Crappy day yesterday

Well, yesterday was a pretty crappy day with regards to teaching. I typically have problems with my first class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The class in the morning and has four students all around 20 or so. One student always manages to look bored and pass work off onto another student to do when they are doing pairwork. He's pretty sharp, but definitely kind of annoying. Anyway, I tried to do a pronunciation activity to work on the pronunciation for the simple past. What a disaster. None of them could really do it, and one of them even told me "Teacher, this is boring!" What a start to the morning.... I'll take some responsibility for that failure though because of poor presentation on my part to the students. They can't do what they don't understand, and what they don't understand is sure to be boring. Sounds like my engineering classes.... Anyway, to finish off the day I taught my students the second conditional and tried to have them use it in an activity. Sad to say, none of them used the target language. They got close, but I didn't hear a single correct sentence. What's frustrating is that these students have been reviewing this material for the last 2 classes! Yeesh! However, they were happily using vocabulary words I had taught them for a reading text. Too bad none of those words are going to be on the exam. Sigh.... Start over and back to basics. This weekend should be fun because it's a holiday weekend to celebrate the Annexation of Guanacaste, a province here. I'm planning on heading out there with some other teachers, so hopefully a little time in the sun should heal any bruised egos.

Week 3

Well, it´s been a nice relaxing weekend so far. I start teaching the children´s classes this week. They are going to be around the ages of 9-11. It should be an interesting 6 months with them. I have to admit I´m not really looking forward to teaching them. I don´t think I possess that charisma with children.
I spent the whole day yesterday wandering around San Pedro with another teacher, Lola. We saw The Fantastic Four, tried to take some dance classes at a studio called Merecumbé, and wandered around the the San Pedro Mall. After that we had some dinner at a place called Rio which is near the Instituto. I spent way too much money in one day for my little budget. Sigh.... Anyway, as I was riding home in a taxi I saw some interesting city sites. From San Pedro, where I work, I usually take a taxi through what is known as Barrio Mexico. However, on Saturdays there are lots of transvestites/prostitutes that roam the streets. Definitely an interesting sight for my innocent eyes. It also brought to light the seedier parts of San Jose.
Anyway, today I went to church and the homily really hit home. I love the priest at this church - Ernesto Ibarra. He always says things that really matter and that one can relate to in everyday life. Church is interesting here. There aren´t any books stashed in the pews to follow along with. This makes it pretty difficult when you don´t know any of the prayers in Spanish. However, you can buy little pamphlets for 20 colones and at least read the main readings. I try to say the readings along with the person reading them to practice my Spanish. It must look pretty funny to an observer to see this little Asian girl frantically mumbling along with the reader.
As for the homily, Father talked about how capitalism and this idea of always being forced to compete. This competitive atmosphere demands more and more of someone and forces them to become perfectionists to survive. However, when you bring this attitude into the family and the home it doesn´t work because we are humans and beautifully imperfect. We can´t force our families to be something they aren´t and demand that they perform as if they were in a factory, or in my case a warehouse. We have to cultivate patience and wisdom in our lives and let people be what they are. This is a hard thing to do when you live in a culture that celebrates competition, aggresiveness, and materialism. You want "the best" for your brothers, sisters, children, etc. but ultimately you can´t force them into your idea of perfection. It really moved me and made me realize what a terrible place McMaster-Carr was - at least for me. It brought out all my bad qualities and multiplied them by 100. However, the fact that these qualities came to the surface is a good thing because you realize what makes you tick, what pisses you off, and what will make you a better person. Experience is a tough, but wise teacher. Enough blathering on....more to come later!

Middle of week 2

Well... it's the middle of week of two here, and I'm starting to get into a groove. I love teaching my night classes, but my daytime class looks like they're going to fall asleep - even with a good looking teacher talking to them. Anyway, I tested into an advanced Spanish class and will probably be studying for a qualification exam in May. It's pretty exciting because I'm slowly getting to my goal of being bilingual. It's a slow process, but one I'm willing to spend my time on. I'm also planning on taking some dance classes here, but haven't had the chance to check them out. Perhaps this weekend... If my connection weren't so slow, I'd probably try to upload some pictures, but alas I don't wan't to mess with it. More later...

Life as a new teacher

Well, I´ve taught my first week of classes, and am still alive and well. My first class was to a group of intermediate level students. Two of the students thought they were far too advanced for the class, and complained immediately at the break. What a first day! I also thought I was going to run out of stuff to do, and had to run around during break looking for an activity. What a scare! I like it so far though, and am plugging right along. My Spanish is improving slowly, but starts to break down when I try to talk faster. I guess my mouth muscles haven´t had time to adjust themselves. I´m also at the stage where half my thoughts are in English and half are in Spanish. Sigh... I´m really inspired to improve though because I met a Costa Rican native two night ago that had absolutely perfect English, British accent and all! He learned it all at the British Institute here. In fact, I thought he was from the UK!













I went to a feria today, which is an open air market that sells all kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables. They had lychees, papaya, pineapple, oranges, lemons, plantains, and all kinds of other fruit that I don´t know the English word for. Fantastic stuff! It was really hot though. Anyway, I´m sitting at home trying to think of stuff for next week before I go out tonight. More to come later!

First day of school

well, I just started my day of working for the British Institute. It's funny, but it's just like starting your first day of school. The night before you lie awake in bed with butterflies in your stomach thinking of the next morning, wondering what you'll wear, what friends you'll make, and whether you'll be able to handle the work. I guess some things never change.
Tomorrow classes start officially. I should be getting my schedule sometime today. I'm expecting the first 6 months to be a little rough, but I think I'll be okay. I'll keep you posted....

Estoy aqui!

Well, I´m here in Costa Rica at last. It´s quite an exhilarating feeling to finally be here. I´m starting my classes on Wednesday. I must say that I´m a bit nervous about it all, but I´m looking forward to it. My Spanish skills are lacking, but I´m getting by. Hopefully, in three or four months they will have improved by then. I just got back from Playa Cahuita yesterday. It was quite an adventure! Playa Cahuita is on the Caribbean coast near south of the city Limon. This area of Costa Rica is primarily black. I think they might have come here from Jamaica. I´ll have to do a little more research on that topic. Anyway, the beach was lovely. I went with another English teacher, and we stayed at fantastic place called Spencer´s Seaside Lodge. The place is right on the beach complete with hammocks. Reuben, the guy in charge of everything, was wonderful. He will help you out with anything you need. Anyway, after we arrived we took a tour through the Playa Cahuita National Forest. This forest was right alongside the beach. You can see monkeys literally climbing along the trees. I wanted to see some sloths, but I guess they were too lazy to show themselves. There were even some howler monkeys that you could hear through all the vegetation. They sounded like a group of warthogs that I thought were going to come running through the trees. What a scare!

The following day we took a rainforest tour with one of the indigenous people of the region. The tour started on an iguana farm near the town of BriBrí. Iguanas are considered a delicacy on the Caribbean coast and have all but vanished from the beaches due to the poaching. At one time, you could literally see them from the coconut trees. Supposedly this is still the case on the Pacific side of the country. After the iguana farm we headed into the forest and saw all kinds of amazing things. There were poison dart frogs, agupti (a type of rodent), enormous centipedes, leaf cutter ants, blind ants, walking trees, and so much more. I have never been in a place that felt so primitive and wild. You will definitely not find that in Clear Lake, TX. Montana might come close though. After that we stopped off for a bit in Puerto Viejo which is a little more developed and has more touristy stuff. I wanted to take a bike ride from there to Manzanillo, but was not able to. Perhaps another time.... I´ll be finishing this up since it´s getting pretty long.