Saturday, October 10, 2009
Wednesday, Oct 7
We had chapel today and my schedule for my 5th graders and chapel is so screwy because they normally have the big kid recess, but they have the little kids chapel. So they get screwed over. I taught math and science for 50 minutes each, which after science the kids were like “Miss, when is it recess? I’m hungry…” all of that. So I promised them that if chapel went into their recess time I would let them out of chapel early; and that’s what I had to do. I felt kinda bad interrupting chapel with them leaving, but they left quietly. So I talked to Mr. Lara about it and he’s like ‘Well let them have the little kid recess on Wednesdays, and then go to chapel. This works, but then there’s like this 10 minute gap between when chapel gets done and the big kid recess gets done and what I am supposed to do then? So I’ll just have to try it out next week and see how it goes. We went to town today and rode the bus down with the kids. I sat with 2 of my boys. One of my boys, Husai, is pretty popular with the girls right now, so I was telling him I knew which girls liked him. And then Husai, Marcos, and Carlos (all my students) proceeded to tell me who they think each other likes and who they used to like and yelling “Mentiras (lies)!” if they didn’t think it was true. It was so cute and hilarious. We did our normal town errands of the bank, shopping and internet. We had seen a pupusa place earlier that we had really wanted to eat at so we headed over there about 6:30pm. Jacki, Laura Beth and I went into this small place, sat down and asked the ladies about the kinds they had, how big they were and how much they were. We decided what we wanted and then started to order and the lady was like ‘Oh, we’re closing; we don’t have anymore; come back tomorrow.’ It was the weirdest thing. Here we are, asking all these questions about their food, sitting at one of their tables, you would think they would’ve told us that BEFORE all of this. I felt slighted and that’s the first time I’ve felt that here. So we packed up again and didn’t want to search for another place to eat in the dark and decided to head to the Chinese restaurant in town, and yes there’s Chinese food here and its amazing.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Monday and Tuesday, Oct 5 and 6
Monday
A Monday…what else can I say. Overall it was a good day, there were just a few times when there were too many kids saying my name and that they don’t understand; so I try again to explain the concepts and they don’t pay attention and I get even more frustrated. It’s really hard during the recesses of the elementary, too because even though we’ve been better about keeping the kids in their part of the building and not in the hallways of the classes still in session, it can still be really loud. So I think it’s loud in my classroom, but it’s actually noise from outside. That happens twice a day. There was one time today where I had to say “If I don’t hear quiet at the count of 3, I will take a letter of EARLY RECESS away (my reward system).” So I count, “1..2…3” and it is silent; it surprised me so much I just started smiling and then the kids starting smiling and laughing…it was cute. We came back after school to our house and just did normal evening things: convos, grading, relax, read, etc. One of Laura Beth’s students had brought her food that day so we had the tamales and tortillas they had given her. It still amazes me the generosity of people here; I need to learn from them.
Tuesday
Some days here I wonder why I am teaching; I didn’t go to school for this; I am not qualified. Then there are other days like today, which I still have moments of frustration, but I find myself falling more in love with my kids and therefore it makes my job more enjoyable. Just some of the things they tell me, whether serious or funny; and the questions they ask and really beginning to see the differences and strengths and weaknesses of each one is great. I’ve had a problem with some groups of kids that cannot sit by each other or they talk too much and get distracted so I am still in the pursuit of the perfect seating chart. This will probably never be accomplished since there are kids who will talk and be distracted no matter where they sit. But I’m going to try. I had 2 more parent meetings today about my student’s grades. One was in Spanish and the other in English. Again, I am so frustrated with myself that I haven’t been practicing and studying Spanish so it was still so difficult for me to communicate what I wanted to this parent in Spanish; Mr. Lara helped me out there. It’s just by the time I get home, grade and organize for the next day, hang out with my housemates and have dinner, I’m not too motivated to learn Spanish grammar and verbs. I may just have to buckle down, study, and then SPEAK. Another random thing..one of my students brought a turtle for our new fountain at school; so we have a new mascot, Bernardo the turtle and all of the kids (and some of the administration) are obsessed with it and how it’s doing. It’s hilarious to watch.
