Wednesday's What and other "stuff"

I'll get to the "what" in a minute. Before that, here's a quick update.

I haven't been feeling well for over a week. The last time this happened, I ended up with the flu and secondary pneumonia, so (with some "encouragement" from my mother) I went to the doctor after school on Monday. I was in and out in record time, considering it's an "urgent care" facility which usually makes you glad that whatever is wrong isn't really THAT urgent! Long story short - I have strep! This wasn't too surprising given that 3 of my students were out with it and the 2nd grade teacher had it also! This gave me a "get-out-of-school-free" card for Tuesday, but it was back to the grind today. I'm still only at about 70%, since I'm still really congested, but I have more energy when I'm "out and about" than when I'm just sitting at home watching the paint fade!
So I came back today to a disinfected room (thanks a BUNCH to my aide and a special mom of my students!) This comes at an especially good time because of grandparent's day this Friday!

Wednesday's What:

What is the strangest thing you have "hanging around" your house/apartment?

I'll leave you with these pictures as my answer:

mustache

I know -- great job keeping up with the blog! I even missed my 2nd "Wednesday's What?" OK, so here it is:

What do you like to do on the weekends? I like to stay home and try to get moved into my apartment. I've been there since September, but still have boxes to unpack!

Mustache:

We had this word in our Reading book this week. I asked one of the students to read it to me. I guess this shows the usefulness of phonics! They pronounced it: must ache. I don't know if people who have them feel that way, but I was proud of their effort!

I'm on a roll!

Look at me! I posted 2 days in a row!!!

Sorry, no pictures this time. I don't really have anything to say just yet -- I just wanted to get into the habit of posting. Ummmmmm . . . OH!! Karen has a "Monday Moment" -- I have a Wednesday's What? This is me asking a question for all my faithful want-to-be readers (hard to read nothing!)

Question for today: What is your favorite kind of soup? I recently tried Chicken Tortilla Soup -- you put it on Tortilla chips and top it with cheese (and sour cream if you like it) It was VERY good! I need to get the recipe from my friend!

Did I say end of the week??

I meant end of the weak-ness known as never posting on my own blog!

I send out heartfelt apologies to everyone who has been faithfully checking to see if I will EVER post something. I FINALLY have some pictures of my trip to Chile. I was thinking about just posting some, but I think I'll go ahead and do them all, or it may be another 3 months until you see any more!!

The first couple are from the plane on the way there. Oh, just as a reminder, I went on a Mission's trip to Pirque, Chile, the week before Thanksgiving. (Yes, in 2007 -- it hasn't been THAT long since I posted!) Anyway, these are from the plane:





















On Sunday, we traveled to the city (Santiago) to attend church. My friend, Teresa, translated for us. This red building is the church, and the woman in the middle of the picture is Mrs. Park. She and her husband were in charge of the work group, as they are every year. After the first service, they invited us to stay for some snacks before the next service began. These services were especially applicable because we were there on the International day of prayer for the persecuted church. It was so awesome to hear people in another country talking about Christians in other countries who are persecuted for their beliefs.





















The girl in the middle of the picture is Jackie. She and her husband, John are raising support to be full-time at the camp. They, along with Jared (Pastor and Mrs. Park's son) will be directing the camp ministry and planting a church in Pirque.

Sunday night, they had a service at the campground. A group of Chileans sang some songs, both in English and in Spanish. We sang songs together in English and in Spanish, then we sang one song with English-speakers singing in English, and Spanish-speakers singing in Spanish. It was a wonderful time of worship!!

















The next day, it was time for work! As I mentioned before, we painted just about everything wooden at that camp. They didn't have drywall in the rooms, it was all wooden paneling, wooden door and window frames, and wooden awnings. They were replacing most of this with unpainted wood, so guess what we got to do!! Everything needed 2 coats of paint. We were there for the last week of work, so most of the inside painting was already finished. Outside the two dorms . . .


















. . . on both sides were two long porches. The underside of these porches, and the awnings needed to be painted. We painted two coats on one side and one coat on the other 3 sides, along with some of the new window frames and even . . . ceilings!!



















































We sometimes had to get up early enough to help with breakfast. Some did better than others . . .


































We ate every meal outside and had beautiful weather the entire time we were there. (sorry about the funny angle on this one -- I was being "artistic")

















Of course, you can't visit another country without seeing some interesting creatures. There are two main kinds of spiders we were told to watch out for: the chicken spider and the araña de rincón spider. The chicken spider is the one you see crawling on Hermon's arm (he had been there since the beginning of the work trip and built most if not all of the window frames and screen frames, and skylights . . ) We were told that chicken spiders are harmless, just REALLY BIG. The other one (rincon -- pronounced ran - CONE) are the ones we were told to watch out for. We checked our sleeping bags every night and hadn't seen one the entire time we were there . . . until Wednesday. We walked into the room and saw it on the wall, hence, the shoe-print on the wall!


























