remember when we dressed up like really hot bingo ladies at this time last year? i misssssssss you gals.

i would like to draw your attention to a not so recent post on 430 blogshow's blog (ie carlson and friends)
i haven't been up to date reading friend's blogs, and a few days ago i came across this lovely post.
thanks carlsbad, you are so poetic...
and here's the post:

Stop it, I'm hilarious.


Jen: Carlsbad! You're a bull!
Me [charging]: *snort**snort*
Jen: Oooolaaayyy!

An Ode to House Frontenac:
frontenac oh frontenac
those funny girls of frontenac
you had an uncommon knack
for causing us to always crap
our underwear with laugh-attacks
frontenac oh frontenac
not one of kingston's cul-de-sacs
while listening to ratatat
with the dishwasher over-stacked
drinking tea at dawn's crack
sans a farmer's almanac
frontenac oh frontenac
you were all completely whack
i sure do miss that dear old shack
and if something here is found to lack,
it won't be love, only tact

sorry this has taken so long.

october break
Monday - Friday
Isla San Andres, Colombia.

i left melgar early on monday morning, and took the bus to pereira. the bus was full, so the bus driver invited me to sit in the front with him.. which was super! the roads in colombia are soooooo windy, so my stomach was happy to be sitting in the very front for 6 hours through the andes.
i got in to pereira, met the peeps and proceeded to wait awhile for our delayed flight to san andres (supposedly this is normal: flights are always delayed) i think our plane arrived into pereira at the time we were supposed to be leaving. the turn around was pretty quick though, and then we were off flying into the carribean night... sigh.
we arrived on the island at around 12, got to our really nice hotel, explored, swam in the pools even though we weren't allowed to, hung out at the discotheque with NOBODY there (it's the low season, and it was a monday night) and ended up going to bed way too late.
we slept late and had a beachy, pina colada day on tuesday.
here is a picture of me handstanding in the ocean.


on wednesday morning we rented a jeep for 10 bucks. i was the only one who knew how to drive stick and also had my licence on me, so yep, i was on.
hilarity.
the island was really beautiful, the ocean was the brightest blue and everywhere you looked you could see booeys, where people were diving off the coast.
we stopped at an isolated beach and hung out for awhile. brett made a funny friend who gave him these beautiful shells.
we returned sunned-out to the hotel, napped (this was definitely a daily thing.. yes vacation!) showered, ate, and surprise! christopher called. he was on the island, and was flying from san andres to costa rica on monday. so we hopped an expensive cab ride into town, and went out for a really wild night of salsa, reggae and rum.
oh the island life.
i think that evening we ended up on the beach very late, with a bunch of law students from bogota that we had befriended. i danced for most of the night without shoes, and ended up losing my flipflops to a boy named jorge andres. anyway, i located his and still have them... oops.
we tried to go to their hotel, since they were staying downtown and were planning to continue partying until all hours of the night... but the hotel seemed less than pleased with their group(i think maybe because they had broken a bunch of rules all week, had disturbed all the other families staying there, jumped in the corals head first, that kind of stupid stuff. law students everywhere are the same... crazy.) so they wouldn't let us all in. fair enough. it was time to go home anyway.
thursday was a slow day, but steph and i got up and headed downtown to look around, eat pizza and hang out on the beach down there. i collected some pieces of dead coral for my class.
and then friday was our last day on the island.. we went to the spA! (yesss facials) and hung out by the pool. we got home to manizales really late at night on friday, since our flight (of course) coming from san andres was delayed until 10, and we had to drive 1.5 hours to get home from pereira...

all in all, i spent most of my time in san andres either swimming, lying in the sun, dancing, or napping. and drinking delicious margaritas. i am really good at all of those things.

it was perfect. i couldn't believe i was coming back to a JOB... what?!? I totally forgot about it while i was away.

here are some more candid moments.

wiggy wiggy roggy roggy.

october break
weekend one.
melgar. colombia.


friday- to bogota, to meet up with some cisv friends and head to juanca's 'finca' (farm, like a cottage really) in melgar.
spent some quality time with my cousin chris and old cisv friends...
the weekend was great spanish practice, because we pretty much only spoke spanish. it's funny because you think your spanish is progressing, but then you end up in a wild social situation in spanish, and you realize that maybe you don't understand as well as you thought... and how do you say this word again?
so we are playing a drinking/charades game one night (in spanish, lucky for me) and of course after a few drinks of wiggy wiggy (whiskey... juanca started calling it wiggy wiggy and roggy roggy for rum.. etc.. anyway it got a bit crazy) the game became much more challenging.
for example. we are taking guesses at characters that are written on paper, 1st round you can say whatever you want, second round just one word, and third round just one action. so we are in round one, and i am dedicated to making LOTS of guesses for my team. i hear 'lalallalala ninos!' (ninos means children) so i start yelling out random cartoon characters "minnie mouse! donald duck! power puff girls!" (i'm not sure where that last one came from.. i digress). but it turns out that what alice had said (in spanish of course) was someone who KILLS children. sheesH! so that was a very hilarious moment. i think my team probably hated me by the end of the night. hahah.

the weekend in melgar was lovely. swimming, eating delicious food, hanging out, meeting some super people..


on the porch

juanci and me

something's going on in the kitch.


and i was off to pereira on monday morning to meet my friends from school and head to san andres!

a posting pre-vacaesh.

t-3 daaaaays until quarter one break. yipee!
three things of note have happened, that i want to write about before the vacay since likely AFTER the vacay there will be many stories and pictures... and these will all be lost and forgotten.