A Monday…what else can I say. Overall it was a good day, there were just a few times when there were too many kids saying my name and that they don’t understand; so I try again to explain the concepts and they don’t pay attention and I get even more frustrated. It’s really hard during the recesses of the elementary, too because even though we’ve been better about keeping the kids in their part of the building and not in the hallways of the classes still in session, it can still be really loud. So I think it’s loud in my classroom, but it’s actually noise from outside. That happens twice a day. There was one time today where I had to say “If I don’t hear quiet at the count of 3, I will take a letter of EARLY RECESS away (my reward system).” So I count, “1..2…3” and it is silent; it surprised me so much I just started smiling and then the kids starting smiling and laughing…it was cute. We came back after school to our house and just did normal evening things: convos, grading, relax, read, etc. One of Laura Beth’s students had brought her food that day so we had the tamales and tortillas they had given her. It still amazes me the generosity of people here; I need to learn from them.
Tuesday
Some days here I wonder why I am teaching; I didn’t go to school for this; I am not qualified. Then there are other days like today, which I still have moments of frustration, but I find myself falling more in love with my kids and therefore it makes my job more enjoyable. Just some of the things they tell me, whether serious or funny; and the questions they ask and really beginning to see the differences and strengths and weaknesses of each one is great. I’ve had a problem with some groups of kids that cannot sit by each other or they talk too much and get distracted so I am still in the pursuit of the perfect seating chart. This will probably never be accomplished since there are kids who will talk and be distracted no matter where they sit. But I’m going to try. I had 2 more parent meetings today about my student’s grades. One was in Spanish and the other in English. Again, I am so frustrated with myself that I haven’t been practicing and studying Spanish so it was still so difficult for me to communicate what I wanted to this parent in Spanish; Mr. Lara helped me out there. It’s just by the time I get home, grade and organize for the next day, hang out with my housemates and have dinner, I’m not too motivated to learn Spanish grammar and verbs. I may just have to buckle down, study, and then SPEAK. Another random thing..one of my students brought a turtle for our new fountain at school; so we have a new mascot, Bernardo the turtle and all of the kids (and some of the administration) are obsessed with it and how it’s doing. It’s hilarious to watch.
Saturday and Sunday, Oct 3 and 4
This weekend was really chill up in Villa Verde. We gave it another try at walking down to town from our house and it went better this time. It was cooler and since we knew what we were getting ourselves into, it went better. It was still a long walk, but good to exercise our legs again. We did our normal stuff of going to town, getting our fresh food, going to the supermarket, getting internet and spending our Saturday in Gracias. We explored town a little bit and found some more restaurants to eat at...expanding our horizons beyond Guancascos. Afterwards we returned to our house and relaxed and watched a full movie. It's been tough to watch a whole movie because we're so tired at the end of the day we can't sit for 2 hours after dinner and not fall asleep watching a movie. Sunday was another great relaxing day. I cleaned a little, graded papers, planned for this week. We went to church at night which is always refreshing and then came back to have dinner.
Thursday and Friday, Oct 1 and 2
Thursday
Today was a good day; I had a good attitude about the day, it went smoothly and I had a good amount of planning time so I finished everything I needed to get done during the day. Towards the end of the day though, Mr. Calderon came to bring me the progress report sheets to fill out… tomorrow. For the progress reports, we do them every 2 weeks for the past 2 weeks grades. So I have to calculate the grades for 25 students for about 6 subjects each; additionally I’m supposed to do that for my Bible classes as well. Since I haven’t set up an Excel sheet on my computer for this yet, I have to do it all by hand. So that was what my Thursday night consisted of: filling out my progress reports. I stayed up quite late and Fridays are my busiest days, too. So it should be a fun day tomorrow.
