99 degrees and counting

It seems as if I have less and less to say recently but I end up writing the same amount. So I fully do not blame you if you can't put up with reading my ramblings.

• I am starting to write this at 12:30 on Friday afternoon. In the past 30 hours the electricity has been out for 15 hours, including right now.
• I took a taxi home today. Last time I took one Matthew gave me money and made one of the other teachers not only help me get it but also had her ride home with me. Today two guys from my work walked me to the street. While one of them told the taxi driver where to take me and paid him the other wrote down the license number.
• My school is in a canyon and to get to the main road you have to go up a hill, so me and my buddies (one of whom Cristina is pretty sure is the ring leader of all the people that sniff glue in one of the most dangerous areas in the country) were walking up to the road through the neighborhood where most of my students live and I still got this group of men yelling at me informing me of my white beauty and professing their undying love. I thought this only happens when you are by yourself or with a group a girls but no I guess it happens when you are walking with Nica men too. I then took the opportunity to reinforce to Julio that I don't go to clubs. The walk was much more eventful than the taxi ride.
• Another topic I considered addressing that someone somewhere might find interesting is the lack of good cereals here. The other day I had a dream in which I was at Costco and bought a box of Frosted Mini Wheats and it came with a free box of Grape Nuts “Now easier than ever to eat!” It was a pretty detailed dream.
• Last Saturday night I went to the movies and saw the new Spiderman. We went to the VIP theater which costs $6 instead of the regular $3. I'm a fairly cheap person and wasn't going to go but I got a sponsor. In the VIP theater you can order food to be brought to your leather recliner. I brought my own apple and trail mix instead of ordering Sushi but fully enjoyed the comfort of the chairs.
• On Sunday we went to fancy lunch. It was a expensive but I skipped my next to meals so it averaged out not too bad, plus my mom paid. It was definitely worth it because now I can tell people I ate lunch at The Club.
• Between when I started writing this and now I went to the mall and bought new shoes for $12.
• The electricity turned back on at 2:30, seven hours after it went out today.
  Love, Joy
  PS. I guess if you are expecting a surprise it is that I am coming home on Thursday for the weekend. This isn't a super surprise because chances are if I am going to see you, you already know that I'm coming. But I am very excited and if you live near by I would love to see you but I think I'll be on house arrest of sorts so traveling will be cut to a minimum.

Re: I love you

If you're bored I have a suggestion. You should write me an e-mail. You don't even have to respond to anything you have (or haven't) read in my posts it can be completely one sided about your life. Because maybe sometimes you think about it and then don't, this time you should. I'll even make it more exciting, for every 100 responses I'll do something really cool (I don't know what, I'm open for suggestions).

Last weekend I went to a woman's retreat for Christians in Nicaragua that speak English. It was at at a swanky hotel on the beach with the biggest swimming pool in Central America. It was a little pricey but we had high-pressured hot showers . I think it got rid of all the grime that had been building on me for the past three months. Maybe that was too much information. I'm really glad I went for other more spiritual reasons too.

My mom is here for a week.

A few weeks ago at this teacher meeting 100% attendance awards were given. I didn't get one. I didn't go to school on Thursday last week, Monday,Tuesday or Thursday this week. But now I'm not planning on missing any at least until the middle of May. Matthew just sent me an e-mail thanking me for my commitment.

There is a shirt being sold at a department store here. It is very cute but $25. They only have one left and it has been in the store by itself for at least a month but they still haven't put it on sale. Injustices like that don't happen in the states.

I don't like it when my knees are exposed and I am sitting in the back seat of a car and they rub against the seat in front of me. I thought that was a fairly standard annoyance but I said it the other day and nobody understood. Things/people touching me in general I just don't know how to deal with.

On Tuesday we went to this town Granada and to it's famous "Kathy's Waffle House," it was super good. I had the pecan waffle, oh man.

I got a new job tutoring, already. I could start today but since la mama esta aqui I decided to wait until next Tuesday. I'll be tutoring in math again. Good thing I retook Calculus, oh maybe that was to get off of academic probation.

Yesterday at school I was working with my second graders on the phrase "How are you?" and the various responses. So we had gone over them and I had drawn some really high quality pictures on the board and was going around the room asking my students what the words meant in Spanish. I asked this kid Dominic what Hungry was in Spanish and he answered "comida(food)," so I said, "what about food?" and he said, "pescado(fish)?...um...arroz con pollo(chicken and rice)?..." and he kept going and I was just standing in front of the class laughing because he was so confused.

Another interesting thing happened yesterday at my school. At 1:30 in the afternoon, about 2 hours after i left, 20 armed gunmen came to rob us. The went into the office and took our 2 laptop computers, $600 cash, and the cell phones of the people that were working. But today attendance wasn't down at all and everyone seemed fine, I wouldn't have been fine if I was there. Nicaraguans aren't considered a violent people, they didn't hurt anyone and and everyone knows who did it because the school is in such a small barrio. It is sad that people think they should go rob the poor school that most likely one of their relatives goes to. And it is lame that the police don't actively work at stopping things like this when last week I got pulled over for turning left.

My mom took us grocery shopping today and I got pickles and Gatorade and lots of other exciting treats.

I learned at school that May 13th is Saint Fatima Day or something like that so the rainy season is supposed to start, but on the other hand my roommate said her leg was hurting and she thought that was a sign of rain. I think I'll place my bets with Rachel's leg.

OK brief recap, fill me in on your life or just tell me something and if I get enough responses there will be a big surprise.