This is turning into a one-person blog...

Hola! Haven't updated in a while (ahem, Justin, donde estas?) so here's what I've been up to the last couple of days. (Believe it or not I've been finding stuff to do in this town as of late!) First of all, I should be able to update more often because I just bought my second-best purchase of the trip (besides the fan, obviously): an internet stick. It's a USB that lets me get the internet anywhere I go. Ok, ok, that sounds like a very gringo-ish thing to buy, but cut me a little slack -- pretty much all of the other teachers have one. I figured I'd join the crowd...well, that and there's nowhere to get wireless here so unless I hog my family's comp or use a janky computer at an internet cafe I can't get on the internet anywhere. Plus it turned out to be a blessing in disguise because Justin had a crush on the girl I bought it from at the internet place so he inconspicuously (oops is that spelled right? it was a vocab word this week for tenth grade too...oops) decided to buy more minutes for his phone, which required him to give his phone number to the girl. Classic.
Anyway. Basketball practice started yesterday! It's hilarious. Honestly, you should have seen the lay-up drills...and besides we have like one girl on the team who is in fourth grade and two in twelfth grade and everyone in between. It's great. So I've kind of just been playing alongside them so far but I'll probably start helping out the coach more as it goes.
So I have practice after school from 3 to 4 and then the secretaries just started doing zumba in the cafeteria from 4 to 5! So I've joined them a) because it's hilarious; b) why not?; and c) because they are my ride home. It's so funny...and even more so because the video is translated to Spanish...and I just laugh the whole time but they are taking it all seriously!
Then I went over to one of my student's houses the other day to help her with math because she failed her last test...it was funny because when I got there there was literally like 6 of my other students there! I guess they are all cousins or related in some way...I swear everyone's somehow related in this town. Her family was super nice and her mom made me dinner and everything.
So let's see what else...I celebrated my birthday with two cakes on Saturday when I was in Tegucigalpa. Let's just say it was a success. We had one with Justin's host family and then we bought a cheesecake to take to the host family I lived with when I was here three years ago. It was great to see them again! Justin and I also decided to make no-bake cookies...turns out his fam doesn't have any measuring cups or anything...so we guessed on all the ingredients. They actually turned out decent!
As for teaching, it's still a little crazy but the students just crack me up. I decided having a sense of humor is the key to not going insane. Literally, I can't even remember what the tenth graders were doing today but I finally just put my head on the desk laughing and impulse assigned them some random pages to work on. That's how the last hour of the day always is. Impossible to do anything productive. Then one of my seventh graders the other day made me laugh so hard...they were "working on their journals" (but not actually working obviously) because I try to have them write for the first five minutes of every class...and one of my students yells out, "Miss, Miss, I'm done!!" Background story on this is that I tried to drill it into their heads that they are never "done" because they always need to write for five minutes or until I stay stop. So the first day I had had them write down on the first page of the journal 3 simple rules: "1. I will write for 5 minutes. I am never done; 2. I will write the date.; and 3. I will write in pencil." So anyway by this point I'm fed up and I've had it because the students will not quiet down and I've been trying to get them to write silently for the last four weeks without success. Plus I'm trying to go around and check homework and like two kids have it done. And everyone's talking and yelling and running around like chickens with their heads cut off. So anyway this student yells that he's done and I literally yell, "JOSE ISAAC, WHAT IS THE FIRST RULE OF YOUR JOURNAL??!!!!" And he just gets this super disappoined and resigned look on his face and recites perfectly, "I'm never done with my journal." And I just burst out laughing. The way he said it was just hilarious.
That was yesterday but then today I gave them a word search for their spelling words and they literally worked silently on it for like twenty minutes without me even telling them to. It was nuts. They have NEVER been that quiet in my class before. You just ever know what's going to work.
Ok, and finally, here are some pics!! More to come hopefully...but they take a while to download so here's a couple anyway.

Here's me lesson planning in the dark because the power was out...you can't really tell because of the camera flash but notice the candles...anyways my host dad took this picture without me knowing it and was like, "Now you can show your fam this picture and they can see how hard you are working and the conditions you have to deal with." Haha. So here it is...the power is out again right now (shock) so I'm sitting in my room working in the dark again...

Here's me and some of the other teachers...we did some sort of a drama for El Dia del Nino (Children's Day). We literally spent hours working on those masks one day after school...it was crazy. I'm still a little confused about the storyline/moral but whatever -- the kids thought it was funny anyway.

And here's my host family (and Justin, obviously) that I stayed with 3 years ago when I was here (and some cousins...my host mom took the pic) celebrating my bday with me on Saturday.
I have more pics that I took of the school, my house, etc. and I'll put them up soon! Like I said, the download speed is a little painful...