Friday
I was tired from the night before and didn’t have time to prepare for my Bible classes. The Bible classes turned out okay; I just prefer to be prepared instead of teaching straight from the book. It was Vivian’s birthday on Friday so her parents had asked if they could come to have a birthday party and they would bring food for lunch and cake. So of course we said yes! Her parents came at lunch and we had the party in our classroom. It was a good experience to have with all the kids. The cake we had was by far the best I’ve had here so far haha. But we all sand Happy Birthday to her, the English and Spanish version. I handed out the progress reports to everyone and after I had done that some of the kids were like, “Miss, Leonela is crying.” And sure enough one of my girls was crying because her grade in Reading was low. I felt so bad for her because I didn’t know how big of a deal it was with her parents. Some parents are very involved and get mad if their kids fall below a certain grade in their subjects. I told her I can help her in help class, but she also needs to study and do some extra stuff to get better. I think that helped a little bit, but I still felt bad because there really wasn’t anything I could do at that moment for her except be compassionate. My kids also have to bring back the progress reports signed. One of my boys, Marquito, was like, “Miss, my mom can’t sign it.” So I asked him if his dad could and he was like, “My dad’s dead and my mom is in Tegucigalpa.” I was taken aback by this because I didn’t know what was going on in his family and I still don’t know details. But my heart went out to him in that moment and I told him to have his sister sign it then. Marquito is one of boys I have to keep telling to sit down, be quiet, take this out, what did I say, etc. So although he’s one of my ‘naughty’ ones, I have a little bit more of a soft spot for him. Ana’s birthday was going to be Sunday so all the teachers had a celebration for with cake and stuff after school. Laura Beth and I rode to town with Froni because she was up at the school and went to Guancascos for internet. We came up with Luis and Gustavo, which Gustavo likes Sarah, so it worked out well for both of them. But on the way up we had some moto trouble so we ended up waiting an additional 20 minutes or so for them to fix it. It was a little annoying because they had already been late in picking us up, but we eventually got it working again and got home.
Today was a good day; I had a good attitude about the day, it went smoothly and I had a good amount of planning time so I finished everything I needed to get done during the day. Towards the end of the day though, Mr. Calderon came to bring me the progress report sheets to fill out… tomorrow. For the progress reports, we do them every 2 weeks for the past 2 weeks grades. So I have to calculate the grades for 25 students for about 6 subjects each; additionally I’m supposed to do that for my Bible classes as well. Since I haven’t set up an Excel sheet on my computer for this yet, I have to do it all by hand. So that was what my Thursday night consisted of: filling out my progress reports. I stayed up quite late and Fridays are my busiest days, too. So it should be a fun day tomorrow.
Friday
I was tired from the night before and didn’t have time to prepare for my Bible classes. The Bible classes turned out okay; I just prefer to be prepared instead of teaching straight from the book. It was Vivian’s birthday on Friday so her parents had asked if they could come to have a birthday party and they would bring food for lunch and cake. So of course we said yes! Her parents came at lunch and we had the party in our classroom. It was a good experience to have with all the kids. The cake we had was by far the best I’ve had here so far haha. But we all sand Happy Birthday to her, the English and Spanish version. I handed out the progress reports to everyone and after I had done that some of the kids were like, “Miss, Leonela is crying.” And sure enough one of my girls was crying because her grade in Reading was low. I felt so bad for her because I didn’t know how big of a deal it was with her parents. Some parents are very involved and get mad if their kids fall below a certain grade in their subjects. I told her I can help her in help class, but she also needs to study and do some extra stuff to get better. I think that helped a little bit, but I still felt bad because there really wasn’t anything I could do at that moment for her except be compassionate. My kids also have to bring back the progress reports signed. One of my boys, Marquito, was like, “Miss, my mom can’t sign it.” So I asked him if his dad could and he was like, “My dad’s dead and my mom is in Tegucigalpa.” I was taken aback by this because I didn’t know what was going on in his family and I still don’t know details. But my heart went out to him in that moment and I told him to have his sister sign it then. Marquito is one of boys I have to keep telling to sit down, be quiet, take this out, what did I say, etc. So although he’s one of my ‘naughty’ ones, I have a little bit more of a soft spot for him. Ana’s birthday was going to be Sunday so all the teachers had a celebration for with cake and stuff after school. Laura Beth and I rode to town with Froni because she was up at the school and went to Guancascos for internet. We came up with Luis and Gustavo, which Gustavo likes Sarah, so it worked out well for both of them. But on the way up we had some moto trouble so we ended up waiting an additional 20 minutes or so for them to fix it. It was a little annoying because they had already been late in picking us up, but we eventually got it working again and got home.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Tuesday and Wednesday, Sept 29 and 30
Tuesday
School day went pretty well today. Mr. Lagos, one of the administrators from Teguc, watched during math for a few minutes which made me kinda nervous. My kids didn’t understand what I was saying for the math lesson, so that was tough because I couldn’t think of a better way to show them. I had some free time today and Mr. Bran, our PE teacher wanted to learn some more English slang so I taught him a few things. It was kinda fun and then I asked him some other words in Spanish, too. Jacki and Sarah went to town so me and Laura Beth had the house to ourselves. Mr. Bran came over after dinner and we all hung out and chatted about more words and phrases and music. I spent a lot of the night grading and organizing; a teacher’s work is never done I am realizing! Jacki and Sarah came back late because of mototaxi trouble, but otherwise the rest of the night was fine.
