls to the top of a large hill, some might call it a mini mountain, and saw the whole city of santiago.  very impressive!  it was soooo cool because there at the top of the mountain are palm trees and you extend your view and see the andes mountains in the background - a super cool dichotomy i thought.

i packed on saturday morning to leave santiago and head for my placement city, which is called antofagastam and is the capital city in the antofagasta region.  it is a coastal city but also is the desert, look to the left and you see the ocean, look the right and you see mountains.  the geography is beautiful.  we have been staying in a hostel since sunday morning.

so the bus ride was supposed to be 18 hours, it was an overnight bus, but we had a minor problem with the bus and so it ended up being more like 21 hours.  before we left on saturday morning i actually whacked my head extremely hard on the corner of a metal closet door, which was not pleasant.  i ended up having a headache for a while and actually started getting really nauseous on the bus ride.  as it was an overnight bus the seats were very spacious and pretty comfortable, but we were seated on the top level of a double decker bus.  

i called the bus attendant over and told him i wasn't feeling well, and just started crying - thinking i was going to be sick for an 18 hour busride and with no one to comfort me.  well let me tell you - he was soooooo attentive!  he took me and my bags to the first floor, got me blankets and pillows, asked if he could give me aspirin, chatted with me.  i think i freaked him out cause i just totally started crying out of nowhere haha, but i felt really bad!!!!

anyway - i lucked out because the first floor was seats that TURN INTO BEDS!!!! oh my was i comfortable.  it was a rather nice night of sleep.  anyway since i hit my head it has been hurting me lots and i have just felt sick to my stomach and dizzy, but i can say that after a bit of a long process i did see a doctor and he says that i will be fine.  so that is good.  but it was a lil touch and go for a minute there... 

myself and a few others are still in a hostel, our families should pick us up tomorrow or wednesday and this week is just more introductions and information - but this time in our specific regions.  some of the people staying in my city are pretty cool and laid back, others are kinda partiers i think.  should be interesting to see what people think of the experience at the end.  

some people have been bothered by really simple differences between the states and chile, and im thinking - if THAT bothers you, you are in for a rude awakening!

the food isn't bad, just not many fruits or veggies, so i may have to supplement the food i am served a little.  they love their red meat and bread here, two of my least favorite foods.  well i should be at my final destination soon and then i can give more fun info :)

oh and by the way i have a cell number in case anyone is interested - texts i think work also the number is 00 56 9 8 183 8852

stay in touch :) 

feliz cumpleanos to me!!!

well if this doesnt make you smile (or get teary eyed) i dont know what will, the parentals and sister olivia video taped singing happy birthday to me with a cake and the 25 on top. you can see it on youtube, the link is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFvgJNvb7cA

its only 49 seconds, i want you to see it - i laughed and cried i was really touched. and olivia made me crack up at the end, not surprising bc she is a funny gal.

so this weekend was a fabulous fun time of celebrating my 25th birthday! friday i was invited to a student's birthday party at a pizza place, which was yummy and fun. after that a group of us went to the 'cerveceria' where they make corona and tons of other beer. it was semi interesting, but it was a free tour and a bunch of free corona (my favorite!!!) so i was happy. saturday we started out the day with going out to breakfast and then we had our volunteering at the orphanage. a few students moved from our group (5/6 year olds) so now the group we teach is smaller. it is nice because we can get to know each child better and they all get more individualized attention this way.

saturday afternoon was kind of a lazy day - i did some work and chilled, but in the evening we went ice skating! the mall that is near our house has an ice skating rink downstairs and so a group of us went because i have been wanting to go ice skating there since august. it was sooooo fun!!!! after that we had planned a theme party where you either dress "fresa" mexican for snooty and snobby or "naco" which is trailer trashy. clearly i dressed fresa, because i wanted to put on my party dress for my birthday. it was really fun and funny to see how everyone dressed. we partied into the wee hours of the night at one of the american houses. this picture is me, fresa and gen, naca (as you can tell by her big hair and loads of makeup...) it was a fun night for dress up and we had a great time :)

finally we had a nice cook out today. we went food shopping together and then all of us prepared tons of skewers and different salsas and dishes for a super tasty bbq. we made an assembly line for the skewers and just ate and ate and ate. jenna made homemade brownies for my birthday cake and we just ate outside in the beautiful weather and hung out.

it was a delightful birthday, definitely one of the best!!!

