this weeks news

I now have a skylight in my former bat-cave of a bedroom which formerly had no natural light entering (except for whatever crept through the cracks in the walls/ceiling/floor). My host brother (who lives in San Jose) came over and cut a big hole in the ceiling this past weekend. It was quite an event and as expect all my stuff is covered in saw dust/chips. But now there is light which is nice.

Almost done with tests and exams for this trimester. Grading soon! Some people will do outstanding and others... just don't come to class. It's a mixed bag. So hard to motivate when their other teacher (i.e. the director) doesn't exactly teach. She definitely talks the talk to her students that they should come to class and stuff but doesn't exactly walk the walk when it comes to her own effort. Kids know how to read between the lines by the time they get to 4th grade.

It's almost the end of the 2nd trimester?!?! When did that happen? ::mild panic sets in::

I'm going on a trip with the MAG-FAO youth group this weekend. Not sure where or how or who exactly but I'm gonna just put myself out there and hope it's fun. It'll definitely put my Spanish to the test.

I had to tell one of my (two) first graders yesterday to stop eating his eraser during the test. Repeatedly. I don't know if its kids in general or just these kids but a lot of them seem to have weird oral fixations like that. They're always chewing on their notebooks or their pencil bags or something. No wonder EVERYONE is sick. The funniest part though is that eraser in Spanish is "borrador" so when I told him I actually ended up making this awesome rhyme (No come su borrador, mi amor, por favor) that made us all laugh.

When you can make a joke in a foreign language you've definitely advanced to the next level. What level that is, I don't know. I'm attempting to read "Twilight" in Spanish. So far, do-able but challenging. I definitely don't get a lot of the words but I'm following the gist so far. We'll see how far I get. The school cook lent me her book but she'll probably want it back before she goes grey so I might not get to finish it.