This post is dedicated to my grandpa who as I was told, checks my blog every night. Sorry I never post anything, Grampy!
I'm sick again. I have a cold. Nothing extreme, but I guess working in a school in a foreign country is slowly killing me.... At least during this illness, I can stand up and am able to walk so it could be worse.
We still don't have consistent running water. Let me tell you right now, people, like you, I previously took my seemingly neverending supply of running water for granted. When the water comes on now, I was my hands, brush my teeth, etc as quickly as possibly because in a matter of seconds it could be gone. Thankfully, I was able to shower today. Pouring cold bottles of water over each others' heads to wash our hair leaves something to be desired, and by that I mean, a hot shower.
Apparently May is the beginning of winter in Loja. I have noticed that it is getting a little cooler lately and raining a lot more than normal so that must be winter.... slightly cooler, not so sunny, and quite a bit more rainy than normal. Weirdly, I do miss cold weather, but even more weird is that at night when it's below 70 degrees, I shiver and have to put on a sweatshirt. Ay!
Things are okay here. I'm accustomed to being ill most of the time. However, I am pretty excited about going home in two months where I won't be sick all the time *knock on wood*.
Sorry I don't have anything exciting or super happy to report on, but working is the same as it always is.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
oy vey.
Let me tell you, being without running water, even for only 3 hours every night SUCKS. but at always, it could be worse.
I will probably be home before July 4th.
If you don´t have pictures and want to see pictures from my mini-vacation to Cuenca a couple weeks ago, click here.
Happy EARTH DAY!
I will probably be home before July 4th.
If you don´t have pictures and want to see pictures from my mini-vacation to Cuenca a couple weeks ago, click here.
Happy EARTH DAY!
Monday, April 19, 2010
joint pain, no sleep, hospitals, oh my.
The university hospital in Loja is pretty nice. I know that from my visit with an internal medicine doctor last friday. I was sore on Thursday, couldn´t fall asleep on Thursday night because my joints hurt, cried a lot, eventually woke up on Friday and from all of the pain I was practically unable to move at all. I got out of bed successfully on the fifth try, walked like a zombie to my bedroom door, yelled for my roommates help, went to the hospital, saw a doctor, had an xray of my hands done and blood drawn, was diagnosed with unspecified rheumatoid arthritis, received a prescription for non-FDA approved arthritis medicine, got home, and stayed in bed for a day and a half. I started feeling better on Saturday afternoon. I was able to put pressure on my wrists a little, could move enough to take a shower, and walk down the stairs without crying. Thankfully it´s only been getting better since then. Today, I feel almost back to normal. I still have pain in my ankles, wrists, elbows, knees, and fingers, but nothing like I have experienced in the past few days. I still have to go to the hospital and find out the results of the tests that were done, which I am nervous about. Even though I speak Spanish well, I am not fluent. Even when I was at the hospital on Friday I had a bit of trouble with all the directions I was given, probably because I was focused mostly on how much pain I was in, but still. Blood test results in Spanish? I probably wouldn´t understand them in English anyway. Really, I just want to hear that everything is fine and that maybe I was just really exhausted or something. We will see.
Seriously though, it is really frustrating how often I am ill here. It makes me want to just jump on a plane and fly home. I am grateful though that seeing a doctor, getting a prescription, an xray, and blood tests only cost me $70. At home without insurance, that would have been 8 times more surely.
Happy Monday!
Seriously though, it is really frustrating how often I am ill here. It makes me want to just jump on a plane and fly home. I am grateful though that seeing a doctor, getting a prescription, an xray, and blood tests only cost me $70. At home without insurance, that would have been 8 times more surely.
Happy Monday!
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
a work day in the life of
Beware: this is long.
