Rocking that *International* Paradise

I’m a pretty happy person all the time.  I’m optimistic and tend to find the bright side in life.  I have also been incredibly blessed with fantastic opportunities, and I think my life is pretty great. This December, though, I’ve been consistently happier than I can remember being in a long time.  Things have lined up well for me, and the next year will bring me a lot of good things.  So of course, my time home for the Christmas holidays has been filled with lots of happy.  I mean, come on…the good things started with the flight home.  Somehow when I booked my flight, the website put me into first class (without any price increase).  It’s the first time I ever flew first class, and I love it.  I’m probably spoiled already; flying coach is going to seem shabby after this.  So, even though last Saturday I spent 14 hours traveling, 6 hours sitting in first class made it all worth it.  I love being home for the holidays.  My family Christmases are steeped in tradition,

Sunday night, I lay in bed at 11pm, having a stern talking with my brain, telling it to stop thinking about how great life was and to please let me sleep.  My brain had been refusing to listen for the past hour, and I was a bit frustrated with it.  And then my phone buzzed.  Normally when a friend asks “what are you doing?” at 11pm on a school night, I would be tempted to reply with “Sleeping. Go away.” or just not replying.  And in fact, my answer Sunday night semi-resembled the former.  However, my friend replied that he was going to parrandear , and asked if I wanted to come along.  Well…I wasn’t sleeping anyway, and the chance to experience a Puerto Rican cultural event really shouldn’t be passed up.  Parrandas are sort of a funny tradition.  It’s basically really obnoxious caroling.  You stand outside someone’s house in the middle of the night, and then loudly bang on drums and sing Christmas songs until the residents wake up, let you in, and share their food and dri

There are so many reasons why I love my life right now.  The sun is shining, there’s a warm breeze blowing, I have 3 half days of school left before Christmas break begins, I live on a beautiful island, I have fantastic friends and a wonderful family, a great job, and there are—as always—travel plans in my future.  And I got to go to an amazing concert last night. I sort of decided to go to the Calle 13 concert on a whim, because Jenni, Kelsey, and Kezia were going, and I didn’t want to be stuck at home alone on a Saturday night.  Excellent choice on my part.  I didn’t know much about Calle 13 until the past week or so.  I’d heard a few of their songs and liked them, but that was it.  Once I’d purchased my ticket, I started listening to more of their music—and found I liked it.  I also found out that in 2009, the group was banned from performing in Puerto Rico by the then-mayor.  With San Juan under new leadership, they were allowed back for the first time last night.  25,

I don’t always believe in fate.  But there are some things that happen, and the odds just stack up against you.  And you can’t help but think nothing you could have done would have changed the outcome.  You can’t change your fate.  Saturday morning, I had a goal: get to the beach as early as possible to enjoy the day.  Amanda and Josh also had a goal: avoid a flat tire.  We both took measures to make sure our goals would be reached.  But fate had other plans.  Saturday, because six of us were going to the beach, we took two cars.  Because I wanted to spend as much time as possible in the sun, I went in the early car with Amanda and Josh.  We left Guayama by about 8:30am, right on schedule.  Amanda and Josh, likewise, tried to avoid a flat tire by going to get new tires on Friday evening.  They purchased used tires and were pleased with the speedy service of getting them changed.  We both thought we’d achieve our goals. Nope.  At about 9:45am, we felt a familiar

Sometimes, I admit, I write a blog post simply because I’m out with friends and they say, “Take a picture!  For the blog!”  And then, well, I feel I’m obligated. Even so, my first ever baseball game should probably merit a post anyway. Friday afternoon, Sonja texted me and said they were going to a baseball game in Ponce, and stopping at Chili’s before, for an “all-American night.”  Funny thing is, before I came to Puerto Rico, I had never been to a baseball game OR to Chili’s!  So for me, I guess perhaps both “American” pastimes may be tinged with Puerto Rican flavor in my memories.  Still, I was all in for the evening. The evening went just exactly according to plan.  Our waiter at Chili’s was from Connecticut, and from out seats the view through the window was of Burger King…we could have been in Anywhere, USA.  After dinner, we headed to the game: Ponce Leones vs Santurce…somethings.  We paid $7 for our entrance tickets and took our choice of seats.  We sat on the fir

I may have a problem.  International teaching job fairs are addicting.  After I finish one, I find myself thinking how amazing the next one will be and the things I will do differently.  I had such thoughts after the UNI fair two years ago.  Now, my plan has long been to end my international stint after my next placement—Guatemala, as it turns out.  But after this fair, I find thoughts, unbidden, coming to my mind such as, “In two or three years, I’ll have a masters in International Education and 4 or 5 years of international experience.  I’d have a free ticket to practically any school I wanted to go to.  The job fair would be excellent.”  Oh dear.  My family and friends back home would not be happy to hear these nasty thoughts!  But the fact remains…these job fairs ARE addicting.  There are a few reasons why.        1.  The people International job fairs are always filled with great people to talk to and get to know.  I think it takes a special breed of person to be a

I'll give you a hint...this post ends well!  Oh, what a difference two years makes!  If you’d asked me two years ago, I wouldn’t have said I was particularly unconfident or scared at the UNI Overseas Job Fair—where I landed my job in PR.  But after my experience at the AASSA fair this weekend, I look back and realize that I was nothing more than a scared little puppy at the last fair.  Of course, I had reason to be.  I was fresh out of college, no experience, only my student teaching and a few references to back me up.  It’s AMAZING what two years of international teaching experience will do for you at a job fair, and the doors it will open.  But more on that later. Thursday morning, I left my house bright and early (okay, dark and early) at 6:15am.  I hoped to make it to the San Juan area by about 7:30, so that I’d have a little time to find the park and fly place I had researched and get to the airport by 7:45—2 hours before my flight.  I hit San Juan traffic ou

