The Secret Admirer and Best Paths

I have the most grandisimo cappuccino in the world right now and it is sooo delicious.  I love sitting at this place in the mall, it's sheltered but on one side it's completely open with fountains, beautiful plants, and the mountains (hey, that rhymes).  And this little coffee place is RIGHT here, it's perfect :) Today was another good day at school - my kids were so well-behaved!  I don't know if it was just because we only had a few classes together today or what, maybe it was my mood?  Maybe it's because I have a little system down for how to teach them, or maybe I am beginning to accept the fact that they will always have a lot of questions no matter how well I explain something, especially because they always want to double check that their answers are right.  Or maybe we're all just getting used to how we all work together, I don't know, but I will not complain.  

Katherine (Flor's niece) and I have started to go on a walk every morning at 5:30 before everything else we have to do during the day.  It's amazing how much better the day feels after this.  She is such a sweetheart too, and reminds me a lot of Flor with all of her wisdom and optimistic views.  Speaking of Flor, I think I can almost count on having a new little surprise in my room every day - one day it was a new bathroom rug, one day it was a coin purse and a Costa Rican bag, another day it was some more pillows, once it was a lamp, I even came home to a tv in my room, and today it was a desk!  It makes me laugh because it's not like I reallyyy need any of these things, but she just always thinks of something else.  She's wonderful, and at the same time, she makes me miss my real mom.

I realized that I have some favorite faculty members at my school.  You're not supposed to have a favorite student, but that's okay, because I have about 20 favorite students, the other ones I just don't know as well yet.  So as far as faculty members, my cooperating teacher is wonderful, but besides her I absolutely love the cleaning lady! I think her name is Hydu? She's so funny, only speaks in Spanish, but she calls me "the girl with green eyes" even though they're blue.  She's always striking up a little conversation with me or giving me a silly look because she knows I'll laugh.  There's also another teacher assistant about my age and she is just awesome.  

Then there are two other teachers who sometimes seem kind of intimidating, but they're actually really laid back people who are almost always laughing.  Today I was talking to them, when one of them goes, "does she know about the secret admirer?" The other one said, "Oh I don't think she does.."  So they reminded me about how on Monday the school announced the winners of a poetry contest, one from each grade.  The winners read their poems to the school, and it was adorable when my fourth and fifth grade student winners read theirs.  The fifth grade boy had written a love poem and even though it was in Spanish, I could tell it was very lovey dovey.  Everyone was giggling and clapped so much at the end, girls even screamed for him.  I was sitting there looking around wondering, who could this lucky little girl be who he wrote the poem for?  Is it one of my students, how cute! So anyway, they said, "well, you know that love poem that J.P. wrote?... It was about you!" HAHAHAHA HOW embarrassing!! The whole day I couldn't stop myself from randomly laughing out loud, and it didn't help that I accidentally ran right into the poor kid at the end of the day.  Wow, teaching tomorrow will be interesting but I think I can just pretend like I don't know.  

Anyway, an overall very good day - It's been a month teaching at this school and I already have about a million and two stories about my students - and I'm already very attached to them.  One of the fourth graders, Matias, is just hilarious and adorable.  He was telling me about how he has his own office at his mom's work where she's a psychiatrist. Then he even said, "Come to my office on umm on Monday, yes, that's a good day, I can give you a gratis, I mean free, a free consultation".  So my kids really do think I'm crazy.  They also think I'm a good soccer player, haha, this is because they were getting ready for recess and one of the kids got his soccer ball out and kicked it across the room.  I was upset that he would do this, and out of instinct I stopped the ball with my foot (wearing my cute lacy flats..) and did a pass to myself that I learned awhile back when I played.  Their eyes widened and their jaws dropped. Okay, it wasn't even that cool or anything, but they weren't expecting it and were for some reason really impressed.  "Teacher, you play futbol??" haha, we'll let them think I'm a star "futbol" player. 

