Rocking that *International* Paradise

This post deviates from the format of most of my posts.  It's not about an experience I've had recently.  It's simply my opinions and thoughts on a book I happen to be reading with my students.  If you've never read The Hunger Games  by Suzanne Collins and/or never seen the movie, this post may not make much sense, and I apologize for that.  But if you have, feel free to leave a comment and let me know whether you think I'm overreacting or whether you agree. This quarter, I’m teaching The Hunger Games in 7 th grade.  It’s the second year I’ve taught the book, and I absolutely love the unit.   My unit plan is based on a unit a friend of mine taught and shared with me during our student teaching seminar, my last year in college.  I’ve modified her plans because she originally taught the book to high schoolers, so some of what she did (and the pace she did it at) had to be scaled back.  But I like her ideas, and as I’ve become more familiar with the boo

Most of my students know I’ll be leaving next year, and that I’ll be going to Guatemala.  Sometimes they ask me, “But don’t you like Puerto Rico?”  I answer, “I LOVE Puerto Rico!”  And then they ask, “But won’t you miss us?”  I tell them, “Of course I will.”  And then their next question, inevitably, is, “So why are you leaving, then?”  I tell them I want to see more of the world, experience a different culture.  It’s true, of course, but it always feels a little bit like the prescribed answer of what I’m “supposed to” say.  In reality, I’m leaving in order to better myself professionally at a school where I’ll have more opportunities to grow as a teacher—and I’ve very excited about that.  But the prospect of leaving Puerto Rico really does weigh on me some nights.    I lay in bed sometimes, listening to the sounds through my window—the coquís singing, the steady flow of cars on the freeway (with the occasional burst of loud music coming from one of them), cows baying across the

The great thing about the Guatibirí half marathon that I ran last Sunday, in my opinion, is that I more or less ran it on a whim.  I knew the race existed, and when it was, and after San Blas ( read about it ) I sort of had it in my mind to sign up for it.  But, after the race, I put it out of my mind.  I took a week and a half off of running completely in order to let my knee heal, and then when I did start running again, I did so cautiously, not building up much distance.  A week and a half before the half marathon in Utuado (Guatibirí), I hadn’t run longer than 5 miles since San Blas—a full month previous.  But Lucy told me that though she hadn’t been training either, she still planned to sign up.  After a quick check with my long-distance running advisor/friend to make sure my chances of injuring myself by running the marathon were slim, I decided to sign up.  Lucy and I ran one 10 mile run the week before the half, and I felt good.  But still, that was the only

It’s the simple things in life that make it great, and sometimes I just have to stop moving, sit back, and remind myself where I live.  So often, I feel like on the weekends I need to get out of Guayama and go and see a new and fantastic part of the island.  But sometimes the best days are the ones spent right here on the beach 15 minutes from home.  Because really, what do the famous resort beaches have that we don’t have right here? Saturday, we met at the beach at about 1pm.  Robert had his hammock strung up between two palms, the car stereo playing us music, our chairs set up, cooler nestled in the shade of a tree, grill waiting for our hunger to kick in.  We call this beach "Corona West." (Locals call it Playa el Faro, Arroyo)  The weather was perfect, the sand was soft, the water was clear enough to study the sand dollars on the bottom (which doesn’t happen often on this side of the island), the sun was out, and we had the beach more or less to ou

Next weekend, there’s a half marathon in Utuado called the Guatibiri del Otoao.  Neither Lucy nor I have really been distance running or training since San Blas, but we were both thinking of giving next weekend’s half marathon a go.  We decided to get together for a long run this weekend and see how things went.  However, when I texted her to find out what time to meet her on Sunday morning, the response was, “Vamos hacer una larga en Jajome con un grupo q viene d San Juan q va para el Guatibiri.  Hay q estar a las 6:00am t va conmigo llegas a mi casa!”  (Loose translation: We’re going to do a long run in Jajome with a group that’s coming from San Juan and is going to run Guatibiri.  Be at my house at 6am and we’ll go together from there.”)  6:00am?  On a Sunday morning?  But that would mean getting up at 5am (which is earlier than I EVER get up for school), leaving the house by 5:20, driving to Salinas, meeting Lucy, and then driving to Cayey/Jajome—all before the sun came

This Sunday, Josh and Amanda and I decided to try out a new trail in El Yunque—La Coca Trail.  We got an early start because we planned to take our time and explore the forest at the three river crossings we’d read that we would encounter on the trail.  At the first river crossing, there was very little water flowing, and the river was only ankle deep.  A glance to the left, though, showed us a waterfall just upriver.  We trooped over to it and spent some time taking photos and climbing up to the top of it.  There really wasn’t enough water to swim, so we returned to the path after not too long.  Waterfall #1 Some time after the 2 nd river crossing (little more than a trickle of water), we saw a larger waterfall off to our right.  A trail led off the main trail and down to the river—but not to the big waterfall we’d seen.  So we climbed up around the smaller waterfall the trail had taken us to.  This required a bit of work…a muddy, steep slope without a lot of foothold

I like food.  I like Puerto Rican food.  My friend Kezia also likes food.  And, being Puerto Rican, she knows how to cook Puerto Rican food.  So, a few weeks ago, we started a Thursday night tradition of a cooking lesson followed by a movie.  With any lucky, by the end of this semester, I’ll be able to make all my favorite foods without her watching over my shoulder to make sure I don’t screw up.  For last night’s adventure (churrasco with yellow rice and tostones), I remembered to bring my camera so I could document each step of the process.  It started with this array of ingredients. First step was the rice.  We dumped some of the seasonings into a pot and heated them up, then added water, and when that got hot, we added the rice. That cooked for a while, and meanwhile we set our meat to marinating and got started on our tostones.  Tostones, for those that don’t know, are fried green plantains.  We discovered when we got home that our plantains had ripe