Almost to a Break!

Top three quotes of the past week or two:

1. "Oh hey guys!" (The way he said it actually made me think I knew who he was for a minute.)
"I'm single and looking for a girlfriend."
--random guy on the street to Kim and I

2. "I'm done!" --girl in seventh grade (one of my best students) during journal
"No you're not! You never are." --one of my usually not-so-good-students

3. "I want to kill the person who invent journals. But first I want to obligate that person to do 100 journals."
--seventh grader in her journal

Classic. In other news, seventh grade won their free day last week! (If no one stays in from recess all week, they get to play a game on Friday.) Unfortunately I actually didn't end up having seventh grade on Friday because we had a half day (they were fumigating the school for mosquitos), so we played the game this week -- but it was priceless: my seventh graders were so disappointed that we didn't have language class. Never thought I'd see the day. Now that I have discipline under control I might actually begin to teach them something.

In other unrelated news, Kim and I made a new friend (sort of) last week! So we finally introduced ourselves to the girl who works at Frappebook (the coffee/smoothie cafe we go to all the time)--turns out she's 18 and just went to school up through 9th grade (not that unusual here). Anyway, she's really nice and we got talking and she was asking us what we like to do for fun...and I was like, perfect, a new friend,  let's hang out on the weekends! And then she found out where I teach and was like, "Oh no way! Those are all the people I hang out with..." And she proceeded to list all of her best friends that she hangs out with all the time...all of my eleventh and twelfth graders. I've said it once and I'll say it again: this town is just too small.

As another random note, in the last two weeks or so I've seen two things I've never seen before: 1. a rainbow where I could see both ends touching the earth. Maybe that doesn't sound too exciting, but have you ever really seen a full rainbow before? They're pretty cool. 2. A mini tornado. Ok that also sounds a bit crazy, but Kim and I were walking back from the bus one day and there was this mini tornado coming down the road. It was pretty sweet...I kind of didn't know what to do, and then it turned and went down the other road.

I think that's about all to report...we had a Valentine's Day celebration at school yesterday, which was a lot of fun. They always make a HUGE deal out of holidays here. Kim and I stayed up late making cookies for all the kids, which they really liked (we kind of made up a cookie recipe since we don't have brown sugar or chocolate chips...and they are surprisingly some of the best cookies I've made I think -- we just put a bunch of peanut butter, oatmeal, and snickers in them).

And we are almost to a break! My dad and Jordan arrive next week Wednesday (a week from today), and they'll be here until Sunday. So I'm taking Wednesday and Thursday off of school! We already have Friday off, because all the teachers from all the schools have a conference in Tegus on Friday and Saturday. We were originally supposed to have Wednesday-Friday off next week for a break, but of course they changed the date like last week (nothing is ever for sure here). But my dad and Jordan already have their tickets obviously, so Justin and I managed to get out of school for those days, as well as the conference! And the best news is they switched the days we have off till Thursday, March 1st and Friday the 2nd, so now I'll get those days off too! So I'm looking forward to a break next week and the week after, and especially to getting out of Catacamas for a few days next week. (I haven't left since I got to Catacamas on January 8, which might be the longest stretch I've gone here without visiting Tegus!)