What a Week!

I, my friends, am spent. 
And who wouldn’t be, after the week I had? 

To start with, last week I was in my 3rd Framingham class.  I’ve mentioned my masters classes a few times before, but never discussed them in detail.  The program that my school partners with for teachers to earn a masters in International Education from Framingham State University was one of the major reasons I accepted my position here.  I am now 1/3 of the way through the program. 
The way it works is really pretty cool.  A professor comes to Guatemala, and for two weeks, we have class Monday-Friday from 4-8pm.  It makes for a long two weeks because we still of course teach every day until 3pm, but it’s really not that bad.  I’ve loved my classes.  This last one was on Curriculum, and so it was completely applicable.  I was able to plan a few units that I am really excited to teach soon.  The class was also, of course, a little bit draining, so I’m breathing a sigh of relief that this week I’ll have my evenings free again.

But that was far from the only thing going on this week. 

We had a crazy messed up schedule at school, because Tuesday was a half day for students followed by an afternoon of professional development for teachers.  Then on Thursday, we took our first fieldtrip of the year to a plant where they sterilize fruit flies.  (The kids had been studying invasive species in Science class).  The day was great—beautiful weather, an interesting tour, and informative tour guides (even though the tour was all in Spanish and I didn’t catch the finer details)—but oh, was it tiring.  One of my highlights of the day, though, was watching the kids run around playing soccer after eating lunch on a field at the plant.  Soccer is such a big part of the culture here—some of those kids can handle the ball like they’ve been doing it since they could walk (because they probably have been).  It was pretty cool to watch. 
On Friday, classes were half as long as they normally are, and we had twice as many classes than we normally would in a day.  It was actually a refreshing change of pace, and I think most of the kids liked it too.

And then to backtrack, of course, there was the fact that last Sunday morning, I woke up and realized it was very difficult to use my left hand.  I couldn’t manipulate my fingers to put my hair into a ponytail, and when I went to give someone a high five, I realized I couldn’t lift the fingers straight into the air at all.  Apparently I pinched a nerve while sleeping Saturday night.  It was almost three days before I could fully use it again (which was lucky, because sometimes things like that can take weeks or months to heal, I learned).  It was frustrating more than anything, and I’m pretty sure my friends tired of hearing about it. 

I took this picture because I was really excited to be
able to do this with my hand again.

But the hand went back to normal, and on the same day, I had perhaps the most exciting moment of the week. I bought a car!  I am proud to introduce to all of you Moses, my new Volkswagon Parati Crossover.  (Why the Biblical name?  Last Saturday, I was out to breakfast with friends right before going to test drive it, and one of them asked what type of car it was.  I responded, “It’s a Passover…Crossover…something.”)  Moses and I have already taken several short trips together in the city, and I love him more each time I drive him.  I wasn’t really planning to look for a car until the end of the year.  I wanted one to just fall into my lap.  And then…this one sort of did.  An email went out at school, the test drive went okay, the people selling it are wonderful, and the price was right.  It’s so liberating to repeatedly realize that if I want to go somewhere, I can just go without checking other people’s schedules and seeing if anyone else has to make a trip.  And if my friends’ cars break down, now I can be the one to take us all to the restaurant or wherever we were planning to go. 

It's Moses! 

So that was my week, in a nutshell.  The Monday through Friday part, anyway.  On Saturday I went to a 4 hour training to be team manager of Destination Imagination (which I’ve already been doing for the past 3 months), did my laundry, finished my homework for my completed masters class, and joined friends for a night of food, laughter, and games.  Sunday brought me a leisurely run followed by 2 ½ semi-intense hours of Ultimate Frisbee.  8 of our 7th graders came and joined their teachers in playing!  We played one game of eight 7th graders vs six adults.  We tried to play fair…and coach the kids from the sidelines…but I’m pretty sure we beat them 5-0.  They probably needed to be taken down a peg anyway.  ;)  

I never bothered to take a picture with my camera,
but Carrie did! 


And now it’s Monday already again, and the new week has begun—though without Framingham to weigh down our schedules.    

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