Hello again. I guess last week some people found my post depressing so I figured I'd try to make this one more up-beat because let's face it, I'm a happy person.
1) It is mango season, and fortunately my mom didn't pass on her severe mango allergies to me. Our apartment complex is full of huge mango trees and the gardeners like us so they'll bring them to our house if we ask.
2) On Sunday we were in and out of church in under 3.5 hours. I think that's a record.
3) This guy that works at my school (I'm not sure what he does, gardens maybe?) wears overalls with the top half down, a red wwf t-shirt, and a white pinstripe New York hat quite regularly. It makes me laugh every time, because he's definitely got the gangster look down just ten years late.
4) My least controllable class is 1st grade B. On Monday their teacher didn't come so they all were sent home and I didn't have to "teach" them.
5) As soon as I finished my bowl of cereal yesterday morning Leo came and took it from the table to wash it. Talk about quality service.
6) Within the last week both the boy I tutored in math and my Korean students told me that they can't come any more. I am definitely over having that responsibility but now I'll have to come up with some other way to keep myself occupied other than my four hours of teaching four days a week.
7) Today one of my friends came help me at school. She whistled "This is the Day that the Lord Has Made" with her hands.
8) A few weeks ago my brother came he down and brought us a wireless router (paid for by my niece), so now when the electricity is on we have wireless internet. Supposedly we are going to start having electricity rations again but no more than two hours a day, thank you Daniel Ortega.
9) On Saturday I went to this thrift store "MegaBotique," I bought two pairs of shorts for 25 cordobas ($1.50).
10) Then I went to this bookstore that has new and used books in Spanish and English. The lady said the magazines were free and I figured I would take a few for my school but the lady told me to take them all and to leave my e-mail address so she could let my know when she has more. I was already able to use some for a project with my Monday afternoon classes.
Well 10 seems like a popular number to stop at. Even though things can be frustrating life is good.
Love, Joy
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Chaos
I think if I needed to pick one word to describe my teaching situation it would be (as the title suggests) chaos.
How can I start? I'm sorry if this comes across as ranting,
Yesterday morning I got to school pretty close to on-time, I was excited because Friday I hung up a note on the classroom door telling my parents that the 1st graders need to bring in an empty notebook to use only for English. So I was all scheduled to have my students copy a few numbers off the board and then a few more the next day and so-on. That way the students that can't write as well won't feel so overwhelmed. For my first class the majority actually brought them and only a few had to use the paper that I brought for back up. The problem at my school is that I'll have one thing going for me and 100 against me. For example during 1st grade A, Julio, our maintenance man/driver was standing on a table in the middle of the room installing a ceiling fan. Why would anyone think that is an OK thing to do? So there is poor Joy trying to figure out how to teach with this stupidity going on. So I decided to try go outside. But it is really hard to keep 30 first graders under control (regardless of the location) but especially outside when there are other kids from the neighborhood wandering around playing marbles and such. And this is all before 8:30.
It is difficult to describe the behavior in my 1st grade B class. I guess if you take take the worst child you have ever met and imagine 19 of them in a room together and then pick the 3rd worst child you know and add 8 of them, then maybe mix in 2 that are fairly well behaved. There you have a rough estimate. I think maybe 40% of these students brought their books and probably 5 students didn't copy anything off of the whiteboard. Sometimes I keep them after during recess but usually I am about at my tolerance level of being in the same room with them after the first 15 minutes of class, so that's really more of a punishment for me than them. That brings me to 9:15.
9:15 is recess it was fine. Usually I chat with the other teachers or students. Yesterday was more or less the same but the students get so touchy and they're all sweaty and sticky and it as been so hot lately I just can't reciprocate their affections, so I spend a lot of the time swatting them away.
After recreo I teach 2nd grade. Two of them brought in their homework. The page we covered in our book was "where are you from? I'm from________." It's pretty funny since they are all from the same country, city, and barrio and thus pretty pointless to have them ask their classmates where they are from.
Third grade is definitely my best behaved class but I still question whether or not they are actually learning anything, and some of them just won't stop talking and whining. I wanted them to color this picture and had to explain to them that if they don't bring crayons it is their problem not mine, obviously by this point in time I was full of sympathy.
