classroom pics, mexican karaoke and hamburgesas gigantes

OK so here are the pictures from my classroom, enjoy...





















The one on the bottom is what it looked like before I did any work. I know they are kind of small but it took me like an half hour to upload them so thats all you get. Hopefully you can get the idea and I am sure it will look even better when there are students inside of it :)


We went out to a Karaoke bar last night with some other teachers which was quite an experience and very different from Karaoke in America. They just pass the microphone around and you sing from your table but it is quite a challenge to actually hear whoever is singing because literally everyone in the bar is singing a long with the songs. On one hand this is kind of amazing for the crowd participation aspect but on the other hand it makes me feel a little sad for whoever is performing (but then again I'm kind of a sucker for the spotlight so no surprise there).

On the way home we also stopped at a hamburger stand titled "hamburgesas gigantes" and yes my friends, they were gigantic hamburgers. I was a little nervous about trying this Mexican hamburger delicacy as it looks a little more like a giant meat pancake then a hamburger but with a little cheese, bacon, and ketchup it was just the post karaoke treat I was craving. All in all a great night.
Now I must get back to planning for the week, hopefully my next post will be filled with funny stories about my new students and my first few days of teaching, so excited!!

Just a few more days and I will be a real teacher...

I can't believe how fast the days are going by and that I have almost been here for two weeks!
It's also pretty crazy to believe that I have one more day of orientation and then get my students on monday and start being like a real-life teacher, very exciting and also just a bit scary. Setting up my classroom has proven to be quite a challenge, especially with limited supplies from the school and no teacher stores. I have definitely been channeling my creative side and even impressed myself with my resourcefulness- its amazing what you can come up with with a little construction paper, markers and a hot glue gun. Starting with a completely bare white classroom and seeing how much I have been able to create over these past two weeks has been a great lesson for me and makes me hope that if/when I have my next classroom this job will be much easier. After all, they always say the first year of teaching is the hardest (although I have suspicions it would be a little easier if I were in America where you don't have to make your own bulletin boards and can actually buy posters in english). All in all, I am feeling like this experience is already making me a better teacher so that is great!

While much of my time outside of school has been spent working on things for school (like making posters and planning curriculum) I have also spent a lot of time getting to know the other English teachers which has been awesome! There are about ten of us and everyone is either from the US or Canada. I am one of three new teachers so everyone else has been around for at least a year and sort of knows the drill. I have been super impressed by all the the other english teachers already so I know I will learn lots from them. They're also really cool people and it's been great to have that little community outside of school. Speaking of, today a few of us went to get some beverages after school and by beverages I mean these strange Mexican concoctions called Michelada, where they stir together beer, lime juice, soy sauce, and Worcestershire sauce...crazy! Anyways I gave it a try and definitely believed the fact that it is an acquired taste, my first response was, "I don't hate it". While at the restaurant we were also served some complimentary crab claws which were actually quite delicious. So anyone who was concerned about my picky eating ways let me assure you that my palette is already being expanded (and I dont mean by my retainers...had to say it). OK, its off to dinner for me, hope all is well in America.

ps- For those of you wondering why I haven't posted pictures, I am working on it but having some technical difficulties so hopefully i can get that figured out soon.

"Every cloud has a dark mahogany lining"

It's a beautiful Saturday morning here in Tuxtla and as I rolled out of bed this morning the first thing I noticed was a strange soreness in my right arm. This may have been caused by one of two activities- the four hours I spent painting my classroom or the one hour I spent scrubbing our shower. As a good friend of mine likes to say, yesterday I definitely "seized the day".
Katy and I found out on Wednesday that all teachers were able to, in fact encouraged to paint there classrooms in any way we wanted, so we took advantage of the opportunity and put in our paint orders right away. While at first I was overwhelmed by having a giant blank canvas on the back wall of my classroom I eventually decided to go with an "under the sea" theme on one half of the wall and some standard sponge painting (circa Grant Bramley's bedroom 1995) on the other half. Katy and I were super busy all day (led a workshop in the morning on incorporating drama, music, and dance in the classroom and then had to collect school supplies that parents came to drop off) so we ended up staying at school till like 6 painting up a storm. While the process was a bit tiring the end product was really exciting and definitely made the room feel more like my own.
When we arrived home we got in to a bit of a discussion about Mexican hygiene and how it is easy to conform to the culture's lack of cleanliness and organization. So we made a commitment to stick to our American ways and make our home reflect this resolution. So we decided to start with the shower and we both spent some quality time scrubbing the mold that had settled in on the bathroom tiles- also exhausting but unbelievably rewarding.
After all of the manual labor I took my daily (sometime twice daily) cold shower to cool off and then we heard a knock at the door. It was a furniture company that had come to bring me the dresser that we had requested from the American School for my room, since there was only a bed when I arrived. We had been expecting something simple from there storage room but were very pleasantly surprised when they showed up with a brand new beautiful hand crafted armoire, complete with a lock and key that basically looks like it stepped right out of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Seriously, as I said to Katy, I don't think I have ever or will ever own a piece of furniture this beautiful. Needless to say the special delivery felt like a hard earned reward after a long day of hard work. It also made for a bit of a laugh when I came up to go to bed and found Katy sitting inside of it., for some reason I have a feeling this will be a reoccurring scene throughout the year.

