on the eighth day God created the nutella calzone...or something like that

As you can guess from my lack of blog posts, the past two weeks have been completely nuts!!
I cant believe that we are already two weeks in to school and I officially know all of my 37 students names (a task that seemed impossible on the first day). I mean it's hard enough learning student's names ever but learning students names in Mexico is three times as heard because every student's name is about three times as long. Anyways, it feels like quite an accomplishment to finally have them down, not to mention it makes classroom management that much easier. Overall school is going pretty well. I am sure I am not the first person to say this, but I had no idea how exhausting being a full time teacher could be.

I was talking to some veteran teachers about how by the end of the day lately I have just been feeling like I want to sit at my desk in complete silence and stare at nothing for approximately two hours. They said this is completely normal and if you can make it at our school, apparently you can make it anywhere. There just something about teaching a full english curriculum to two different groups of students who all speak limited english with very few breaks that simply sucks the life out of you. Let's just say it is going to be a very challenging first year of teaching. However some of the kids are pretty great and I am already starting to see that they are what makes all the stress and exhaustion worth it.

In other news, I had the wonderful opportunity to take a little trip this past weekend with Katy and our other friend Nikki up to San Cristobal, which is a little city up in the mountains, about an hour away. We were all feeling quite exhausted after our first week of teaching and decided we needed a little time away. So we left Saturday around noon and after an hour long bus ride where I was only mildly fearful for my life we ended up in one of the most beautiful little cities I have ever been in. It was crazy that it was only an hour away because it felt like we were in a different country. San Cristobal is much more picturesque then our city, Tuxtla and is filled with historic buildings and European-esque pedestrian streets. The restaurants are incredible and there are a few amazing french bakeries. It is very touristy and has many more white people so it was nice to not feel like the minority for a little while. The shopping is amazing and I definitely know where I will be buying all of my christmas presents. It also was sort of crawling with hippies (Especially American ones) and seems to be where you would venture to if you wanted to spend your life walking barefoot with dreads and speaking spanish. We spent all day saturday just strolling around and then ate a delightful little Italian restaurant where I indulged in a pizza, wine and (get this) a nutella calzone...basically top five best meals of my life! Overall it was a wonderful little getaway and I am already looking forward to going back.

That's about all the blog-worthy things that have been going on over the past two weeks. Sorry it took so long and I am going to try to be more regular with my posts. Also I am still trying to figure out a way to post my pictures that doesn't take an hour so until then I will be just put them on the facebook, hope thats not too inconvenient.
Hasta Luego!