 

Even though the school doesn't have a lot of classroom materials, I figured out that most of their money goes into all of their text books and work books, which are all really nice.  I love the reading books, and I think my cooperating teacher realized this because, well I'm always looking through them... so she's been having me teaching reading lately. YAY :) This is a poem from the book that I like and can relate to:

The Best Paths

The best paths

are whispers

in the grass

a bent twig

a token, a hint

easily missed

The best paths

hide themselves

until the right

someone

comes along

The best paths

lead you

to where

you didn't know

you wanted to go

Las Detalles - The Details:

*A box of chocolates "just because" from a new friend

*Coming home to a note and a flower in my room from my tica mom

*Getting a phone call from my parents & best friend

*A hug and smile from my students when they see me

*Hot Costa Rican coffee after school

All little things, little details that make life beautiful <3

Tomorrow two of the other student teachers here are leaving, which is bitter sweet... bitter because they're the people I've been talking to and hanging out with the most, but sweet because I'm so happy to have had the chance to meet these girls.  They are both about six years older than me and very sweet.  Jess and I hung out a lot because she lived close, so we would have coffee with Flor, have Latino dance lessons, or go on little get-aways within Costa Rica together.  Rachel was teaching at the same school with me so we talked a lot there and shared all of our classroom/teaching stories.  They both gave me some teaching materials and some books that they don't want to take back with them, which I am overwhelmingly gracious for!  

One of the books was from Jess, and it's one of the best children's books ever: The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.  All of these little mishaps through out this kid's day make him so upset and grumpy that he keeps wishing he was in Australia. It's adorable.  Some days when I'm teaching here I feel a little like this poor kid - I think, poor me because I just want to be able to teach how I'm used to, but it's not the way these kids learn.  

Today was a pretty good day, though.  I only taught one lesson and it was extra difficult to keep the kids on task because they were constantly taking turns leaving the room to try on their outfits for their talent show this weekend (I secretly can't wait for this talent show to just be over with already!).  The trick to it is keeping a positive attitude, being firm with out of control students, and giving extra attention to the well-behaving students.  It's such a challenge for my students to be motivated reading in their expensive, beautiful and colorful reading books - why? because it's in English. So I stop every now and then and try to explain what's going on in very simple terms and lots of actions.  I think they think I'm a little crazy.

As mean as I feel like I'm being to them, especially when I give them pages to work on in their workbooks (yes, written in English) during class, I keep reminding myself: this is how they're used to learning... and at least I smile at my students and still try to make learning fun for them, which is more than I personally think some of the other teachers can say.  I don't want to be friends with my students, and it's not the end of the world if they don't like me for disciplining them, but I do want them to know I care about them.  At the end of the day, students aren't going over in their heads everything they learned at school, instead, they're thinking of all the things that made them happy through out the day - and years later they aren't going to necessarily remember everything they learned in fourth or fifth grade, but hopefully they will have good memories with me as their teacher.    

Other things I've been up to lately: I went to a dance club where there was a live Latino band; I sometimes get to have Latino dance classes in our living room because there is a guy who lives in my house who is a dance teacher!; go on weekend and even day trips to the beach (Jess and I went to playa hermosa a few weeks ago and last Sunday we went to playa herradura for the day); going to a really nice pool in Orosi where the water comes from the springs of a volcano; going to the ferria, it's a long street full of stands with all kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables sold really cheap; learning how to cook some delicious CR meals a la Flor, such as ceviche (YUM); going to a cool movie theatre where the movies are in English with Spanish subtitles and where you can drink things like beer or coffee or you can eat caramel corn; walking two and a half hours to the Basilica in Cartago for the remembrance of the African American angel "La Negrita"; lots of girls nights where we drink wine, dance, do our nails, and yesterday  Jess even gave me a little haircut; celebrating Flor's birthday about three times and mother's day...it was cute because all of the students' moms came to school for some fun activities and then they left school early; going on little trips to the capital, San Jose, to go to the Central Market (it's insane there with all the different things they sell) and going to my new favorite little coffee place here called Cafe Latino with new kinds of artwork displayed every week.

I'm excited because my dad is visiting me next week! How awesome that I get a chance to travel this country with him. Hmm, I wonder if he'll recognize me... for the first time since my birthday in March, I finally feel like I'm actually 22.  Partly because I feel like an actual teacher, partly because I'm pretty much on my own in a different country, and also partly because I've already learned a lot here about myself and the way I want to live.  I've taken a lot for granted back home, and being away from home, you realize things that are so incredibly important - detalles that are hard to miss, even though they were huge and right in front of your face all along.  

I know I'm already off on my biggest adventure yet, but I can't help but plan even more adventures.... except these will be with mi mejor amiga y hermana a corazon (my best friend and sister at heart), Sarah.  The details for this will be determined later but they have to do with backpacking in Europe and seeing what California is all about. 

Anyway, right now I need to figure out how to make this movie with my students about their role models - I dream big, what can I say?...