"the rest of your day is in Spanish"

A couple days ago I was leaving work and one of my favorite co-workers stopped and said, "So...the rest of your day is in Spanish."  I thought this was funny since I am the Spanish teacher here... the fact is that almost all of my day is in Spanish.  It's been interesting to be the Spanish teacher here.  The fact is that teaching turns you into a pretty good student.  I hope my students are also learning. 

The school has a pretty tight nit community.  The fact is that most of the people that work here have some other type of connection to each other or the school (they have a child who is a student or they go to the Church where the school is located).  This makes it much harder to enter into the community.  I also am a teacher who goes in and out of classrooms so, I'm not quite as close to any particular group of students or to a team of teachers.  My Spanish team is kind of random.  To be honest, sometimes I feel like I am the department psychologist.  I do a lot of listening to other people's complaints.  

Anyway, I have decided that I want to do some more writing.  I'm going to try to write something everyday in the month of October either on this blog or on the Contrapunto blog in Spanish.  I think that the only way to get into the habit of writing more is forcing yourself to do it.

two months!

Today is our second month-aversary... and it's a Friday!  Yay!!  When I look back on the past couple of months SO much has happened it seems almost unbelievable that it's only been two months.  We've moved three times, I started a new job, got a new car, had the car break down, fixed the car, etc. etc.  (The car is working well now!)

School is going well.  This week I've been feeling kind of guilty as a teacher.  My students didn't do super well on a quiz but, as they were taking it and not doing well, I realized that it was probably my fault that they weren't doing well.  I hadn't explained the material as well as I should have.  Anyway, that's how it goes.  I am going to do better and better as a teacher. 

I'm sorry for the absence of pictures (my computer isn't doing well either... ah life!!), I'll do my best to get some here soon.

I love the rain.

So, last week was a bit crazy because our car wasn't working properly.  The radiator was overheating.  At one point, we were driving on the highway in pouring rain and the car decided to overheat so, we had to pull over to the side of the road and wait in the rain as cars and trucks drove by us.  It was pretty crazy.

You know?  I love the rain here in Panama.  The truth is that it's felt almost chilly in the evenings for the past week or so.  There's been a lot of rain and when you have a car, it's really nice.  It's the kind of rain that falls so hard that you can't see in front of you.  I love it when I'm at home and can snuggle in bed but...when you have to ride the bus here it's absolutely awful.  Most of the buses here have no air conditioning so, when it starts to rain the windows go up and the bus gets all steamy, hot, and smelly.  You can imagine...

This past weekend we didn't get to go see STOMP (it had sold out), so we went to eat some good food at the end of the Causway.  First we drank coffee (Ariel had coffee, I had tea) and read a while.  Then we went to eat lunch (the restaurant we were going to go to was closed because of the Jewish holiday.)   The location was beautiful, there was a fantastic breeze and we sat where there was a view of the city and the canal.  (We could have asked for a bit more regarding the food but, it's ok.)  Otherwise... it was just gorgeous.  It's nice to spend some time just enjoying being together in a lovely place.

That reminds me --this past weekend was a Jewish holiday and in Panama, half of the businesses close down for the weekend when it's a Jewish holiday.  It's crazy but, it's so interesting as well.  Ariel and I counted businesses, at least half of the shops and stores at the mall were closed.  Panama also closes down on Muslim holidays and Christian holidays.   Panama is such an interesting place.

the kitchen counter

Well, our kitchen isn't done yet.  We have a kitchen counter but, we don't have a sink.  So, we use the pila in the back to do the dishes and get water.  It's kind of an inconvenient arrangement but, we've made it work for the past couple of weeks.  I'll be doing a LOT more cooking once we have the kitchen all fixed up again.  I miss cooking.

Our car --we've named him Sucio-- has been having a bit of a fever for the past three or four days.  The doctor has been trying to fix him up but, it seems that once we fix one thing something else comes up.  If he doesn't have a fever he has the hiccups, etc.  Hopefully he will get fixed up soon.  I'm afraid that I might have to take public transportation to work on Monday...

I'm still waiting to get our dresser and bookshelf  It'll be an exciting day once we have them... you know how much I like to be organized.

rain on a Sunday afternoon

It's a rainy Sunday.  It's kind of nice to be able to start the day by getting up and jumping into the pool.  After we got to church, it started to rain, and rain, and rain.  I love this type of rain, real rain as I used to call it.  It makes you want to go to bed and sleep.  The past week we've had some fantastic weather.  It's actually been kind of chilly at night.  So much so that Ariel and I had to get out an extra light blanket to sleep with.  It was glorious!

Anyway, we're feeling a bit more organized.  As most of you know the two things that take up most of my space are books and the kitchen which means that my life is still a bit unsettled because we have to find another bookshelf (or two) and we're waiting for our kitchen countertop and sink to be relpaced.  Which is pretty inconvenient for someone like me who enjoys cooking!

Every day things are more organized and that makes me feel pretty happy, at work and at home.  I don't have anything to complain about really... life is good and I feel like taking a nap.