La Vida Loca

This week happened so fast I have no idea where it went. I started the week very excited that we only had half days (6 periods instead of 9) because of end of trimester exams. I quickly learned that that doesn’t make the week any less crazier during exams. A couple of the days this week I still taught all six periods, had a few meetings in the afternoons and then came home to hours of grading. Someone asked me this week how it feels to be on the other side of the exams, but I must say I felt just as nervous (if not more nervous) than my students. I wanted to see so badly that my students had understood what I had taught trying to remind myself that there was not much I could do about the students who chose not to study for exams or complete the homework assignments. I was a little discouraged that several of my kids didn't pass the English exams on Tuesday, but I was hopeful that the Spelling and Phonics exams would be better. When I got home from school yesterday I had a lovely surprise from our cat Luna. While Leslie and I were at school she knocked my two stacks of exams off the kitchen table onto the floor where she proceeded to spill her bowl of water on some of them and rip some of them apart. Leslie did her best to clean up the damage before I got home but needless to say I was not super happy. Thankfully only two were badly damaged. I just hope my students believe me when I say my cat destroyed their exams.

Anyway, all 107 of my exams are graded now and I feel a little more assured that most of them did indeed understand what I was talking about these last 5 weeks. Leslie and I have been having “grading parties” almost every night this week which usually include snacks, a movie like Pride and Prejudice, and mounds of exams and homework assignments. We are such wild partiers. Last night we even made buttermilk pancakes and scrambled eggs for dinner which were totally delicious.

After being up late finishing grading the 70 exams I gave yesterday it felt so nice to sleep in until 7:30 this morning. On the “to do” list this weekend, besides the rest of my grading and lesson plans I need to write, I’m hoping to spend some time lounging by the pool, read a book for fun, go running, meet up with some friends to do some hiking maybe at one of the volcanoes, cook an actual dinner, and enjoy a couple solid nights of sleep.

30 Interesting things I’ve learned about or experienced in Costa Rica (so far)

1.

When they say it rains a lot during rainy season they mean it. Not all day or necessarily every day, but SUPER hard.

2. Umbrellas are not just nice to have; they are a necessity during rainy season.

3. Wearing socks and shoes when it is raining is a bad idea.

4. I’m not quite accustomed to thunder that shakes the house.

5. Doing laundry takes almost all day when each piece of clothing has to be hung on the line individually.

6. Our neighbor’s dog likes to steal our clothes off the clothes line.

7. Almost all food has to be stored in air tight containers because it is so humid here.

8. My hair takes 5 to 8 hours to dry.

9. I’ve given up on straightening my hair for 1) because when I step outside the moisture in the air makes my hair go frizzy again and 2) because I don’t care so much.

10. Bug bites are becoming a normal part of life and I’m convinced that bug repellent does almost nothing.

11. I’m making friends with the termites in my closet and getting used to the piles of dust they leave on my shelves.

12. It has become routine to toss toilet paper in the trash instead of flushing it.

13. Pretty sure my bathroom has mold growing in multiple places.

14. No one in CR has carpet because it would get moldy and gross within a matter of weeks.

15. Eggs are generally not refrigerated.

16. Spices are sold in little plastic bags.

17. Canned soup is almost impossible to find. Soups come as a powdery mix in a bag.

18. Ketchup and mayonnaise are served mixed together on French fries.

19. Rice and beans really are served at pretty much every meal.

20. People are up and about way earlier in the morning than most people in the U.S. which makes sense because they are making good use of their daylight hours.

21. When people see drivers in the U.S. swerve around the road they assume they are drunk. Here, when you see someone drive straight you assume they are drunk or foreigners because you have to swerve to avoid pot holes that could wreck your car. (pot holes seems like way to tame a word to describe these holes)

22. People have very good oral hygiene here. All the teachers and some of the students go to the bathroom after every meal or snack to brush their teeth.

23. Most houses have bars on all the windows and barred screen doors and 2-4 separate locks on the doors.

24. None of the windows or doors seal because nothing is heated or air conditioned.

25. Screens are more for keeping out birds and huge butterflies than bugs and spiders. (most of the screens are bent or the windows are missing screens all together.

26. You can buy shark meat at the local grocery store.

27. Taxi drivers are very particular about how you close their car doors. (If you close it too hard they yell at you)

28. The beaches here are wonderful but the flies, sand flees, and mosquitoes are super annoying.

29. Everyone greets everyone else with a kiss on the cheek. I’m still getting used to meeting people and getting kisses from guys I don’t know. (also learned you always lean to your left side or you will hit heads)

30. The fun thing to do on Sunday afternoons is to go down to the airport and watch planes land and take off.

Livin "La Pura Vida"

