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.

procrastinaesh.

it´s possible i thought that i would stop procrastinating after i was done university. you know, real life, real job.. no more procrastination.
i was wrong.
i am here, writing an entry about nothing really, listening to salvapantallas by jorge drexler on repeat and just pondering the work that i should be doing at 730 on a monday night.
i got on the bus after school on friday, ready to work hard all weekend. of course! i have 68 communication assignments to mark, two quarter exams to set, 3 ´adjusted´ quarter tests to come up with (for students who have joined us late), a brasilian visa excursion to organize, a letter to get back to canada, and lessons to plan for next week that involve making rice krispie squares from a DNA recipe strand. great!
as we were rolling down the mountain, i was telling paola about all the work i was going to get done this weekend. but when i got to mentioning ´the 68 communication assignments´ i realized, eff, i forgot those on the table in my classroom. oops!
maybe that was the jenga block that made the tower fall.
because i didn´t do any work this weekend.
and it was just lovely.
sigh!

can you believe it?

i thought i would share this extREMEly exciting piece of information that ryan emailed me the other day. yesssss chs.

lucky canterbury kids.

do you think if i told them that i was a chs grad too they would come play at granadino?

Arcade Fire Take Over School Lunch
Tuesday, 16 January 2007


Arcade Fire to play for area high school
Chris Lackner, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Tuesday, January 16, 2007

One of the hottest Canadian bands, the Arcade Fire, are treating
Canterbury High School students to an impromptu concert.

While the Arcade Fire's upcoming five-night stints in Montreal and New
York sold-out within minutes, the indie rock super-group is offering an
informal concert at Canterbury's school cafeteria on the evening of Friday,
Jan. 19.

They are donating their time to support the Canterbury Arts Centre
Development Association, a charitable organization that raises arts funding
for the Ottawa school.

Bandmember Richard Reed Parry, both a guitarist and percussionist with
the group, was a 1995 graduate of Canterbury's literary arts program.

The Montreal band's critically-acclaimed 2004 album, Funeral, brought
them international stardom practically overnight.

Their new album, Neon Bible, is set to be released on Mar. 6 and is one
of the year's most anticipated releases.

The band's pending 15-city European tour has also sold-out nearly all of
its dates.

Tickets for the Canterbury show are open to students, grads and CACDA
members, and can be bought for $25 at school lunch hour today and tomorrow.


There are limited tickets remaining and none will be sold at the door.

gack.!

ferias.

my town is FULL of people. it´s really quite incredible.

more photos from canada.

before i head back, here are the highlights.
check out these albums.

http://queensu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2067634&l=9e034&id=81006693

http://queensu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2067646&l=1c819&id=81006693


yesss.

changes.

that´s just the way it is.

i am so hesitant about change and i´m really not sure why i don´t embrace it. i tend to be a relatively positive person, but when it comes to changes in routine or location i generally have a negative outlook.

one week before coming to canada from manizales, anxiety set in. i have to go home for awhile. i have to leave friends and special ones here, and i won´t see them for three weeks. i can´t imagine what i would do if i wasn´t coming back to manizales. i´m not ready yet to get back to canada. i don´t know what the eff i should bring home. it would just be easier to stay here.

spent a day or two at home in ottawa feeling a bit culture shocky but adjusted relatively quickly. especially when it meant hanging out with some of my favourites here, seeing movies at the bytowne, playing catan seafarer´s at andrew´s farm, going to kingston to see my grandparents, indian and thai food, hanging with the fam, buying new pants that are long enough for me, and spending some time at cisv winter camp.

now that i have gotten used to being back in canada, a form of anxiety has set in again. tomorrow i am going back to bogota, and then sunday back to manizales. it´s as if i have come back to an old life i had here once, gotten right back into it and now i´m moving back to the new stuff in colombia that has been at the back of my mind since arriving here.
i think while i was away, i forgot how much i love being here and being close to people that really, really know me. sometimes it is hard to find that other places... or atleast it takes more time than a few months.

i know that once i get back to manizales and my ´new - old´ life starts up again, i will feel lots better. i always forget the wondrous things that are awaiting me there: latin music everywhere, salsa dancing, 2000 peso cervezas, friends and ferias, warm hearts and warm weather, diego´s cooking...

yes. i am excited to go back.