being thankful

So, Thanksgiving!

I spent this year's lovely turkeymashedpotatoescranberrysaucepie day with the Peace Corps of the DR in Santo Domingo at a lovely little country club. I met a lot of new people (probably too many) and ate a lot of pieces of pie (definitely too many) and got only one extra day off work (way too few). But it was still nice to spend the holiday with people who understand the larger significance of it all, the counting your blessings part and being thankful for all that you have part.

I feel like the day took on special meaning for me just considering my situation down here. Things can be really hard at times, really hard. But despite all the bad stuff, I still feel so incredibly blessed. I have learned and grown so much already in my short time down here. Not only have I been learning Spanish, Dominican culture, and how to be a teacher; I've also been learning patience, flexibility, understanding, and what it means to love with a full heart.

There are a lot of people down here who have so little. There are a lot of people all over the world who have so little. I'm grateful that I don't worry about how to make ends meet. I'm grateful that I've gotten to meet some of the most amazing people and hear the most amazing stories. I'm grateful that I've found a church that warms and inspires me. I'm grateful for a beautiful second grade class full of the most wonderful students. I'm grateful for friends here and friends and family back home who I know I can count on and who will be there for me through everything.

And now Christmas is upon us! Sure there's no snow or even winter sweaters (70+ degrees...) but I'm still excited. My sister will be flying in to see me and we'll go galavanting off for 4 days, after which we'll go meet my parents and resort it up!
As my life has now become Christmas pageants and Angelitos de Navidad and tacky green and red decorations, I feel the spirit of Christmas. More so than I ever have before. I feel family and closeness and being with the ones you care about. And love. What a wonderful season-my heart overflows with the joy of it all!

But the angel said to them. "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord"

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests (Luke 2: 10-11, 14)

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Warm Tidings to you all. May your heart overflow too :)

Did you know you can blow your nose without using a kleenex?
Yeah I didn't either, but I found out today that it is possible

Oh the things kids teach you


Now I'm going to toot my own horn for a minute-
The head head director of the school is impressed by the fact that I haven't had a single negative evaluation. So impressed, in fact, that she wants to start sending the occasional teacher to my class to observe me and see what I'm doing with my kids. How I run my class, how I give a lesson, how I've been (semi) successful in getting my students to succeed...
Since I'm still not 100% sure of what I'm doing, I was blown away by that. Hey! Something I'm finally a natural at! :)

It's Thanksgiving on Thursday, and I just wanted to let you know how thankful I am for YOU. I appreciate each and every one of you, and your thoughts and prayers and emails and phone calls and cards and everything else mean so incredibly much to me, you can't even know.
So thank you. I hope you too feel the weight of all your blessings, on Thursday as well as every day

coming soon to a theater near you

DR THE MOVIE!

There's laughter, there's tears, there's romance, there's life lessons, there's little kids, there's christmas (they started having this holiday in september, no joke), there's parties, there's concerts, there's traveling, there's an overload of empanadas, and there's action-flooding and robbery!

This movie has it all!

To catch you up to speed: the other day I flooded the apartment by leaving the water running (my roommates were hardly pleased, to say the least...). And then the other week my wallet with all my cards, money, and buy 10 get 1 free coupons was stolen while I was getting out of a public car.
But don't worry about the wallet. I went to the police and reported it and they said they'd be opening an investigation.
(Psh, riiiight)

And yet surprisingly I'm still in fairly high spirits!

I have a couple day beach trips planned for this weekend (oh yes, the beach in november. You can be jealous), we're working on the christmas musical at school where I'm busy teaching 7 (yes 7) verses of frosty the snowman to my 2nd graders, I am going to be spending Thanksgiving at a big Peace Corps bash I was invited to in the capital where there will be delicious turkey and pie, and my sister and parents are coming down in ONE MONTH!!

As the holidays get closer I'm remembering more and more just how much I miss you all. Especially YOU

There's still time to visit... ;)

I feel good. Real good.

