So, sorry it’s been a few days since my last entry—I have been pretty busy getting situated at school. Today was my second day there and I am really looking forward to getting my class. First, because my specialty is in history and social studies, the administration has decided to give me the 7th grade World history class, the 8th grade United States history class, as well as the 9th grade Geography class. However, I won’t be starting until the 25th because that is the first day of the third marking period. This was fantastic news for me because coming down here I was planning on teaching middle school math and science. Yikes. Along with these three classes I will also be helping out with the ESL class. The students I will have in this class are students who will be starting at the school next year, so it is really their first English language course. I will not be the lead teacher (thank goodness), but will only be helping with parts of the class, mostly likely phonics. This is going to give me valuable experience working with English language learners but will hopefully also help me pick up more Spanish. So, it looks like I am going to have at least 4 classes, but possibly more because there may be more than one ESL class. I am just really excited about teaching my content area, even though I have to follow a strict laid out curriculum using the textbook (SoE instructors and cohort friends, roll your eyes here).

So the last two days at school I have been planning like a mad teacher. The principal, Mr. Lara, wants me to outline the rest of the school year with the content—basically showing the sequence of what I will be teaching. I need to do this for both of the history classes and the geography class. Along with this, the teacher who has been teaching the history class has fallen behind, and if I am to get through all of the content I need to teach a chapter a week for all three class. This is going to be an adventure and a challenge. However, at least I know the content. This is going to be so much better then teaching subjects I really haven’t had since high school (math and science).

The weather has also finally gotten nice—it was gorgeous today. It was probably about 68 and sunny, with only a few clouds. The mountains also lost much of their clouds (the national park I am near is the largest cloud forest in Honduras, so daily there are huge sections of the mountains hidden by clouds) and were clear. You can see them in the pictures I uploaded, although, those pictures do not serve the beauty of the mountains justice.

So, I am writing this near the end of the school day in Word because I have “sequenced” both World history and U.S. history in a calendar format and I am all “planned” out. I am excited because I am playing soccer with the other male teachers and administrators after school. We are taking on the students and I am looking forward to getting worked over. Not only because I am the white teacher (Mr. Rodrigo has been calling me Landon Donovan since I told him I play soccer) but because I am also greatly out of shape. I’ll let you all know how it goes in my next entry.

Yesterday after school, as we will every Wednesday after school, Mr. Rodrigo took all of the teachers down to town to do our grocery shopping. I finally was able to go into the market place and it was crazy. It is not an open market place like you may think, it was actually in a large building and was very maze like with stands all over the place. I laughed several times while walking about because everything is a mix of anything and everything imaginable including several American things such as Winnie the Pooh sweatshirts and hats. Funny story, earlier this week when I was at the bank setting up my account with Mr. Rodrigo one of the armed policemen who guard the doors to the bank (yeah, armed to the teeth, shotgun and side arm, some at other banks even have rifles) was wearing a Winnie the Pooh sweatshirt… awesome.

I am also picking up a little more Spanish each day. I feel so weird because I just sit there and listen to my host family speak Spanish at night, but the more I listen the more I can pick up, and I hope that this will benefit me in the long run. I need to start practicing more too. I think it will come the longer I am here though, so I am not worried.

Anyway, sorry for the book, I just thought I would give all of you a nice update on what is going on. Feel free to comment!