good fortune...cookie

I have officially started work at the American School and the past two days have been great. It is a bilingual school so the students take classes in both english and spanish which means that about half of the staff is American or Canadian and half is Mexican. Most of the staff is returning (which is pretty rare) ad there are only three new english teachers at the school (including me) and the two others are fairly proficient in spanish so basically everyone speaks spanish except for me. Usually during meetings with all the teachers they would say everything in spanish and then translate to english but because there are so many teachers who speak spanish they kind of assumed they didn't need to translate which left me feeling like my brain had to move in fast forward to even catch half of what they were saying. Luckily I had katy to whisper (mostly accurate although sometime inappropriate) translations in my ear. While it does feel a little overwhelming I am glad I am getting so much spanish immersion right at the beginning so hopefully that will help me pick it up faster. All of the teachers and staff are super friendly and the school itself is lovely so it is definitely feeling like it will be a great work environment. My classroom is a little bare at the moment but I am hoping to be inspired by my blank walls soon and let the creativity flow!

After school yesterday Katy and our friends, Dave and Amy and I participated in a lovely workout session led by a P90X DVD (I guess it is some big new workout trend). Anyways due to the extreme heat and number of people we had we decided to do it up on there roof which was very enjoyable, not only for us but also for the Mexicans who got to watch the crazy gringos doing strength training moves like "the wacky jack" or "the heisman", you can imagine the spectacle. We had a lovely workout and madre nature was definitely on our side when it started raining right as we sweated in to the cool down session.

Speaking of rain the weather here has definitely been quite hot but I am getting more used to it by the day. It is not too bad when you are inside cause cause you are shaded and there are usually fans blowing but I definitely notice it the most walking home from school. It is also at that time that my mind is boggled by the many Mexicans walking around in jeans and long sleeved shirts, I mean really? It is 95 degrees out and you are wearing a turtleneck? something isn't right with this picture.

Anywho after our workout we decided to go out for Chinese at a chinese restaurant down the street called Hong Kong (very creative name). I was curious to see what Mexican Chinese would be like but overall it was pretty similar to American Chinese. I will leave you with a bit of wisdom from my spanish chinese fortune cookie...

"El quien sabe que tiene sufieciente; ya es rico"

I'm in Mexico!

For those of you who are visiting my blog for the first time, Welcome!
I started this blog two years ago when I moved to Luxembourg to be an au pair and now that I am on to my next inter-continental adventure I have decided to bring it back. However I have given it a bit of a make-over to reflect the vibrant culture of my latest destination....Mexico! For those of you who aren't aware, for the next year I will be living in the state of Chiapas, in the city of Tuxtla and teaching fifth grade at the The American School Foundation of Chiapas.

My journey officially began yesterday at 8am when I met Katy (my good friend from college and now house-mate/co-worker) at O'hare for our flight to Tuxtla. We timed things perfectly and arrived at our gate just as the flight was boarding. It was a delightful flight to Houston filled with lots of sleeping, snacking, and giggling. We got in to Houston for our six hour layover with high hopes of making the best of my first trip to the great land of Texas. After a quick ride on one of those airport shuttles (from our new friend Patrick) and a visit to the 8 ft tall bronze statue of George H.W. Bush we ran into three of Katy's good friends and teachers at the American School. We did quick introductions and then ventured to our gate to kill time before our next flight. Before we knew it it was time to board our flight to the city of Tuxtla-Gutierrez (my future homeland!). Katy and I sat down and began talking to a friendly girl about our age across the isle only to find out that she was from Ohio and also going to be working at the American School as well as living down the street from us...such a small world! The flight was delightful and we even got free margaritas because of some technical difficulty with the paying machine, thank goodness for computer malfunctions!

We arrived in Tuxtla and were greeted by some lovely Chiapaneco people dressed in traditional clothing and handing out delicious ground coffee (too bad i don't drink coffee, maybe I'll bring it back as a souvenir to some lucky reader out there). After getting all of our luggage (without any problems, thank the lord) we went through immigration and were greeted by one of the owners of the school. We had about a 45 minute drive from the airport to our home and everything that I heard about driving in Tuxtla was definitely true- lots of curves and not a lot of braking. By the time we arrived at our lovely little abode it was about 12:30 which left just enough time to make my bed and set up a fan before I was ready to pass out.

I had a great nights sleep and my first official day in Tuxtla began at about 9:30 with bright, beautiful sunlight streaming in to my room. So I hopped out of bed and began settling in while Katy was still sleeping. Once she woke up our stomachs told us it was time to eat so we strolled down to one of her favorite restaurants where I had my first official Mexican meal- fresh cantelope and chilequles (a tortilla, egg, tomato, cheese concoction), it was delicious (pictures to come soon). After brunch we did some grocery shopping and then came home to relax and watch a movie.

It's been quite a whirlwind but I am feeling great and so excited for all the new experiences I will have in the next few weeks. I am definitely realizing how rusty my spanish is so hopefully that will improve. I officially start work tomorrow so that should be very exciting and I am sure I will have lots to write about.
Adios!