Tonight we had a parent/teacher meeting at school for everyone to come and get their children's grades. The evening started out with an information session on "How to be a better parent" (I'm sure the parents were a little offended to hear that's how the night was starting off...) and then afterwards they came to my class and I just gave general suggestions for improvement and went over some logistical stuff.

Then they all ran at me.

"How's my kid doing?" "Tell me the truth, what's going on" "What about my daughter? Should I be worried?"

It was nice to see parents so involved, it's just unfortunate that the only parents that came and showed such concern were the ones that really didn't need to be there at all. All of their kids are geniuses and have no problems whatsoever in my class.

My favorite moment of the night:
One of the mothers came up to me and started talking to me about her daughter. She started to get choked up talking about how last year was so hard because it was a new school and her daughter didn't make any friends and she could hardly speak any English. All in all it was just a rough year and a hard time for her.
She then told me that before she left to come to school that night her daughter had asked her if she could go ahead and toast and butter her bread and put it on the table to be ready for her in the morning, because she wanted to wake up really early and be the first one in English class and see Teacher Lesa as soon as possible.

Talk about just being tickled to death. It's stories like that that make me so sure I'm in the right place. And the whole night was just a string of parents telling me that their kid likes English class so much better than Spanish class, and that I'm their kids favorite teacher, and that their kid always comes home talking about what they did in English class and how many stickers they now have for good behavior.
I thought my heart was going to burst with joy.

I can't wait to see my kids tomorrow. And I've really come to view them as just that-my kids. They're especially adorable when they're practicing "brushing off their shoulders" and "popping their collars" and chanting "chug chug chug!" to someone drinking a bottle of water.
Oh yeah I'm educating them ;)

You're not the only ones pumped

So were my kids. Today they came into class chanting "OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA!"

I think it might have something to do with the fact that I told them they wouldn't have any homework if he won...

This country was a little bit excited about the win too. I had a few people that I don't really know come up to me in the street and ask me who I voted for and if I was happy. My replies earned multiple fist pumps :)

I taught them so well

My kids all told me they had voted for Obama.

Overlooking the whole "constitutionally impossible" thing, I was so impressed!

:)

HALLOWEEEEEN

Unfortunately in the Dominican Republic they do not really celebrate Halloween (the selection of masks in the grocery store was limited to 5) and New Horizons, the school where I teach, does not like celebrating Halloween. But my 2nd grade English class celebrates Halloween!

We had the best day ever! My kids and I went all out, and we enjoyed ourselves to the max.
Since it was Friday we had flag ceremony which is when, every Monday and Friday, the whole school stands outside in the blistering heat for 30 minutes while we sing 3 anthems-2 national and 1 school-and then we watch a project presentation that some class has prepared. Yesterday they watched my presentation. Was I given more than a 3 minute warning that I was presenting on the history of Halloween? Noooo. Did I just make up a few things on the spot? Yesssss.
The students were not allowed to dress up, but if they chose they could wear an orange or black t-shirt. We were supposed to continue on with our lessons like normal, but when no one ever comes to supervise your class you take those orders with a grain of salt.
We all gave out candy and let me tell you being such a loveable teacher I hit the JACKPOT! These kids are at the age where they (kinda) like to share. As in, they'll pass out candy generously to every and still have 1/2 the bag leftover, which then prompts them to scream in glee "And I get alllll the rest!".
The big hit was lollipops. I think I got 28. A parent came in and we made paper plate ghosts, we watched Scooby Doo, we made lollipop ghosts, we wrote in our journals about witches, we played with oobleck. And that was just the morning! In the afternoon we had a Mummy wrap contest with toilet paper and then someone had brought in a Halloween spider cake, cheetos, and marshmellows (yeah that one was kind of random).

I thought the kids were going to be even more wild but I think the sheer amount of candy they had eaten before school started at 7:45 made them ready to crash sooner than I had thought.

But the REAL festivities started at 11 that night, when a captain who had fallen overboard joined up with her friends Hugh Hefner and his playboy bunny, the coral reef, and a serial assassin to begin some nightly hijinks...