Wednesday
Today was a pretty good day. We have chapel on Wednesdays so we have about 50 min of math and science instead of 40 so my kids got restless. I led chapel today for the elementary; I like to think it went well since Mr. Laurelais usually does it, but who knows. I talked about Jacob and Esau and not picking favorites, forgiving and saying sorry; hopefully at least those lessons got across! Later in the morning I was told by Mr. Lagos to fill out entire workbooks otherwise parents complain that their kids aren’t doing their homework and they wonder why they bought the books in the first place. I was slightly frustrated with that because of time constraints. We only have 40 minutes for each class and while it may seem like a long time, it flies and I don’t have time to have the kids finish all of their lessons for that day all the time. And do they want these kids to learn or just be tedious and parent pleasers? I understand the parents pay for the books and want the kids to use them, and they are, but the parents want to know that the teacher is seeing that. Anyways, later that day I was about to sneeze during our reading vocab quiz, but didn’t and made a funny face and the kids all laughed and were like “do it again!” And I got kinda embarrassed and was like “no!”It was funny. Oh and during chapel the 4th graders were saying everything so loud, like screaming the prayer they repeated from me…hilarious. I almost lost it in front of the whole elementary. My evening consisted of the normal: convos, grading, and chilling.
School day went pretty well today. Mr. Lagos, one of the administrators from Teguc, watched during math for a few minutes which made me kinda nervous. My kids didn’t understand what I was saying for the math lesson, so that was tough because I couldn’t think of a better way to show them. I had some free time today and Mr. Bran, our PE teacher wanted to learn some more English slang so I taught him a few things. It was kinda fun and then I asked him some other words in Spanish, too. Jacki and Sarah went to town so me and Laura Beth had the house to ourselves. Mr. Bran came over after dinner and we all hung out and chatted about more words and phrases and music. I spent a lot of the night grading and organizing; a teacher’s work is never done I am realizing! Jacki and Sarah came back late because of mototaxi trouble, but otherwise the rest of the night was fine.
Wednesday
Today was a pretty good day. We have chapel on Wednesdays so we have about 50 min of math and science instead of 40 so my kids got restless. I led chapel today for the elementary; I like to think it went well since Mr. Laurelais usually does it, but who knows. I talked about Jacob and Esau and not picking favorites, forgiving and saying sorry; hopefully at least those lessons got across! Later in the morning I was told by Mr. Lagos to fill out entire workbooks otherwise parents complain that their kids aren’t doing their homework and they wonder why they bought the books in the first place. I was slightly frustrated with that because of time constraints. We only have 40 minutes for each class and while it may seem like a long time, it flies and I don’t have time to have the kids finish all of their lessons for that day all the time. And do they want these kids to learn or just be tedious and parent pleasers? I understand the parents pay for the books and want the kids to use them, and they are, but the parents want to know that the teacher is seeing that. Anyways, later that day I was about to sneeze during our reading vocab quiz, but didn’t and made a funny face and the kids all laughed and were like “do it again!” And I got kinda embarrassed and was like “no!”It was funny. Oh and during chapel the 4th graders were saying everything so loud, like screaming the prayer they repeated from me…hilarious. I almost lost it in front of the whole elementary. My evening consisted of the normal: convos, grading, and chilling.