On Monday's I have afternoon classes at school too so usually Cristina comes sometime during my 2 hour break and brings me lunch or we run to a coffee shop, but until she gets there I get to hang out on campus. Today there was a missions team there. Possibly you missed previous e-mails where I shared my opinions on people coming to "help" so I'll give you a brief re-cap. Chaos. This time was a little better since they showed up an hour late which made them not be there until after school was out, I think this defeated their purpose of coming to pass out gifts to select children who then can play with their toys in class while the rest of the students watch. The group was from Texas but one of the girls graduated from Davis so that was exciting.
The second half of my break I spent drinking a caramel macchiato and telling Cristina how stupid my school is.
After break I have 8th, 9th, and 7th grades, in that order. These classes are not only smaller but usually I don't have to stop students from hiding under their desks.
Jeremy's school gave me some old lower elementary class readers so I brought those to class. I passed them out and we went through the stories "Pop!" and "See the Cat?" with little difficulty. Then Julio decided to pick this time to install another ceiling fan. He asked me if he could, I said no, he said he needed to. I don't know why he couldn't do it during the past 2 hours that the classroom was empty. So first he came, then their normal Nicaraguan English teacher came in to say that they needed to take their exams. This took a chunk of time and then I didn't know what to do because there was only five minutes left before the bell was supposed to ring. I really shouldn't have worried because it rang 10 minutes late.
In 9th grade there are a whole six students. When I got there they were still finishing their English exams, when they finished I passed out the readers and had them move to sit under the newly installed fan. On a side note, fans are all fine and dandy but do absolutely nothing when the power is out, which has been happening a lot lately. Anyways I gave them their readers then the director came to ask if I could take a five minute break because this lady needed to come in and take their measurements for new PE uniforms. Even with only six students there is no way that can only take five minutes. When she finally left we continued our reading until the bell rang late, again.
My 7th graders have the best English skills but very low attention spans and it is hard because the range in age from 13 to 18. They also were continually going in and out of the classroom because of fittings. But the lady was going to do it in front of the classroom until I asked her if it was possible to work in the hallway, so that was better I guess. One thing different about the classes here is that the students think once they finish their work they are able to leave, they aren't, right?
That about completes my school day, I got home at four.
Now on to the chaos that is Nicaragua. I will give you my top three stories from the week.
1. Last Monday night the windows got stolen out of my friend's car. Nothing from inside, just the windows.
2. On Friday at around noon, while my neighbors were at a stop light someone started to steal their back lights. Fortunately, the light turned green before they were able to cut the wires. They did however get the Toyota emblem.
3. Saturday morning probably takes the cake. As my roommate was in her car about to have the guards open the gate to let her out, suddenly Nicaraguan special police jumped the fence wearing masks and carrying guns. When they got in, they opened the gate to let in a truck with more police. They ran past her car and spread out to a few apartments to break into. We later found out they were looking for some Mexican drug-lords that were part of a group consisting of Mexicans, Guatemalans, and Nicaraguans that was busted in another town earlier in the week. Two people were arrested. I'm honestly not a big fan of drugs and wish they could have worked on sneaking in Mexican food.
Now on peppier note.
This past week has been pretty social. People came over for dinner a few nights and one night I actually hung out with non-roommates or family. Friday night I saw Letra y Musica and I really liked it. One of the previews before it was for She's the Man which came out in over a year ago and another for The Prince and Me which came out in 2004. On Saturday night I saw The Pursuit of Happyness, on DVD because it still isn't in the theaters here, I liked it but was pretty stressed out by his life being so terrible for so long. I also went to a baby shower and to a different church than normal and to one of the maid's houses in this really cool town about 30 minutes away by car. We went to pay her because she just reupholstered our couch and it looks really good. Plus she took the cushions back and fourth on the hour and a half bus ride she takes every morning to get here.
I had big plans of sending this out first thing this morning to prevent it from being any longer. But once again my idealistic plans got thrown out the window because the electricity was off from 8 to 2:30. But that is all I am going to write about my day.
How are you?
How can I start? I'm sorry if this comes across as ranting,
Yesterday morning I got to school pretty close to on-time, I was excited because Friday I hung up a note on the classroom door telling my parents that the 1st graders need to bring in an empty notebook to use only for English. So I was all scheduled to have my students copy a few numbers off the board and then a few more the next day and so-on. That way the students that can't write as well won't feel so overwhelmed. For my first class the majority actually brought them and only a few had to use the paper that I brought for back up. The problem at my school is that I'll have one thing going for me and 100 against me. For example during 1st grade A, Julio, our maintenance man/driver was standing on a table in the middle of the room installing a ceiling fan. Why would anyone think that is an OK thing to do? So there is poor Joy trying to figure out how to teach with this stupidity going on. So I decided to try go outside. But it is really hard to keep 30 first graders under control (regardless of the location) but especially outside when there are other kids from the neighborhood wandering around playing marbles and such. And this is all before 8:30.