6 days til veinticinco

life just keeps going, i feel like i always talk about how hectic "it has been" ~ but in reality, it is kind of always that way....

a few of us have started walking in the evenings which is a really nice stress reliever. but gosh the past two weeks i have been in kind of a funk. just living and working with the same group of people is really difficult. its hard on all of us and its like the physical closeness of being a family, without the intimacy and unconditional love of a family... tough, but a learning experience in some way im sure...

wednesday there was a soccer game between mexico and the usa. my friend gen and i went to a bar with some friends from work, and her and i were the only girls in the one section of the bar - which was fine. no one paid us any mind (unusual bc people normally stare at the rare gringas) until AFTER the game when the usa won. we decided if we were asked we would say we were canadian that day. of course it was fine, just humorous.

so one of the other teachers here organized a volunteer mission for all of us, there is an orphanage with about 45 kids between 2 years old and 14 years old and bc there are so many of us different groups go every other weekend. my group started last weekend and we are working with the 5 and 6 year olds. obviously it's a totally different dynamic than working with my students at shcool, they have tons of different issues and circumstances and just are so emotionally deprived. there are 3 houses that hold all 45 of them so there is one "house mother" for 15 kids, which clearly is extemely understaffed. its so sad to know how some children are neglected, it reminded me a lot of my time in el salvador. even though it is sad, it is such a good feeling to be able to give them a little bit of kindness and love and time, they really responded well to us. we go back this coming weekend and im looking forward to it.

on friday we went to a really fun club called "stop" which was super fun. there was no cover charge for girls and the drinks were really cheap, at the end of the night we each paid $10 for like 5 rounds of bruskies and a bottle of tequila.... PLUS they had live music for about an hour or two and then dance music. here is the coolest part, it was an open air club so there were four walls but no roof and we were dancing under the stars it was really fun.

next week is my 25th bday!!!! the plan is to go to "stop" on friday and then one of our friends' cousins owns another really exclusive club, so he reserved us a table. im excited and i think its gonna be super fun :)

valentines day was fun - we had a little party during recess with all my 38 students, of course it was chaotic but it was really cute. they were sooooo excited we got to have a party, and i got so much candy treats from my students. it was really a nice day at school. on the actual day a bunch of us got together and just hung out playing games and having fun. i went to the doctor too yesterday morning because i have had this sinus thing for almost a month now, the air quality is just so icky, full of pollution and desert dirt so its hard to not have sinus issues. hopefully the meds start kicking in.

touring torreon

well friends this has been a pretty hectic past few weeks. after the hospital i had a lot of make up work to do and i had to meet all my student's parents for conferences. so this past week i worked all day and had to go back to school every afternoon except for friday to do my tutoring and conferences. i started getting a little head cold because the air quality here is terrible, so by friday i had nearly lost my voice from all the talking. i am much better now though, i loaded up on tea with honey and fruits and veggies to keep me healthy.

last weekend was fun, a few of us went out to chili's (yes thats right - i'll have you know i was against it but the americans here like feeling at home, i prefer eating real mexican food haha, but i went along and had a nice time). after dinner we went to karaoke, it was a nice atmosphere but SUPER smoky. honestly i dont know how anyone can sing in that much smoke. that was when i started getting sick because of all the smoke and whatnot. we heard about this really great and cheap market to get produce so we went on saturday and got tons and i mean TONS of fruits and veggies for literally $5 dollars. i was really happy about that.

i know what youre thinking... is the fruit there safe??? the answer is yes, as long as you clean the outside very well, so we got a produce spray that is %100 natural and cleans all bacteria off foods. i learned that water does not wash off salmonella (duh...) so i feel confident with this spray. so saturday i went to this bar where they played live music and aside from it being really loud it was nice. the music was totally what you would expect of mexico, accordian and tons of guitarists - all wearing jeans and cowboy hats. and my friend genevieve introduced me to a new friend who is super fun.

jenna and i went food shopping and realized when we were going to pay for our groceries that she left her wallet in the taxi. clearly we had no way of contacting the taxi driver thusly no way of retreiving her wallet. i tried my best to keep her calm and advise on what she needed to do (cancel her cards, call the bank, etc...) just as she is freezing her bank accounts in the states our doorbell rings. who could it be you ask, none other than the taxi driver with her wallet. we were dumbfounded and SOOO grateful. she gave him 100 pesos and a million thanks and went back to the phone to UNfreeze her recently frozen accounts. it was an interesting day!