How´s the job going you ask? Well, have a seat. I´ll tell you. Teaching is fun, up to a certain point. I think that point was today. Here´s what went down. I am still subbing at the local rich private school. The kids there, though horribly behaved, tried to bribe me today to stay and be their teacher. I told them they already have a teacher and one of them pulled $10 out of his pocket and begged me not to leave after this week. I told them frankly, they are too badly-behaved, would rather through halves of limes at each other or sleep than listen to me so I certainly don´t want to stay. Though seriously, I think I could handle it. The kids there all seem to like me even though they are terrible. It sounds like the are poorly behaved in every class regardless of the subject, where the teacher is from, or how long the teacher is going to be around. After 4 hours of obscenity and utter malarkey at Iberoamericano, I had a two hour break before I had to teach at my normal school. That´s when things really got out of hand. A 6 year old in my kids class asked me to go to the bathroom today and like any other time any small child asks to go to the bathroom, I told her she could. Besides, she is normally a good student, more advanced than all of the older kids in her class, and clings to me like I´m a direct relative. Well, 5 minutes later she arrive back to the class arm firmly held by the school inspector who proceeded to tell me that she saw this little girl running back to the school from a small market two blocks away. After that, she yelled at me and told me that no one is allowed to leave my classroom and that it would be my fault if something happened to one of them while crossing the street. First of all, how was I supposed to know this little girl was going to run down the stairs, out the building, down the street to the store and run back. You´d think that with 6 year olds running around, the outside of the school would be guarded at all times. There is no possible way I could have foreshadowed that this girl was lying to me. The age of reason is 8. How did she come up with this idea to lie to the teacher and run to the store. And no one leave the room during class for any reason? You, dear reader, try to sit with 15 six to eight year olds and see their reaction when you tell them they can´t go to the bathrom. Believe me, it´s not easy.This little pirates mutiny on a regular occassion by whispering to each other, picking up their backpacks, running as a herd out the swinging classroom door a half hour before class ends, eventually come back and do it again 15 minutes later. What part of class is over when the teacher says so and you have to obey her don´t they understand? Sounds like all of it.
Anyway, in my next class... same old same old. I have 25 nine to eleven year olds. They´re at the age where boys still won´t do partner activities with girls and most boys won´t do partner activities with the other boys. They´d rather fight. While helping a couple students, one left the room. I didn´t know. Again, the inspector brought him back. Apparently he left because he had a headache and it was loud in the room. No one can leave this class anymore either. Hearing 10 year olds complain about how they need water or have to go the bathroom is worse than little kids because they are more persistent i.e. have less respect. I love some of the kids in that class. They are smart, super sweet, and so interested in asking me questions about myself, the USA, when I´m going home, if I like Ecuador etc etc. Though it could be a deceptive time-wasting ploy to avoid learning anything. At least they hug me goodbye every day so who can be sure?
We´re watching a movie currently in my tween and also my teens class. The tweens class was interupted today because the inspector had to find out why a few of the 10 students in the class keep regularly skipping class. They came back from her with the attendance sheet, begged me to change their attendance record. I wouldn´t do it because if someone doesn´t come to class, I most certainly am not changing it so they don´t get in trouble. So the girls ran back to the inspector, talked to her for a bit, came back, handed me the attendance sheet and I noticed that magically, they hadn´t missed so many days.
My teens class, well I love them. They are a breath of fresh air to my otherwise suffocatingly long day (long only because I have been working twice as many hours this past week.) I can tell them they are my favorite, they tell me I´m great, and it´s all in all a great atmosphere. Sure a few of them are super chatty, but that´s to be expected. Of course they mock me because I can´t make a rolling r sound and I´m supposed to be able to speak fairly fluent spanish. I´d mock me too. They get quiet and work when I tell them too. It´s fantastic. I´d teach all teen classes if I could, but surely not all teens are as fantastic as the ones in my class.
In all serious though, I do really like teaching English. It´s definitely the best job I´ve ever had even though it is horrifically frustrating at times. I realize too that school children are the same everywhere and when I was younger, the kids in my class were the same. I, if you weren´t aware, was truely an ideal student. Even ask my parents ;) No, I´m not even kidding. After second grade, I was angelic.