It is difficult to describe the behavior in my 1st grade B class. I guess if you take take the worst child you have ever met and imagine 19 of them in a room together and then pick the 3rd worst child you know and add 8 of them, then maybe mix in 2 that are fairly well behaved. There you have a rough estimate. I think maybe 40% of these students brought their books and probably 5 students didn't copy anything off of the whiteboard. Sometimes I keep them after during recess but usually I am about at my tolerance level of being in the same room with them after the first 15 minutes of class, so that's really more of a punishment for me than them. That brings me to 9:15.
9:15 is recess it was fine. Usually I chat with the other teachers or students. Yesterday was more or less the same but the students get so touchy and they're all sweaty and sticky and it as been so hot lately I just can't reciprocate their affections, so I spend a lot of the time swatting them away.
After recreo I teach 2nd grade. Two of them brought in their homework. The page we covered in our book was "where are you from? I'm from________." It's pretty funny since they are all from the same country, city, and barrio and thus pretty pointless to have them ask their classmates where they are from.
Third grade is definitely my best behaved class but I still question whether or not they are actually learning anything, and some of them just won't stop talking and whining. I wanted them to color this picture and had to explain to them that if they don't bring crayons it is their problem not mine, obviously by this point in time I was full of sympathy.
On Monday's I have afternoon classes at school too so usually Cristina comes sometime during my 2 hour break and brings me lunch or we run to a coffee shop, but until she gets there I get to hang out on campus. Today there was a missions team there. Possibly you missed previous e-mails where I shared my opinions on people coming to "help" so I'll give you a brief re-cap. Chaos. This time was a little better since they showed up an hour late which made them not be there until after school was out, I think this defeated their purpose of coming to pass out gifts to select children who then can play with their toys in class while the rest of the students watch. The group was from Texas but one of the girls graduated from Davis so that was exciting.
The second half of my break I spent drinking a caramel macchiato and telling Cristina how stupid my school is.
After break I have 8th, 9th, and 7th grades, in that order. These classes are not only smaller but usually I don't have to stop students from hiding under their desks.
Jeremy's school gave me some old lower elementary class readers so I brought those to class. I passed them out and we went through the stories "Pop!" and "See the Cat?" with little difficulty. Then Julio decided to pick this time to install another ceiling fan. He asked me if he could, I said no, he said he needed to. I don't know why he couldn't do it during the past 2 hours that the classroom was empty. So first he came, then their normal Nicaraguan English teacher came in to say that they needed to take their exams. This took a chunk of time and then I didn't know what to do because there was only five minutes left before the bell was supposed to ring. I really shouldn't have worried because it rang 10 minutes late.
In 9th grade there are a whole six students. When I got there they were still finishing their English exams, when they finished I passed out the readers and had them move to sit under the newly installed fan. On a side note, fans are all fine and dandy but do absolutely nothing when the power is out, which has been happening a lot lately. Anyways I gave them their readers then the director came to ask if I could take a five minute break because this lady needed to come in and take their measurements for new PE uniforms. Even with only six students there is no way that can only take five minutes. When she finally left we continued our reading until the bell rang late, again.
My 7th graders have the best English skills but very low attention spans and it is hard because the range in age from 13 to 18. They also were continually going in and out of the classroom because of fittings. But the lady was going to do it in front of the classroom until I asked her if it was possible to work in the hallway, so that was better I guess. One thing different about the classes here is that the students think once they finish their work they are able to leave, they aren't, right?
That about completes my school day, I got home at four.
Now on to the chaos that is Nicaragua. I will give you my top three stories from the week.
1. Last Monday night the windows got stolen out of my friend's car. Nothing from inside, just the windows.
2. On Friday at around noon, while my neighbors were at a stop light someone started to steal their back lights. Fortunately, the light turned green before they were able to cut the wires. They did however get the Toyota emblem.
3. Saturday morning probably takes the cake. As my roommate was in her car about to have the guards open the gate to let her out, suddenly Nicaraguan special police jumped the fence wearing masks and carrying guns. When they got in, they opened the gate to let in a truck with more police. They ran past her car and spread out to a few apartments to break into. We later found out they were looking for some Mexican drug-lords that were part of a group consisting of Mexicans, Guatemalans, and Nicaraguans that was busted in another town earlier in the week. Two people were arrested. I'm honestly not a big fan of drugs and wish they could have worked on sneaking in Mexican food.