this weekend we had a 3 day weekend, so were are off today (monday). instead of traveling somewhere jenna and i decided to stay back and take in some of torreon. friday directly after school i went to a student's house and ate lunch with them at 3pm and met her grandparents who came in for the weekend. i stayed talking with the family and had dinner with them around 8ish and stayed until 9:30pm. i was TIRED!!!! from a long week of working all day and all night and then from having no free time to unwind on friday after school. it was really fun though, the mom is SOOO nice and so is the rest of the family.

so saturday we went to a student's birthday party at the movie theater. it was fun some of my students were there and jenna's students were there. the theatre closed off on entire 3D theatre for the party and we watched Bolt in 3D. we had hot dogs, popcorn, and cake. it was delicious!!! after the party we chilled a bit then went for a nice dinner and split a meal bc we were still so full from the movies. we met up with some friends at this fabulous club called LOVE and had soooo much fun. we left at 1am (which is REALLY early in mexico) because we had such a long day.

sunday was fun. torreon has the second largest cristo in the world so we went to the mountain top to see it and we went to mass at the church on the mountain, which was very interesting. i really liked the father's sermon. they had a cat that must live there who was wandering around the church during the mass, lounging on the kneel posts, walking across the altar. it made me smile. after the cristo we went to a few towers in torreon (bc torreon means tower the town is full of them). we got a taxi and had him stop and park and asked if he could take pictures of us. it made me laugh the pictures he took, because if we were standing in front of the tower he got us and literally 1/4 of the tower, which is the whole reason for the picture.

anyway he took us around and then we ended up shopping. i got a super cute dress and 3 pair of underwear for less than $25... i was happy about that :) we met up for dinner with lily a new mexican friend and had a nice authentic meal. we had a very full day. we were pooped...

today was much more calm, i tutored in the morning for a bit. i booked a trip with my best friend for the first week of july, we decided on going to mexico city for 4 days then to acapulco for 3. and i also booked my flight to come back to philly. dont get too excited though, im only staying for a few weeks to visit. we shopped at the market and i spent like $2 on all my fresh produce for the week and then we had delicious shrimp tacos for dinner. i have a bit of school work to catch up on and im chilling out the rest of the night to wind down from such a whirlwind of a weekend. but it was certainly worth being tired over.

finally, i made a decision for the second half of this year. i am going to volunteer in chile from july to november and then in peru for the month of december. so i will return for a bit in july 2009 and then i wont be back until 2010. who knows where i will end up after that, but im thinking somewhere in the southwest of the US. that is still up in the air. once i get more information about chile and peru i will let you all know.

back by popular demand....

hey ya'll - well break was nice, but i am glad to be back here too. the way back to torreon was a long one, but i didn't mind.

i took a plane from philly to atlanta and literally had to RUN to my next flight which was across the friggin airport. that went to san antonio. from san antonio airport i took a taxi to the greyhound station and then hopped a bus to laredo, texas. by this time it was like 3am.... i was sleepy, but i was ok with it. when i flew home from mexico to philly i was really weirded out by the fact that i could be in two such drastically different places in such a short amount of time. i enjoyde the scenic route back. from laredo it was about 12 hours more on a bus. i can't imagine anyone that would ever be a good travel companion for that long of a ride, needless to say i was glad to be by myself. it didn't hurt that i was sitting next to a super cute lawyer that talked to me the entire time.

so i left philly around 5pm on monday and arrived to torreon by 2pm the next day. since then we have been doing nothing but catching up and getting ready for parent teacher conferences.

well that was last week, but this monday i woke up for school extremely itchy... by tuesday my whole body had broken out in a red rash. i clearly decided i could not go to school and was seen by a doctor. he gave me some allegry meds and was done with it. unfortunately, it was not an allergy to anything, it was my body telling me i had food poisoinung (salmonella) and a parasite.... yuck, i know... needless to sya the rash came back as it was not allergies and i insisted that i go to the hospital on wednesday morning.

so there i have been, in the hospital around the corner from my house, spending my days until saturday around 2pm. i cam home yesterday, but im still obivously not 100%.... the hospital care was phenomenal and the doctors and nurses were super nice and attentive which was comforting.

so i contacted my parents and the only thing that was really getting me through my first time hospital stay was thinking of my sis livi, cause she has been in and out so much of the hospital. she was keeping me strong. of course when i tell her on the phone she is my inspiration and i know i will be ok bc she always is, she responds "yea, but my first hospital stay wasn't alone and half way around the world..." haha, so much for the compliment.... it made me laugh :) anywho, thats what ive been up to down here.

great seeing everyone on break, i'll let you know what my plans are for after june as soon as i figure it out myself!!!! big plans for the next half of this year to come soon :)

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 :)