#My free time has now completely been filled with bugs- spiders and tarantulas.. oh and sometimes P.Layton just pops up lmao

[cloudsrust]

Finally a bit of free time- can finally indulge in re-searching weird bugs to satisfy my obsession for the lil' critters <3

[amodern-don-quixote]

San Ignacio Update

Oh my god … I haven’t posted anything on here in so long! Sorry guys. After the semester started, it really kicked in with the fact that I now have a class with homework to work on every week, and then add an intense application process and a paper to write, I’ve been loosing hair like no other recently. So yea. I’m a bit out of it.

But I will post this now cause I gave the chance to and I feel like I’m on top of all my projects right now.

So, the last time I wrote was back in September, so I think it’s best if I just go by week of what’s happened so far.

So the weekend after I made my last post, my classmates and I went to the nearby archaeological site of Cahal Pech. It’s a Mayan ruin that was built for a wealthy family from what I can understand, and it was lovingly named for the fact that the area was filled with cows and ticks before the ruins were discovered in the ground. Don’t worry: I checked for ticks after we left and I’m tick free as of now. We spent a good hour there wandering around the ruins all the while sweating our heads off. I was freaking drenched by the time we left. But I loved wandering around the site and seeing the ruins up close; I never thought I would be walking around and touching history like this. My amazing time in the outskirts jungle and ruins was destroyed after a tour guide showed a group of tourists a tarantula hole with a massive spider in it close to where we were in the board walk. I about peed myself I was so freaked out.

The rest of the week was spent with me at the school, continuing my observations of the students and planning on what I was going to do once I started teaching. We didn’t really go anywhere that weekend: just hung out, walked around and started planning our small trips the beach while we are here. Oh and we went to go visit the neighboring town of Santa Elena, so I have a few photos from that as well.

So now, last week (the last full week of September) I started taking over one class session for the week. The lesson that I did was rather easy, and helped me get into the hang of things with the kids. I’ve found that having them work in small groups really helps me with the classroom management and also keep me from having to yell at the kids half the time. If I haven’t already told you, I have thirty five kids in this 10th grade class, and it’s so much work just to keep them on pace and track with what they need to do. Anyway as, the lesson went well, the kids actually worked with me, and there were no problems at all. That weekend, my classmates and I went to the border town of Melchor de Menos, Guatemala so I could renew my visa (mine expired that day while my classmates had a few more days to work with as they came later). We had a fantastic time wandering around the market area with our director and her daughter. We got to know them more and we had a good couple of laughs as a massive black bee was following me around half the day and they were just dumbfounded as to why bugs like me so much. All I could say was, they like me, but I don’t like them and they know it. The day suddenly went from all peaches and cream to “I almost got kicked out of the country” very quick as we found out that my classmates and I were not supposed to go spend the day in Guatemala to renew our visas like we had expected. Instead we had to go to the capital and ask for an extension on our tourist visas. No one had told us this, and while I was able to keep my anxiety down at the border, my brain was just flabbergasted as to why no one had told us about this in the first place. So, as I only have a thirty day visa now, I will have to take a day off from teaching and go to the US consulate in the capital and ask for an extension on the new visa I have. Yea. I was a bit peeved, but what can you do?

To talk about this week, again I got to teach and I know for sure I need to work on time management now instead of focusing on classroom management as the kids are fine with me now, and I’m not all too worried about them going crazy. I think from now on I’ll have to use the group sessions whenever I teach because I can handle the munchkins in small groups, not as a whole mass of 13/14/15 year olds. But man were these kids bad this week. My teacher was furious with the way they were acting and disrespecting other teachers. I’m hoping that her furious lecture the other day will set things straight for them, but from now on I’ll have to play bad cop with her for the semester.

So there’s the update for you all! I’m sorry that it has taken me so long to post this, but please understand I have to teach and also I had projects up the wazoo on me to complete while I was here. I promise to post photos when I can. Other that that, I will try to write posts either weekly or every other week.

Thanks again for reading!