i´m out here in the sand.

two interesting AND funny stories.

i am making a ´collection of gums´ as my students call it. i started it two days ago. if i catch a kid chewing gum in class, they have to put their piece of gum on this fluoroscent pink bristol board that says ´gum collection´. then i write their name next to their piece of gum. disGUSting!
i told the students that once they have 3 pieces of gum on the poster, they will get a consequence of the classes´ choosing. one kid suggested that they eat all the gum that is on the paper. rough!!! this has been going on for only a few classes, and already i have a collection of 20 chewed pieces. and now the kids are starting to make them into patterns when they are asked to put it on the piece of paper. it´s so sick, honestly. but my kids think it is so disgusting and funny, so i hope by the time someone gets to three pieces and has a gross consequence the gum chewing will stop.
anyway. it´s creative i guess. but gross.

i learned a new reading game called popcorn with my grade 10s yesterday. i gave them an interesting article on amphibians being good environmental indicators, read the first page aloud to catch their interest, and then left them to it. one student says to me ´no, ms erin, that is not how reading works. when your voice is tired, all you have to say is ´popcorn, someone else´and they will keep on reading´. ok. popcorn, juan fernando. and juan fernando reads two paragraphs and then repeats ´popcorn, miguel´. and the out-loud reading continues.
it is so funny that my 15 and 16 year old kids wanted to keep on reading aloud to each other. eventually i began to work on some other things, and the kids kept on reading with the occasional ´popcorn, juliana´. hilarious. and all on their own.
well trained. not by me that is for sure!

at the end of class, pedro says to me. ´hey, we were super cuisiosos today, huh?´. there is no good translation for the word cuisioso. it means on task and careful and responsible and diligent, pretty much.

and i said yes, you were.

i´m alright, by the way.

oooooh you make me safe, now.

sorry sorry sorry. it has been a long pause, again. i can never seem to find the time or energy to write during the week at school, since usually all i am thinking about is lesson plans and marking. they would be riveting entries, i´m sure...
also, the internet in the apto has been less than dependable and our faithful dial up connection has possibly become slOWER... i´m really not sure how that is possible, but it takes about 20 minutes to do anything. but i am spending the time now. it´s sunday at almost 630.

i have had another lovely weekend, at a birthday party last night where we all slept over in tents in the rain, and then it was sunny all day so we stayed to hang out. real nice.
however, one of my closest friends decided not to come to the party, for matters of the heart.. he has fallen head over for a lovely colombiana who unfortunately has a less-than-cool boyfriend that she keeps breaking up with and then getting back together with(they were both at the party last night). she is leading my friend on and keeping him as some sort of backup plan, i don´t think realizing how much she is messing him up, and this saga has been going on for months. it is a tough situation, and i find at times that i don´t know what to TELL him about it, or how to be a supportive friend. he always wants to talk about it and sometimes i am lost for words, because it is just such a crappy situation. so please send some advice my way.. if you have any.

otherwise back to the grind tomorrow. hopefully my kids will be better behaved this week. it has been challenging getting them back on the learning bandwagon after so much class time disruption, the end of a quarter and the beginning of another one, parent teacher interviews and recuperation projects.

anyone have any ideas about how to get kids to stop chewing gum in class without doing mouth checks every time they walk in the door? there is gum all over my furniture. sick.

in other news: maegan and i somehow got our hands on a copy of alias season one. we started last week, no subtitles, pure adrenaline. oooooh it´s good.

hiking in quindio. ooooosh.

party people in the house.

carmen, alejandro y yo

hoo wee

anama and the korean.


haaaaaaahaaha

ana maria and me
this is so funny, more than half my pictures have me doing something stupid in them. this never happens! what a great party.

perils of a tall blonde.

it has been a challenging yet lovely casi two weeks since i last posted.

i have been having minor heart attacks daily since about tuesday last week, when my director told me that unfortunately he couldn´t allow my principal to come with me on the amazon field trip in april. my principal is organizing the entire thing, since i have no clue what is going on... and now my director is pulling a fast one on me. righto! i speak perfectly in spanish, i am a native colombian, this is not my first year teaching and of cOURSE i´ve taken 28 kids on an international field trip in south america before. no problem.
the situation seems to have sorted itself out slightly. i am going with brendon, who taught my 10s in his first year at granadino and who is teaching 7/8 science. he is great and i know we will have a super time, however, he is not colombian, nor is he the principal who has organized the entire trip. it seems slightly absurd to me.. i´m honestly not sure if my director thinks i´m superwoman or something. If more than 20 kids sign up, then we will take a third, colombian, teacher. i am pushing for that for ultimate security.

anyway, because we are heading 5 hours down the river into brasil from leticia, colombia, i needed to get a brasilian visa. colombians don´t need visas but canadians do. SO. the school paid for my trip to bogotá to ´get a visa´.
i headed off saturday morning really early because i wanted to maximize my time in the lovely city.. and also because juanca and alice (pronounced a-lee-chay.. she´s italian) were having the birthday party of a lifetime!
it was up at juanca´s mountain house in sesquilé , about half an hour away from bogotá. there were atleast 80 people there, lots of delicious food and a party that rocked from 1pm ish (i arrived at three with a crew of cisvers in a van we had rented) until all hours of the night. i don´t exactly remember the goings on, but i know that at midnight alice came to find me, and i had mysteriously gone to bed, pyjamas on, clothes folded neatly, in their bed. oops! i guess i had had enough.. and had proceeded with a really ingrained bedtime routine.
on sunday i woke up rested and happy in the mountain air, and i spent the day with my two heroes in the sunshine.
we headed back to bogotá on sunday night, ate at a delish pizza place ( brie cheese, arugula and proscuitto?? unheard of) and crashed early.
on monday morning i woke up and headed to the brasilian embassy. besides a minor incident on the transmilenio(ugh), i enjoyed a lovely day with ali, going to the botero museum and her favourite little bistro in candelaria called quartetto. awesome. on monday night a group of us headed to wok!, this incredible chain of restaurants that only exist in bogotá. sushi! red thai curry! and it tasted like the real thing. ooooh it was such a treat. i mean, i love tipicos in manizales.. but fresh sushi and real curry? the big city life is tempting me.
on tuesday i returned to the brasilian embassy to pick up my visa, and headed back to manizales in the late afternoon.
getting back to school was a bit of a shocker... exam period was monday, tuesday and wednesday and my 9s had written on tuesday and were so furious at me for not being there. ´but ms erin it was soooooo hard...´whine whine. only 8 of them got over 70%. yep, i guess it was hard. but did you ever consider maybe studying? or paying attention in class? right.
my tens wrote on wednesday, with me there, and only 5 of them got over 70%. this exam i KNEW was really hard, and i had set it that way on purpose.. and it has kicked them into shape and today was miraculous with them.. re-doing all the questions for recuperation marks and planning out our next quarter together so we can learn stuff better!
tonight we are ordering delicious pizza and cuddling on the couch.
join us, i miss you faces..

lots of love.