Hasta Luego en vez de Adios

I can't believe I'm back in the states, the time went by so fast. I miss Mexico already. My host family wouldn't let me cry, they told me we couldn't cry or say adios because it wasn't goodbye it was hasta luego, or see you later because I have every intention of coming back. The principal even said that if I stay in touch after I graduate there could be a job there for me, which would be absolutely awesome. The last few days there were wonderful. My students threw me a party for my birthday. There was tons of food and we took lots of pictures. Friday was las olimpiadas and of course my 6th graders dominated. They are all so athletic. Varmond placed in almost every event we participated in. We had one race where first through fourth place were all taken by my 6th graders. Then in the afternoon I went to lunch with some of the teachers and go to say my goodbyes and then after that to Peter Piper Pizza, which is like Chuck E Cheese's to say goodbye to my carpool kids. I can't wait to show everyone all my pictures and show you all my students. I miss them so much. It was really strange not to get up to go to school with them on Monday. It's hard to believe that next week I transition to first graders a whole new world compared to my outspoken 6th graders. I will definitely never forget this experience, it was one of the greatest of my life. I am so fortunate to have had this opportunity and to have met everyone that I did. I am really glad that I got to be the one to pave the way for others to have this experience in the future, and I can't wait to go back and see everyone again.

la semana final :(

Wow I can´t believe today was my last Monday at Varmond. I´m going to miss it so much. Everyone there is so great, the teachers and the students. Today was a good day the students were pretty well behaved and we were all joking around at recess. I´m going to miss their smart mouth jokes and the way they look at me when I pronounce something wrong or when they pretend not to understand me when I talk in English.
This weekend was fun I went to a water park Saturday during the day and got a little burnt but at least I´m finally making some progress and starting to look a little less out of place. Saturday night I went to a bar with some of the teachers from Varmond to hang out. It was incredible, the bar is outdoors up in the mountains so you wear blankets and can see the stars and an incredible view of the city at night.
I am so very lucky to be here and to have spent my time with such amazing people. I´m going to miss the people the most, and my host mom´s cooking! This week is going to go by so fast. I can´t believe I have less than a week. Thursday is my birthday and the students have their Olympics so that will definitely be a busy day. I´ll let you know how it goes.

la semana penúltima

I can´t believe I only have a week left! The time went by so fast! The students had their English exams all this week and for the most part I think most of them went really well, except for the math exam. My cooperating teacher was not there on Wednesday because she was at a convention and the students decided that because she wasn´t there that meant they could talk and share answers during an exam. It didn´t matter how many times I asked them to stop talking or almost took away their tests they just didn´t stop talking so now they all have to retake their math test. They definitely were not happy to hear that. It´s so hard to stay mad at them though because so much of what they do is so funny. During the exam they offered to pay me for the answers and started chanting Miss Katie to encourage me to do it. Then they asked me ¿porque estás enojada Miss Katie? Why are you mad Miss Katie, and with completely serious faces. One of my students even told me to have a sense of humor. I´m going to miss them so much. Yesterday 6B had their taller, workshop about prehispanic culture. Their group is the Toltecas, which don´t know very much about but they kids are interested in learning more which is always good. I spent most of the day in the workshop with them 2 hours for each half of the class to make our project. I really don´t know how to explain what it is so I will just have to take a picture of it and post it up next week. It was a lot of fun spending so much time with my students outside of the academic setting and just talking to them and listening to them talk to each other. They have started telling me not to go and asking me why I can´t stay. I really would love to come back and teach here in Mexico for a year or two after I graduate and I´m told their might be a program through Varmond to do that. I will definitely be looking into that before I leave so I have the information in case I can someday return to work here. I am going to miss it here so much. Everyone has been so welcoming of me and I´ve been having so much fun learning about the culture and getting to know the students and the city. The people here are really great, and the city is wonderful, not mention it will be hard to leave the warm weather. :) I got a great compliment today though from one of my coordinators, she told me my accent had changed that it was stronger, that made me feel that this trip was definitely worth it if only for that reason, not to mention the thousands of other reasons I´m so grateful I had this opportunity.