Now on peppier note.
This past week has been pretty social. People came over for dinner a few nights and one night I actually hung out with non-roommates or family. Friday night I saw Letra y Musica and I really liked it. One of the previews before it was for She's the Man which came out in over a year ago and another for The Prince and Me which came out in 2004. On Saturday night I saw The Pursuit of Happyness, on DVD because it still isn't in the theaters here, I liked it but was pretty stressed out by his life being so terrible for so long. I also went to a baby shower and to a different church than normal and to one of the maid's houses in this really cool town about 30 minutes away by car. We went to pay her because she just reupholstered our couch and it looks really good. Plus she took the cushions back and fourth on the hour and a half bus ride she takes every morning to get here.
I had big plans of sending this out first thing this morning to prevent it from being any longer. But once again my idealistic plans got thrown out the window because the electricity was off from 8 to 2:30. But that is all I am going to write about my day.
How are you?
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Happy Easter
Today is Easter and I am writing my weekly update. Things have been pretty busy since I last wrote but much of my time was spent with people that speak English. When I actually talk to people then I don't feel the need to write as much. And the fact that I'm exhausted may have something to do with it as well. Right now all my roommates are gone because they have tomorrow off of school. I have class so will be home alone for probably the third night in my entire life and what better way to spend that time than comunicating with you.
Last Saturday morning I left for Costa Rica with eight other people. It is a fairly common belief that the trip would have been better if the group had topped off at six. But enough of that, I will let you fine people in on some things you could have learned about me if you were on the trip (which I probably would have loved).
1. As long as I have one person around me that I can relate to I can handle just about any situation. Fortunately on this trip I had one of those people. Unfortunately, that lowers my tolerance level with other less relateable people.
2. I have no concept of when people are upset at me. Usually I think that people are joking. But in my credit, once I find out I usually feel really bad.
3. The whole hand gas on ATVs is completely beyond me and also at times my sense of direction totally flees. But sometimes it is good for my pride when these flaws are openly displayed, especially when I'm starting to feel pretty good about myself being less annoying than certain traveling companions.
4. This really shouldn't be a numbered point but I figured I should stick with the theme. Last Sunday in Costa Rica we went to church, it was a treat because not only is Tica Spanish easier to understand but this kid translated for us. One of the things that the pastor talked about was how vultures they'll be flying around wherever and it will be beautiful but they are just looking for death. I should be the other way, looking for the good not the bad, the whole Philippians 4:8 thing. This is really difficult and takes constant training. And quite frankly conversations revolving around the faults of others can be amusing.
5. I have no idea how reading these e-mails of mine effects your perspective of me but I guess it is too late to worry about things like that.
6. One of these e-mails I should list all the things I did while in the process of writing (I've had a very short attention span lately).
7. Peace out yo.
Last Saturday morning I left for Costa Rica with eight other people. It is a fairly common belief that the trip would have been better if the group had topped off at six. But enough of that, I will let you fine people in on some things you could have learned about me if you were on the trip (which I probably would have loved).
1. As long as I have one person around me that I can relate to I can handle just about any situation. Fortunately on this trip I had one of those people. Unfortunately, that lowers my tolerance level with other less relateable people.
2. I have no concept of when people are upset at me. Usually I think that people are joking. But in my credit, once I find out I usually feel really bad.
3. The whole hand gas on ATVs is completely beyond me and also at times my sense of direction totally flees. But sometimes it is good for my pride when these flaws are openly displayed, especially when I'm starting to feel pretty good about myself being less annoying than certain traveling companions.
4. This really shouldn't be a numbered point but I figured I should stick with the theme. Last Sunday in Costa Rica we went to church, it was a treat because not only is Tica Spanish easier to understand but this kid translated for us. One of the things that the pastor talked about was how vultures they'll be flying around wherever and it will be beautiful but they are just looking for death. I should be the other way, looking for the good not the bad, the whole Philippians 4:8 thing. This is really difficult and takes constant training. And quite frankly conversations revolving around the faults of others can be amusing.
5. I have no idea how reading these e-mails of mine effects your perspective of me but I guess it is too late to worry about things like that.
6. One of these e-mails I should list all the things I did while in the process of writing (I've had a very short attention span lately).
7. Peace out yo.
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