Monday, Sept 28
Today…today was a tough day in the classroom. My kids did not listen well to me. I would have to ask at least three times for them to be quiet, close your mouths and eyes up front, and to stop being disrespectful of me while I was speaking. I constantly had to tell kids to turn around, stop talking, keep working on your work, raise your hand for a question, don’t yell out “Finished!” or “Miss…I don’t understand.” It was frustrating. I felt like they didn’t care at all or respected what I had to say. I know how some of my teachers felt now when students didn’t care and it just drains you emotionally. I felt like I was talking over them all the time. This was in my fifth grade and Bible classes. I feel like I complain a lot about my job sometimes, but know I really like my kids; I think any teacher whether in Honduras or in the US would feel the same way sometimes. It was fun at lunch today because a few of my girls, Nohemi and Hilda, were asking me things in Spanish and trying to stump me in words I didn’t know. They got me on the word for bushes haha. We made five star stir-fry for dinner and Ana Sujey came to visit and ate with us. I love her; she’s one of Jacki’s K4 students and just brings us so much joy. Her laugh is so cute and she is so animated and such a little diva at times as well. It was great.
Sunday Sept 27
We had a good morning of sleeping in and then we got ready to go to town since we chose to go hiking yesterday. We got a ton of groceries in town, the most we’ve gotten in one trip I think. The currency here in Honduras is Lempiras and it’s about 20 Lemps to $1 US. So we spent about 1100 Lempiras, which was a lot for us because we were used to half of that for our bill. But then realized that’s equivalent to about $60 for groceries…for four people…for a week. Haha. So it really wasn’t that bad, just more than we were used to. Afterwards we spent a good amount of time at Guancascos on the internet and eating lunch. We headed up the mountain in time for church with the neighbors. I really like the church. It’s just our neighbors so we know almost everyone, but I feel the presence of God there. I love how enthusiastic they are. For example, they ask us to sing a little something every time and even though its in English, they are still like Hallelujah, Amen. It just gives me joy and allows my spirit to be fed with others who simply follow Christ in their simple life.
Commenting on the word simple…We were talking the other day and we realized that life up here is simple; this does not mean its easy. There is a difference. Sometimes our electricity goes out, or we don’t have running water, not to mention no TV, internet or actual kitchen. We do some of our own laundry or someone else does it by hand. We walk to school and back. This isn’t easy or convenient. But it is simple; and I think that by stripping all of those other things which are distracting, especially the technology, you come to appreciate life a lot more. You focus more on relationships, talking, relaxing and learning to just BE and not DO so much; there’s plenty to do, but you don’t need to be in a hurry to do them most of the time. You can’t just sit down in front of the TV and waste a few hours; instead you have a great conversations and make memories with your housemates or play with the neighbor kids. So I highly encourage everyone to turn off the TV, get off of Facebook, take out the ipod and just enjoy the people and surroundings around you. Take that time and you will feel so much more content; not perfect, but more content, I believe. That’s my deep thought for the day.
Commenting on the word simple…We were talking the other day and we realized that life up here is simple; this does not mean its easy. There is a difference. Sometimes our electricity goes out, or we don’t have running water, not to mention no TV, internet or actual kitchen. We do some of our own laundry or someone else does it by hand. We walk to school and back. This isn’t easy or convenient. But it is simple; and I think that by stripping all of those other things which are distracting, especially the technology, you come to appreciate life a lot more. You focus more on relationships, talking, relaxing and learning to just BE and not DO so much; there’s plenty to do, but you don’t need to be in a hurry to do them most of the time. You can’t just sit down in front of the TV and waste a few hours; instead you have a great conversations and make memories with your housemates or play with the neighbor kids. So I highly encourage everyone to turn off the TV, get off of Facebook, take out the ipod and just enjoy the people and surroundings around you. Take that time and you will feel so much more content; not perfect, but more content, I believe. That’s my deep thought for the day.
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