Una fin de semana muy ocupada

I was definitely busy this weekend I feel kind of bad that I was hardly home. Friday night I went to the disco again and was out way late because they don´t close til 4am here. Then up on Saturday and off to Pátzcuaro with friends from the CCL to say goodbye to Katie before she left for Mexico City. Which I´m very excited for her she´s trying out for the Mexican national soccer team and if she makes it she might get to go with them to the Olympics. How cool is that? She´s half Mexican so she´s elligible to try out and she plays soccer for her college team. But anyway we went to Pátzcuaro for lunch with two of the teachers from the CCL to this restaurant called Rancho la Mesa. First of all the food was incredible and second the view of el lago de Pátzcuaro and the islands in it was incredible. We were up on a mountain a little and could see alot of the city and the lake and two of the four islands, it was beautiful. We listened to a mariachi band for a little while and then went down into the center of Pátzcuaro to walk around and eat nieve de pasta, the best ice cream ever. I´m gonna have to figure out how to get some in the states :). Then on Sunday it was Dia de La Familia, my host family tells me they have days for almost everyone here which I think is great. We all went to mass together the whole family all three of their kids and their families then back to the house for a big, delicious lunch. I´m really going to miss their cooking. Then after lunch I did a few things for school before getting ready to go to a wedding with Roberto. He picked me up to go with him and his family to the reception part. It would have been nice to see how the actual ceremony was but it was really nice of him to invite me. The food was good, his family was very nice, and I met the parents of two of my students because they are Roberto´s sisters. The dancing was so much fun. Almost every one here is a fabulous dancer it´s great. We were out til 1am on a school night. I´m going to miss it here so much everyone is wonderful so welcoming of me, a complete stranger. I really want to come back someday possibly even to stay for a year or two to work, but no matter what I definitely have to come back to visit to see all of these people again. I can´t believe I only have 13 days left. It´s gone by so fast.
Tomorrow starts English exams for my students so I´ll be busy making review games all week. Cross your fingers that they actually study for the exams, I know I´ll have mine crossed. More later! :)

Que rapido el tiempo

Wow another week is already over I can´t believe it! Only two more left. :( I´m going to miss it here so much and my students especially. This week I was definitely kept busy trying to finish as much of the book as I could with them before their exams start next week. We still have more to do but we should be able to get it done and still have time to play some review games for the exams. I can´t believe next week is really my last week teaching because the last week we only have two days of classes and the second half of the week is the Olimpiadas where the students go to compete against other schools in a mock Olympics which I´m really excited for I think it will be lots of fun.
Yesterday I went to the movies with two of my students it was fun to spend time with them outside of school. I´m going to miss these kids so much. They definitely don´t make it easy for me to get through that book but they are great kids.
Tonight and possibly tomorrow night I´m going dancing at the disco again with friends from Varmond, I´m going to be pretty tired on Monday because tomorrow afternoon I´m probably going to lunch with friends from the CCL to say goodbye to Katie from Washington, and on Sunday Roberto invited me to go to a wedding with him to see what a Mexican wedding is like. I´m so lucky to have so many great people to spend time with. They are going to be keeping me busy these next few weeks, which will be wonderful but I think will also make it even harder to leave. Tomorrow is already March 1st which means only 16 more days. I can´t believe how fast it´s gone by. I will definitely have to come back some day to see all of these people again, and to see more of this beautiful country.
(wow this has got to be the shortest post I´ve ever written, a little break for you faithful readers :) )

