Rocking that *International* Paradise

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