Ta-da!

Ta-da! I fail at blogging. I will now paste together a short string of stories in the order that they pop into my head. Do not attempt to put them into chronological order. Trust me, it's futile.

There are some amazing Ficus trees here in Monteverde. Just a dreadful hike up one of the numerous steep hills and voila! A stunning view and a dash of danger. It's difficult to say exactly how tall these trees are because they lean out bit and because they grow over a downward slope making them higher than their actual height. I hope you're getting this. My guesstimate is that the one I climbed was about 90 ft. up at the highest point I went to. While I was up there, I was having a good time taking pictures and enjoying the giddy feeling that one gets from being dangerously high, when we spied monkeys! I wish I could tell you what kind they are, but unfortunately, I haven't a clue. I started making monkey calls to them and they got pretty close. About 20 ft. away at the closest. It was awesome!!! After the adventure up in the trees, I started heading back down. I had the camera in my back pocket and was attempting to snake my way around a particularly tricky part of tree that is only manageable by sitting down. Unfortunately, by sitting down, I PUSHED MY CAMERA OUT OF MY BACK POCKET!!!!!!!!!!! Needless to say, I freaked. I was so mad I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe I have been so stupid as to think my camera would be safe in my pocket. There was no way to tell where it had landed except to climb down and search. I began the descent, muttering the entire way to myself things that were the opposite of kind in spirit. About 20 ft. down there was a giant opening. I stopped to peer out (while continuing to mutter) and low and behold, right in front of this giant opening, still about 70 ft. above the ground below it, I found my camera. I frantically grabbed it and looked it over. It being dark, there was no way to tell if it still worked. I turned it on the review my pictures and it said there were no pictures to display. My instinct was to panic but I calmly turned my camera over and popped open the back to find that it simply didn't work because the SD card had ejected inside the camera. I pushed it back in and hey presto! Works like a dream. You know what the best part is? There is not a single dent, paint chip or scratch. Not on the lense, not on the exterior. I count myself to be a very, VERY lucky girl.

One day, as Nate was walking me home from Calle's house (after movie night, dontchya know it's dangerous for a girl to be walking alone at night?), we were making friendly banter, probably talking about his dislike of horses (since there was a herd of them in the field we were passing) when all of a sudden, we heard a giant crack from the other side of the road (the "jungle" side). What sounded like a very decently sized tree came crashing down. Needless to say, I let out a little scream and took off running. We laughed the rest of the way home.

I had to give another Boleta last week to one of the same kids who I gave one before. For the same reason. Middle finger. Apparently it's a very popular insult amongst 1st graders. Who knew!? So, I gave it to her and she immediately started bawling. It was very disconcerting until I realized that she kept checking my face for reactions before letting out more sobs. So I sat her down next to me, waited til her sobs subsided and then explained that she was getting a Boleta for 2 reasons. One, because giving the middle finger is a very bad thing to do. Two, because she broke her promise to never do it again. One of the other 1st graders came up and asked why she was crying. The child replied, "I got another Boleta and since my mom is home, she will take away my internet." At that moment, any sympathy I had for her left me. After class, when no kids were around, I smiled to myself at the precious, silly minds of 1st graders. Oh, the fear of punishment.

This last week has been review week. This means that very little new material is presented and I need to make sure I know exactly what I'm testing so that each class reviews the correct material. Luckily, I made my mock tests up ahead of time so I knew exactly what to put on the review sheet. I finished making my actual tests just a few minutes ago in fact. All I have to do is print them and give them on the proper day. The rest of my week will be spent catching up with entering grades (mainly for daily work) and preparing for the last half of the trimester. The school year ends in December. It's such a weird concept to me. It's backwards! We have summer break from December to February but we are supposedly doing some English classes in January. We'll see. That basically means that I have about a month of break. All of December. I better come up with something to do during that time.