March 1, 2010

It is already March and I have been in Honduras for almost 2 months. I feel like I just left the airport in Detroit and was embarking on this experience, and here I am one-third of the way through it. It’s hard to believe it’s already been two months, but as they say, time flies when you are having fun.

Sorry I never got a second entry posted last week. I had something written up and decided it was something I wanted to work on a little bit more before I posted it. I am hoping it will be my entry for the end of this week.

So it is Monday and per usual it feels like a Monday. Although I am not dragging as much as I was at this point last week, I am still feeling a little off. I had a tough class period with my 8th graders. I tried having them do a debate in class today over state’s rights and the issue of nullification. I was specifically using the Tariff of Abomination as the example (for the record, I used the example of toilet paper that my 7th grade history teacher used when she taught me this) of if the state’s had the right to nullify a federal law. I had originally planned to do this Thursday and Friday of last week, but because I got behind a little I had to do Friday and today. The students had a good grasp on the issue Friday but as most cases with the weekends the students had 2 days to forget it. I gave the students 15 minutes of prep time in class today but they just didn’t get it. Pair that with this being their first attempt at a debate and I’d say the lesson blew up in my face and I had to scramble to solidify the point of the lesson and what I was trying to have them do. But oh well, that is the life of a teacher. You can’t always walk away from a lesson saying you nailed it, because rarely that happens. You take what is given to you and do what you can. That was me today in class with my 8th graders. Overall, it was a great learning experience for a new teacher like myself.

It was a pretty good weekend as well. For what felt like the 4th straight weekend it rained and was cold on Saturday, so we ended up not going to town (which also means my desperately needed haircut will have to wait another week). So instead I tried to get a little work done but that ended in me taking a nap. Later in the afternoon two of the teachers from the Abundant Life Christian School in La Union came up (they were in Gracias for the weekend along with two others who worked at another school about 40 minutes from Gracias) the mountain and we hung out at the girls place for a couple of hours. As dinnertime approached a group of us decided to go back down to Gracias with them and grab dinner as well. It was a lot of fun talking with all of them. They were all European and all recent high school graduates who are doing a one-year program teaching here in Honduras (we have two of them at my school as well but they had gone to Tegus for the weekend). Three out of the four girls were from the United Kingdom and the other was from the Netherlands. I couldn’t imagine doing what I am doing right now right after I graduated from high school—thoroughly impressive.

Sunday’s weather cooperated a little better but since I had fallen a sleep and then hung out with the girls I had a lot of work to do. I did get a chance to make it down to the river later in the afternoon but unfortunately the sun had already made its way behind the mountains. I guess that tan will have to wait another week. Speaking of tan, Rachel and I worked on the spring break plans this weekend. I am not sure if I mentioned it before but Rachel has two friends coming down for break and I have one—in fact my buddy Steve was able to get an almost identical flight schedule as the two girls. All of us including Laura Beth and my buddy Mike, who is finally in La Union working on setting up a microfinance company, will be hanging out over spring break. We booked our hostel in Copan, which is where there are some Mayan ruins that we are going to check out. We are then working on picking out a hotel down in Tela, which in on the coast, which is where we are going to spend the rest of the week after Copan. That is only 4 weeks away and I am getting really excited for it.

Anyway, this is a pretty long entry so I’ll let you guys go. Sorry I haven’t posted any recent pictures, I need to start taking more of them. I’ll try and post some pictures of me in class with my students in the next couple of weeks. Adios for now.