Un viaje muy bonito, y una obra de teatro

This past weekend, Roberto, the other 6th grade teacher at Varmond, offered to take me to see a few other cities in Michoacan. We left Friday afternoon after lunch and headed to La Piedad where he used to live and still has friends. We got to his friends´, Ricardo and Javier (I love the names here!) apartment after an almost 3 hour scenic ride through mountains and desert. His friends had dinner waiting for us and then took me to see the different views of the city at night and the central plaza. It was beautiful and you could see so many stars. I learned that because of the shape of the city and the different levels that its at no matter what part of the city you are in, you can never see the whole city at once. Then back to the apartment to rest up for the next day. Saturday we went back to the central plaza to see the church and the fountain in the daytime. La Piedad is a really nice little city. Then we dropped his friends off at work and headed on to Zamora to see the church there. It was incredible, so beautiful. It had amazing stained glass windows and a beautiful painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and one of the biggest organs I´ve ever seen. Roberto, who has traveled just about everywhere, told me the design of the church is modeled after Notre Dame in Paris, how cool is that? Then I off to a market place to try chongos a dulce that´s only made in Zamora, don´t ask me what it´s made of I tried to figure it out but all I know is it was good. Then back on the road for a little bit to head to Lake Camecuaro. It was absolutely beautiful. The lake was crystal clear and surrounded by beautiful trees. There were ducks and families there on vacation swimming, yes swimming because the water is warm even in February, and so much food. It was an amazing place we walked around the lake a little and had lunch. I tried secina, which is dried cooked meat really good, and agua miel which is made from the plant they use to make tequilla, it was really good. Then on the way home we pulled over to buy tamales de zarzamora, which are tamales made with blackberries so they were purple also very good. I am really going to miss the food here. The ride home was again incredibly scenic. It´s so great to be surrounded by mountains, and trees and green and then sometimes large patches of desert it´s so beautiful. I wish you all could see it. I will post pictures of my trip next time so you can see the church and the lake.
Today was an interesting day at school we took the kids to see a play in English called Transylvania. It was pretty cheesy but the kids enjoyed it. It was so funny afterwards to hear some of the reactions. One of my students came up to me and asked me if I understood it word for word, another asked me what it was about, one of them told me she cried because the couple got together and she thought it was beautiful. Many of the girls told me it was romantic and asked me if I was thinking of my boyfriend. And Roberto said he liked it even though he didn´t understand it at all since he doesn´t speak hardly any English! All and all a good day even though I´m still way behind in the book and will have to take a few days of next week to finish it because there have been so many extra activities going on in such a short month. I´ll keep you posted on how the rest of the week goes.

Partido de fútbol

Celebrating their victory with tacos and soda

Yesterday my students invited me to their soccer game it was so much fun. The team consists of 5th, 6th and 7th grade students from Varmond. They are really good. I hadn´t been to a soccer game in years They won 4 to 3 to be able to go on the tournament. Alot of the students from the school were there to cheer them on. It was great to hear them cheering in Spanish and they really supported their team. The girls and the guys there to cheer them on were really surprised to see me, it was fun to be there to support them. To celebrate they doused their coaches in the leftover water in the cooler then went after each other the principal and me. :) Then the team and the coaches were off to Tacopolis to celebrate and they invited me to join them. It was so much fun. The food was really good and they kids were hilarious. Screaming and yelling and cheering. I felt so bad for the waiters but man did they make a lot of money off of us. Those kids and the coaches can sure eat a lot of tacos :). I was so glad I finally made it to a game and that they invited me to join them afterwards. They are a really fun bunch of kids even if they are trouble makers. :)
The week of teaching is going pretty well I´m almost caught up to where I need to be to finish the book on time. My cooperating teacher was sick on Tuesday so I spent the whole day alone with the kids which was a definitely a challenge but a good experience for the future. They are good kids but man are they alot of work to keep focused. I think finishing the book next week will be a very satisfying experience, and playing review games with them will be a great reward for them and for me.
This weekend I´m off to Zamora and to see some of the sights along the way. One of the teachers from the school offered to take me so we leave tomorrow after lunch. I´ll let you know how it goes on Monday. Have a great weekend everyone! I can´t believe tomorrow makes 7 weeks that I´ve been here already! Only 3 left, it´s gone by so fast!