In 3 days, I will be attending the AASSA International Job Fair.  The goal, of course, is to obtain a teaching job in South or Central American for next year.  3 days to go… and how am I feeling?  My insides are all twisted up.  I’m excited, and nervous, and scared, and unenthusiastic  and skeptical, and confident, and utterly unconfident, and ready.  In short, I’m not really sure how to feel.  The job fair itself will be exciting.  The possibility of a change for next year is exciting.  Seeing a new piece of the world and gaining more teaching experience is what I want to do.  There are tons of possibilities out there, and I can’t wait to see where I end up. But it’s also scary.  I've gotten pretty comfortable in Puerto Rico.  I know my way around.  I have a support system of friends.  I know how the school works and I've got my unit plans down.  I like it here.  Not to mention that being so close to home and in a US territory has its perks.  But,

I love just how much returning to Guayama after time in the States feels like coming home.  The sights on the road, the feeling of pulling up to the fountain at the edge of town, and most of all the smell of my house are comforting.  I really enjoyed my week at “home home,” but it’s good to be back.  And that fact is a beautiful thing.  I wouldn’t normally go to Wisconsin over Thanksgiving break, but I had a special reason to do so this year.  One of my best friends from college got married!  So, Thursday, right after school, Robert and I set off for the Patillas airport, and he flew me to the San Juan airport in his plane.  Talk about riding in style!  Robert's plane San Juan from the air Other than having to run to make a short connection in Houston, my flights went well, and by midnight I had landed in Chicago and was reunited with my friend Ice (college nickname…I can’t call her anything else).  We dr

Political season is officially over in Puerto Rico, as of last Tuesday evening.  The island has a new governor, and the city has a new mayor.  Though I don’t have cable (and so missed out on any political commercials) and I felt pretty far removed from the Obama/Romney race, I experienced my share of political campaigning.  I will not miss the rousing tune of “Con Eduardo estoy yo…” in the streets (though people still tend to sing it to themselves once in a while…it’s pretty catchy).    Nor will I miss the blaring political parades that stopped traffic and sometimes made concentrating while in the house impossible.  But there was some good that came to us because of the mayoral election in Guayama, I must admit.  For weeks, my seventh grade students had been telling me that the mayor of Guayama had promised to give them all tablets.  As in the mobile mini-computer kind of tablets.  One student came in with the case for his tablet and showed me proudly.  I, however, had heard

Puerto Rico is a beautiful place.  Amanda and Josh and I tackled la cueva ventana (the window cave) near Arecibo yesterday, and the view did not disappoint!!  It took us about 2 hours to drive to the window cave.  We parked at Texaco, paid $2 to do so, saw this interesting sign: and set off up the trail to the cave.  The cave was easy to find.  There was one fork in the trail, but thankfully a guy had set up shop there selling bottles of water (I think), and he told us to go to the left.  Once we got to the entrance, we pulled out our light sources (I finally got to use the headlight I got as a graduation present almost 2 years ago!) and set off into the dark depths of the cave.  The walk was pretty short and easy to follow, and soon we saw the light from the window, and then we were there!  We had great timing, as one group of people was just leaving as we arrived, so we had the view all to ourselves.  It was truly magnificent!!  I finally

I wish I had a photo that did the view justice from last evening.  I had one of those, “I just can’t believe I live here,” moments. We arrived at the beach at sunset and waded into the water for a swim.  As we walked slowly out to sea, the view to the right looked like a giant canvas God had painted, using sweeping strokes of pink and gold, gray and white in the sky, and metallic gold for the surface of the water.  As we stepped further out into the quiet evening, the calm golden wavelets welcomed us and caressed us, as with a gentle “hello,” of a caring friend, rather than energetic screams of a young child.  We all felt at peace with our lives as we slowly watched the world change color, the stars come out, the deep green palms in the distance fade to black. As we walked out into the shallow water, Sonja said, “It feels like we’re walking out to heaven.”  We laughed about it, but her words did resonate with me.  Softly walking out to the end of the world…and completely at pe

Slowly but surely, I am checking items off of my “to see” list in Puerto Rico.  Yesterday, Amanda and Josh and I took a hike through the Guanica Dry Forest—one of the places I had not yet explored.  Surprisingly (for us), we didn’t get lost once all day. What we did get was sweaty.  Oh man, did we get sweaty. When I checked the weather before we left home, it said there was a heat index of 105 in Guanica.  Awesome.  Stepping out of the car when we got there was like stepping into an oven.  No…ovens are dry.  You’d think the dry forest might have dryer air than the rest of PR…but it’s just as humid there as elsewhere.  Let me tell you—I’ve gotten used to sweating here.  But yesterday was pretty gross.  Sweat should not form puddles on your clavicle, or drip off of your chin.  Ew.  On the plus side, it was a nice hike!  It was greener than I expected.  But as Josh pointed out—it was the green of weeds, not vibrant foliage.  Also, there were more trees.  I guess I’m not

Time for a teacherly rant.  I hate teaching research.  Hate it, hate it, hate it.  It’s taken me only a year of experience to come to this realization. Let me back-track.  When I started teaching, writing a research paper was one of the things I was most excited to teach.  When I was in school, I loved finding information, organizing it in a different way, putting my own spin in it, and spitting out a research paper.  In my opinion, writing a research paper is simply a process—and one which requires very little deep thought, especially when you’re in middle or grade school and aren’t really expected to add any ideas to the research of others. Here’s what I’m learning: writing a research paper DOES take extensive critical thinking skills, and it’s not as easy for everyone as it is for me.  My Saturday.   Step 1: Find scholarly sources of information for your topic.  Check.  This is pretty easy for my students, after I guide them about how to identify sources they