So I’m not quite making this weekly blog update happen, but at least I’m updating it. I have been in CR for a month and 3 days now. I’m in my 4^th week of teaching and next week we have trimester exams because we are finishing the end of the 2^nd trimester. My days at school go by so fast it’s hard to believe. The kids continue to amaze me (sometimes in good ways and sometimes not). I am learning that the “classroom culture” is much more talkative here than in the states so it is taking a lot of effort to work with the kids to help them remember to raise their hands before talking and that it is not ok to have a conversation with your friend while the teacher is giving instructions for an assignment. Although they may not show it every day I can tell that the kids are grateful to have me here. One student told me last week that he didn’t like their last teacher because she told them she didn’t really care about being there. And today a fellow teacher told me that her daughter (who is in one of my 3^rd grade classes) came home yesterday and told her (in Spanish) “Teacher Lynne is the perfect teacher. She is nice and smiles a lot and does fun activities with us and she is really good at English.” Way to make my day! J Another highlight of today was watching my 5^th graders (who are my toughest groups to manage) get so excited about playing charades with this unit’s vocabulary. They got super into it and by the end we were all cracking up at the girls wrapping themselves in toilet paper to demonstrate a mummy and the boys rolling up their pants and tying their jackets around their waists to act out the type of skirts worn by Egyptian men. So entertaining!

To catch you up a little on the last week and a half or so my week at school was pretty normal last week, very busy and kinda stressful but on Wednesday Leslie and I started scheming about taking a trip to the Caribbean side of CR to an area called Tortuguero. I was first presented the idea by my friends Allie and Kristen who are friends from Whitworth who are down here student teaching. They arrived almost two weeks ago and wanted to do a little traveling before they started school. At first I didn’t think I’d be able to make it work because I had 2 sets of quizzes and 4 sets of homework to grade along with writing my lesson plans. But, the more I thought about it the more I wanted to go. I rationalized that I needed to take advantage of the long weekend (we had Monday off for mother’s day). So off we went to Tortuguero, me, Leslie, Kristin, Allie, their roommate Ana Lena and two of her friends (all from Germany), then another girl that Leslie and I met a few weeks ago.

We left our house a little before 5AM on Saturday morning and 10 hours later (after 1 taxi, 3 busses, and 1 boat ride) we arrived in Tortuguero. This little touristy town only has access by boat and the “main drag” of the town is a pathway about the size of a large sidewalk. So we found the place where we had arranged to stay. For $10 a night you can imagine that it was a little rustic, but it was a place to crash and it worked fine. The coolest thing about it was that it was literally right on the beach. Saturday morning Leslie and I got up early to see the sunrise over the ocean. It wasn’t super colorful, but with the clouds the light made pretty patterns across the sky and beautiful reflections on the water. We ran along the beach for a while finding pretty sand dollars and trails in the sand from turtles crawling up to lay their eggs. By about 7 we went back to the room and changed into our swim suits and grabbed the banana bread we brought. We enjoyed a nice breakfast on the beach followed by a swim in the ocean. We spent most of the morning in and out of the water because it got super hot. In the afternoon it cooled off a little and while Leslie and the German girls explored the national park in a large canoe, Kristen, Allie, Sarah and I explored the town, chatted with some of the locals over lemonade and spent some more time at the beach. After dinner that evening we got dressed in dark clothes and met with our guide for a “turtle tour” in which we were taken by boat to a different area of the beach and spent a few hours watching turtles crawl up from the ocean and laying their eggs. It was super cool! Not only was it cool to see those huge turtles up close but to watch them lay hundreds of eggs! Incredible!

The trip home went much quicker and although I didn’t really want to have to get up early again it was nice to get back home in the early afternoon and have time to finish lesson plans and do a bit of laundry. Thus ends my extremely long post about my adventures during the last week or so. Hopefully I didn’t bore you to death.

3 Weeks Down

This last week was super crazy because I had to write trimester exams for each of my classes which include an excel spreadsheet that shows how many points I am giving to each section of material I taught. It is very complicated and detailed and the hardest thing about it was that I had only taught one week of material when I was asked to write the exams. Needless to say I spent every night this week scrambling to get those done along with the quizzes gave in 4 of my classes on Friday. I felt like a free woman this weekend because I only had 15 lesson plans to write and 72 quizzes to grade.

On Friday evening I got to go out with some friends. We went to dinner and then to a club for a concert. Of the 8 of us there we represented 7 different states. Half of us were teachers and the other half weren’t but it was interesting to see how such a random group of people could find lots in common just because we are all in the same kind of situation in life. Even if it is very unlikely we would have been friends if we met in the states we automatically have lots in common because we’re all here. I’m not sure that really makes sense but oh well. Like I said, I’m new at this whole blogging thing.

Saturday I slept in until 7:30 then got up and did laundry, ate breakfast, did dishes, and read my Bible. My roommate and her sister took off to go on a tour of a coffee plantation but I stayed here to get some work done. (at least that’s what I thought) I got a call from my one American coworker down in the primary building. She said that she and her roommates were coming over to play tennis here and then go swimming. I decided against the tennis and went for a run instead then watch them play for a little bit. It got hot pretty fast and so soon we were changing into our swim suits and heading to the pool. We swam and lounged around the pool for a couple hours then enjoyed some ice tea. I finally started on my work at around 2. We headed off to church last night like normal but last night was great because I got to see two friends from Whitworth who just arrived on Thursday to begin their student teaching next week. Their host family goes to that church so it looks like I’ll at least be getting to see them every week. I’m hoping to make plans to hang out with them sometime this week and show them some of my favorite places around here.

Well, I hear the thunder rolling in now. It looks like our beautiful 85 degree day is about to get thoroughly wet.