1. christopher has been visiting. great! he has been in manizales for a week and a bit now, and is leaving tomorrow to go back to bogota. i am meeting up with him again on the weekend, at a cisv friend juanca's summer home in melgar. super.
it has been lovely to have family around for awhile - someone to chat with and share things, someone at home who will know and understand the life i'm living now... and christopher is so good at just joining in. so he did. he spent three full days at school.. and mostly i didn't see him! he was off playing sports, helping kids, challenging ping pong contestants, and taking pics of all the stuff that was going on (colombian day prep, more on that later...)
we were also lucky enough to celebrate canadian thanksgiving together, at my friends deb and german's place. we had delicious turkey and told funny stories.. and generally enjoyed the 80% canadian company (20% colombian.. haha). and i made a pumpkin pie out of squash! so festive i know. you do what you can when you are in colombia.

2. colombian day!
last friday was colombian day at granadino. ie, when the kids get to learn about and celebrate colombia (for those cisvers - it's like a big BIG national night. a whole school). anyway, each grade was incharge of researching and presenting a region by making a wild display, cooking food and presenting a dance. i was working on 'amazonias' with the grade 12s.. and we built a maloka out of bamboo and grass. it was awesome. all week we were preparing for the day (we lost 1/2 days of classes most days.. who cares about academia anyway.. hah) and it was just incredible. here are some pics of it.

3. i am setting my first exams! this is a milestone. i can't believe that at the end of this week, we will be done a quarter of the year. total madness.

and that's that. more to come after my beautiful week off... sigh.


nacho dressed as an amazonia god inside the maloka we built


the maloka we built


celebrate!


dancing.


german being workshipped by the gr. 12s during amazonia tribal dance

for you caro.

me teaching 9A.

diegs looking puzzled.

cutest kid on the bmx track at school.

life as i know it, by cabas.

increíble

que increíble como siento
el corazón cuando te pienso
que increíble ver mis pies
hundirse entre la arena
increíble el color del cielo
pero hoy
contigo todo me lo creo

no quiero perderme nada,
ni un segundo entre tu y yo
quiero saborearme cada gota de tu amor
que es increíble pero cierto

que increíble te confieso
pero de amor por ti reviento
tanto que me alcanza para envolver
a todo el mundo en sentimiento
si hay un dios lo creo
porque aquí contigo todo es perfecto

no quiero perderme nada,
ni un segundo ni una flor
quiero saborearme cada gota de tu amor
que es increíble pero cierto

-cabas
'puro cabas'

gorgona 06

here's the story:
field trip. grade 9 biology. sept 25-29. isla gorgona 5 hours off the pacific coast of colombia. humid rainforest. beach. migrating humpback whales. 38 14-15 year olds. me, my principal, my director, a marine biologist named hector, and the park staff. wildest field trip i have ever been on!
highlights include:
-listening to the same songs over and over and over on the 7 hour busride to the coast. grade 9s everywhere are the same.. except these ones love reggaeton hits and this great song by julio called hasta los huesos. haha.
-a 5 hour speedboat trip to the island. actually this was not a highlight. i thought i was going to die, the ocean was so rough. my kids just hung out the boat the whole time, getting windblown and soaked. they loved it, i did not. however! as soon as the island was in view.. and we could see the palm trees draping off the cliffs.. it was all worth it, 100 times over..
- my grade 9 tough boys being weenies about the bats. so hilarious.
- the old prison - gorgona's prison closed 25 years ago and has since overgrown sooo much. it was an incredible tour of these 'ruins' of sorts. and we even went back one night, very late, to tell ghost stories. my principal and i snuck up on the kids at one point that night and scared them real good. it was awesome.
- snorkelling! i really only did an hour of it, the rest of my time was spent swimming with the kids and acting as a support/ saving a few tired kids from the waves - the ocean current was pretty strong and these kids aren't the best swimmers. but hey, this is colombia - just let them swim, they don't REALLY need supervisors, or buddies... uuhh.. WHAT?! needless to say the diversity was incredible, and our guide, hector was a walking (well swimming) encyclopedia. super.
- swimming in the bioluminescence at night. the kids had a dance party in the water, it was so great.
- hiking 4 hours up and over the mountain to the other side of the island, where we hung out at this breathtaking white sand beach... totally isolated. thirsty? use this machete and chop up a coconut, no problem.
- boat tours to see the dolphins and whales. oooh they are so beautiful.
- my girls falling in love with a scuba diver on the island. they gawked and followed him everywhere... it was the funniest thing. and these girls are not shy.
- sleeping in the same room as my snoring director... ugh.
- the monkeys! they followed us everywhere. so funny.
- and of course, the snakes... wow. we found a few boas which were just beautiful, and incredibly strong... it was a cool experience trying to pick them up.

i got home on friday night, exhausted, sunburnt and smelling like the ocean. i was sad to have left gorgona.. but at the same time SO happy to be back home in the cool mountains and home.. sigh. but what a wonderful trip for my kids to experience. seeing them get so excited about "ballenas! ballenas!" (whales), running from the dining hall to the beach to get a closer look made the trip so worthwhile... and i'm sure they will remember it forever.
here are a few (of the one million, i swear) pictures that i have.

fiesta time.


the gang in the prison.

giggly kids on the boat.

our isolated beautiful beach.. and the waves.

this is one of my student's pics. yep, that's me and my boss. awesome.

more photos to come.

what did yOU do for international peace day? (sept. 21)

i devoted my classes to doodling peace doodles, and philosophizing (is that a word?) about peace and what it really means... trying to come up with a comprehensive definition although that seems near impossible.
my kids did a great job though.
doodles:




"peace is when everything is simple, and everyone understands and appreciates its simplicity" - my friend alanna.