As we were "admiring" the shoeprint, I noticed the third critter crawling out from under one of the beds! We were sharing a room with a scorpion, too! I asked how to get rid of it and they said to step on it, but that just seemed a little strange to me, so we caught it in a plastic cup and one of the Chileans who lived close by played with it outside until we left for the internet cafe.


















One evening, just before sunset, we walked to the top of a hill behind the camp. We saw another spider on the way up! The hill was REALLY steep, with very little grass, so it was a little difficult to get up. When we got there, it was worth it! The view was spectacular and we were rewarded with a beautiful sunset. On the way back, we took some pictures beside a VERY LARGE cactus.
































































When our work was finished at the camp, we had scheduled a couple extra days to spend with Teresa. We visited the Cerro san Cristobal and saw some beautiful flowers at the ampitheater.










































































After our morning of "smelling the roses", we took a bus to the Vina del Mar to see the PACIFIC OCEAN!! This was, obviously, my first time to see the Pacific Ocean, so it was very exciting for me. We didn't go swimming since we only had about an hour or so (we spent too much time doing other things that morning -- shopping and touring). We took the bus back to the city and left the next day for the States.

















































Here is a parting shot of the coastline of Chile from the plane:




















These are a couple of us "enjoying" the plane ride and food! (and a nice sunset from the plane)
































That's my trip to Chile. I have a powerpoint presentation I did for the elementary students at my school. If you ever want to see it, just let me know and I'll show it for you. It's too large to send over the internet, so you'll just have to come visit me!!

Chile . . . then chilly!!

soooooo . . . .

It's been a long time since I've written. I really don't have time to do this, but I feel I owe it to everyone. Since my last blog, I've visited the BEAUTIFUL country of Chile! I went to Santiago for about 8 days to help a campground just outside the city prepare for their summer camps. One of my VERY good friends (Miki) and her sister, Lisha, and I joined a team of about 10 or so other people working on the camp. We spent most of our time polyurethane-ing the buildings around the camp. They had just refurbished many of the windows and frames, and put up walls and ceilings to finish off some rooms and make others more live-able. We had a GREAT time. We had been wanting to go on a mission's trip for a while, and when we found out about the trip to Santiago, we jumped on it. Part of the motivation was my college roommate -- Teresa. She grew up in Chile and was in Santiago while we were there. Everyone worked hard to be sure she didn't know we were coming -- and it worked! She was SO surprised to see us! We were able to stay 2 days later than needed and spend some time with her in the city, and visiting the coast -- I got to visit another continent, another country, and another ocean all in the same trip!! I hope to have some pictures of the trip up by the end of the week.

That was Chile -- now on to the chilly!

Since returning, it has gotten colder! It was so toasty-warm in the hot Chilean sun (it's spring there, by the way) . We got back on Nov. 18th -- my 27th birthday -- and were greeted with about 1-2 inches of snow!! I LOVE WHEN IT SNOWS ON MY BIRTHDAY!!!! School last week was crazy and this week is turning out to be a repeat with more hyper-activity and talkativeness. Grades are due by Friday and I have an un-decorated tree in my apartment, surrounded by boxes full of stuff that needs to be put up!!! Maybe the first part of my comment on Karen's blog wasn't too far from being helpful!!

Science Class

Things have been crazy!! I love what I'm doing -- I could teach all day. Just PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME GRADE ANOTHER PAPER!!! I'm finally caught up (though I'm apparently working very hard to keep myself at school until 7 every night! -- my real goal is to leave by 5 or 5:30 -- it's 5:37 as I'm typing this and I still have papers to grade!!)

Report cards went out today. My first round of report cards ever -- so everyone is happy, right?? Hopefully we'll use this as a time to iron out any kinks -- that's all I have to say about that.

On to Science class -- We've been learning about invertebrates and desert animals. Today we finished up the section on Desert animals and we were reviewing for a quiz. I asked where desert animals go to escape from the hot sun.

Answer #1 -- They dig a tunnel so they can go underground.

Me -- Exactly -- it's cooler underground. Where else might they live?

Answer #2 -- They live inside a cactus -- oh, and they can invite their friends over and use the juice from the cactus and go swimming in the hot tub!

I laughed so hard at that! At least I know he understands!

For some clarification

Thank you, mom, for your undying support of me. I appreciate you sticking up for my speling abilities. (and yes, Karen, that one was on purpose, too!!)

As a pictoral example of my spelling abilities and to confirm my mother's defense of me, I submit the following . . . um . . . picture.



















Today was interesting. I got to "see myself" very clearly through the eyes of a student. Today was her birthday. The last time there was a birthday, the birthday boy wanted to take his extra cupcakes around to the other teachers. So, of course, today's birthday girl wanted to do the same. I told her she could choose ONE person to go with her. To which she directed to the students, "I'm waiting for it to be quiet!" When they didn't quiet down, she went to the front of the room, sat in a chair and stared at them. I noticed this and just had to laugh, because I have done this MANY times before I read a story to them after recess. She just sat there and said, "I'll take whoever is the quietest." My teacher's aide was there with me helping me get some papers together and I just had to laugh. It's so funny what they pick up on. Now, does she know what the Science lesson today covered? . . .