Some days I miss home so badly I could cry. Some days I love that the sun shines so hot here, that I can see mountains in all directions, and that I am helping kids learn a possibly life changing skill. Things could definitely be tons worse. I could be working in some call center somewhere. ...ha.
How´s the job going you ask? Well, have a seat. I´ll tell you. Teaching is fun, up to a certain point. I think that point was today. Here´s what went down. I am still subbing at the local rich private school. The kids there, though horribly behaved, tried to bribe me today to stay and be their teacher. I told them they already have a teacher and one of them pulled $10 out of his pocket and begged me not to leave after this week. I told them frankly, they are too badly-behaved, would rather through halves of limes at each other or sleep than listen to me so I certainly don´t want to stay. Though seriously, I think I could handle it. The kids there all seem to like me even though they are terrible. It sounds like the are poorly behaved in every class regardless of the subject, where the teacher is from, or how long the teacher is going to be around. After 4 hours of obscenity and utter malarkey at Iberoamericano, I had a two hour break before I had to teach at my normal school. That´s when things really got out of hand. A 6 year old in my kids class asked me to go to the bathroom today and like any other time any small child asks to go to the bathroom, I told her she could. Besides, she is normally a good student, more advanced than all of the older kids in her class, and clings to me like I´m a direct relative. Well, 5 minutes later she arrive back to the class arm firmly held by the school inspector who proceeded to tell me that she saw this little girl running back to the school from a small market two blocks away. After that, she yelled at me and told me that no one is allowed to leave my classroom and that it would be my fault if something happened to one of them while crossing the street. First of all, how was I supposed to know this little girl was going to run down the stairs, out the building, down the street to the store and run back. You´d think that with 6 year olds running around, the outside of the school would be guarded at all times. There is no possible way I could have foreshadowed that this girl was lying to me. The age of reason is 8. How did she come up with this idea to lie to the teacher and run to the store. And no one leave the room during class for any reason? You, dear reader, try to sit with 15 six to eight year olds and see their reaction when you tell them they can´t go to the bathrom. Believe me, it´s not easy.This little pirates mutiny on a regular occassion by whispering to each other, picking up their backpacks, running as a herd out the swinging classroom door a half hour before class ends, eventually come back and do it again 15 minutes later. What part of class is over when the teacher says so and you have to obey her don´t they understand? Sounds like all of it.
Anyway, in my next class... same old same old. I have 25 nine to eleven year olds. They´re at the age where boys still won´t do partner activities with girls and most boys won´t do partner activities with the other boys. They´d rather fight. While helping a couple students, one left the room. I didn´t know. Again, the inspector brought him back. Apparently he left because he had a headache and it was loud in the room. No one can leave this class anymore either. Hearing 10 year olds complain about how they need water or have to go the bathroom is worse than little kids because they are more persistent i.e. have less respect. I love some of the kids in that class. They are smart, super sweet, and so interested in asking me questions about myself, the USA, when I´m going home, if I like Ecuador etc etc. Though it could be a deceptive time-wasting ploy to avoid learning anything. At least they hug me goodbye every day so who can be sure?
We´re watching a movie currently in my tween and also my teens class. The tweens class was interupted today because the inspector had to find out why a few of the 10 students in the class keep regularly skipping class. They came back from her with the attendance sheet, begged me to change their attendance record. I wouldn´t do it because if someone doesn´t come to class, I most certainly am not changing it so they don´t get in trouble. So the girls ran back to the inspector, talked to her for a bit, came back, handed me the attendance sheet and I noticed that magically, they hadn´t missed so many days.
My teens class, well I love them. They are a breath of fresh air to my otherwise suffocatingly long day (long only because I have been working twice as many hours this past week.) I can tell them they are my favorite, they tell me I´m great, and it´s all in all a great atmosphere. Sure a few of them are super chatty, but that´s to be expected. Of course they mock me because I can´t make a rolling r sound and I´m supposed to be able to speak fairly fluent spanish. I´d mock me too. They get quiet and work when I tell them too. It´s fantastic. I´d teach all teen classes if I could, but surely not all teens are as fantastic as the ones in my class.
In all serious though, I do really like teaching English. It´s definitely the best job I´ve ever had even though it is horrifically frustrating at times. I realize too that school children are the same everywhere and when I was younger, the kids in my class were the same. I, if you weren´t aware, was truely an ideal student. Even ask my parents ;) No, I´m not even kidding. After second grade, I was angelic.
Some days I miss home so badly I could cry. Some days I love that the sun shines so hot here, that I can see mountains in all directions, and that I am helping kids learn a possibly life changing skill. Things could definitely be tons worse. I could be working in some call center somewhere. ...ha.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
hello again
Hello again. It´s been a while. I apologize for my lack of updating but after vacation last week I have been super busy this week teaching twice as much as normal. Whew! At least it´s Saturday and after working this morning, I have at least tomorrow off.
Anyway, vacation in Cuenca was pretty nice. The city itself it totally beautiful. Unfortunately though because we were there during holy week, a lot of things were closed so we weren´t able to see any museums or anything like that. After 4 days, I was ready to get back to Loja just because we had nothing left to see. Thankfully though Cuenca has a plethora of international resturants that aren´t available in Loja. We had sushi one night, I had an awesome salmon dish another night and so on and so forth. Delicious! I uploaded a bunch of pictures to Facebook from vacation and will put some on here or on google photos when I get another chance.
This past week was for the most part... exhausting. Teaching at Colegio Iberoamericano is tough because the students first of all, don´t pay attention in general and secondly, because I´m a substitute teacher, there are even worse. The kids themselves are pretty cool as far as I can tell, but they just aren´t so good at being diligent students. A couple people in the classes told me they wish I could stay and be there teacher after I finish this next week and explained that I really don´t want to stay just because no one behaves. The school campus is really cool though so it´s nice to be able to bring the classes outside and just hang out for a bit and get to know some of them. The teen boys are pretty much just inappropriate in their comments and whatnot, but it´s all in fun.
The weather is beautiful today. I washed my clothes on the roof earlier this afternoon and surely it´ll all pretty much dry by now because the sun is so hot. Lovely. I will say though that I´ll be glad to get back home where I can enjoy the luxury of washing my clothes and drying them whenever I want. I have brought my clothes to a luandromat here where it gets washed, dried, and folded for me which is nice but too costly to do regularly.
Happy Saturday!
Anyway, vacation in Cuenca was pretty nice. The city itself it totally beautiful. Unfortunately though because we were there during holy week, a lot of things were closed so we weren´t able to see any museums or anything like that. After 4 days, I was ready to get back to Loja just because we had nothing left to see. Thankfully though Cuenca has a plethora of international resturants that aren´t available in Loja. We had sushi one night, I had an awesome salmon dish another night and so on and so forth. Delicious! I uploaded a bunch of pictures to Facebook from vacation and will put some on here or on google photos when I get another chance.
This past week was for the most part... exhausting. Teaching at Colegio Iberoamericano is tough because the students first of all, don´t pay attention in general and secondly, because I´m a substitute teacher, there are even worse. The kids themselves are pretty cool as far as I can tell, but they just aren´t so good at being diligent students. A couple people in the classes told me they wish I could stay and be there teacher after I finish this next week and explained that I really don´t want to stay just because no one behaves. The school campus is really cool though so it´s nice to be able to bring the classes outside and just hang out for a bit and get to know some of them. The teen boys are pretty much just inappropriate in their comments and whatnot, but it´s all in fun.
The weather is beautiful today. I washed my clothes on the roof earlier this afternoon and surely it´ll all pretty much dry by now because the sun is so hot. Lovely. I will say though that I´ll be glad to get back home where I can enjoy the luxury of washing my clothes and drying them whenever I want. I have brought my clothes to a luandromat here where it gets washed, dried, and folded for me which is nice but too costly to do regularly.
Happy Saturday!
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