Homeward bound!

It's a great movie... but also what I will be doing next Monday! I am looking forward to seeing family and friends and celebrating the holidays, but also looking forward to actually DOING something. School has been canceled for the past two weeks due to the tropical storms and the flooding and landslides that followed. Luckily in Maracaibo we have been largely unaffected. Some people that live near the lake north of the city have lost their homes but in the city the only problem we have experienced is an ironic water shortage. For about five days we had water rationing, meaning that we only had water for three hours every day. It really makes you appreciate having water at your disposal!! It also makes me appreciate that my students and I have not been affected by the storms that much. The school is sponsoring a clothing and food drive to help those in need, and if there's anyone that can afford the time and money to help these people it's the families that attend my school! The response has been incredible and the whole auditorium is full of donations and people organizing everything that was brought in.

Meanwhile, I am just hanging around waiting to go home! I'm going to the beach for the weekend but until then all the teachers are joking that we are living the life of our students' moms: going to the pool, going to the gym, going out to eat, shopping, etc. After one week I am already a little bored... now I have another week! I am enjoying the time off but I also am worried because we will have to make up all of this time within the current school calendar. AKA: Saturday school. It's not official yet but that seems to be the option we are left with.

I am getting progressively worse at updating

Sorry about that... I'm just too busy! I guess that's a good thing, right? I feel like I've hardly had time to get homesick because I'm always doing stuff and out with people.

Let's see... in the past month I have been traveling a bit more within the country (because my passport is still in Caracas to get my work visa sorted out). I went to Merida, a city in the Andes mountains, with about 10 other teachers from the school and some other friends. The weather is much cooler there (about 50-60 degrees... 70 on some days) and it was so wonderful to wear jeans and a sweatshirt! It finally felt like November to me. But who am I kidding... Wisconsin in November is rarely 50 degrees! I'm sure I will be shocked when I get off the plane in Milwaukee in December! In the mountains I did paragliding, where I was strapped to a trained person and jumped off a mountainside with a parachute! It was incredible. It wasn't even scary at all! You kind of just run off the mountain and then your feet aren't on the ground but you're at the same height, then you just float and twirl for about 20 minutes until you're on the ground at the bottom of the mountain. It was a really great experience and I would definitely do it again! We walked around the city and did some shopping at a market. We also went to a world famous ice cream store which is in the Guinness book of records for having the most flavors! They have nearly 800 types.... some of which are pretty weird! I had black bean and rice ice cream one day, and plantain and cheese another day. Here a plaintain cake with cheese melted on it is a popular street snack, and beans and rice are good too, so the combos made sense to me! :) They tasted pretty good too! I could taste the bean and rice and whatnot, but it was still sweet so it was yummy.

Last weekend I attempted to go to Morrocoy National Park with two other friends from school. It is supposed to have some of the best beaches in the country and very clear, blue water. The pictures of it look gorgeous so we were really excited!! When we got there it was pouring rain but we hoped for better weather in the morning. Unfortunately it didn't stop, and the power kept going on and off as a result of the storm! Soon there was a puddle in our room from all the water, and somehow amongst all of this water, our hotel's water pump broke and we didn't have any water for about 12 hours. We stayed for one more day hoping that the weather would clear up but it never did. The people at our hotel helped us to find a guy to drive us back to the city. We discovered that two bridges had washed out and the main highway was flooded so badly we could not pass, so we had to drive a completely different way through the mountains, which took about four hours more. We finally got back to the city safe and sound... and it was only Friday night so we still had a few days left to our vacation. We went to a health seminar at the park on Saturday morning and took a kickboxing and yoga class, and got a massage. We were going to go to the pool but then it started raining, AGAIN! Thankfully it was sunny today so I went to the pool and laid in the sun for a while... it was so nice and relaxing after a crazy weekend! I can't come back to the Midwest looking like I never left, you know. ;)

Well that about sums up the past few weeks. School goes on as normal and there are only three more weeks left in the semester! I know I have said it before but it just feels like time is not passing because the weather is pretty much the same every day. I am shocked that it will be December! The only thing that reminds me is the Christmas decorations. I have a tiny tree (I mean TINY, like the size of my hand) with teeny tiny ornaments, haha. It's all I could fit in my suitcase! ;) I also bought some white glittery thing to put around it to make it look like snow. I think my students went crazy for Halloween.... I can only imagine what will happen at Christmas!

Busy weekend!

This weekend I went to my first concert and first baseball game in Venezuela. One of my local friends took me to a concert with his brothers and some of their friends on Friday night. There were three bands... one kind of punk band (that did a cover of Avril Lavigne's Skater Boy.... it was unexpected and funny but they did a pretty good job, only a few words were a little off) and another that was a rock band. The last band was the main act and they were good! They remind me of other bands that I listen to, like a combo of Maroon 5, Guster, and Muse if you can imagine that haha! It was really fun. After the concert we went to a bar and hung out there for a few hours. It was nice because I haven't found too many bars to just sit and have a drink- most places are clubs with dancing and stuff like that. I prefer just to sit and talk so it was nice to have a night like that!

On Saturday I went to a baseball game with some other teachers from the school. The Zulia Aguilas (Eagles) are the team from Maracaibo. Earlier in the day my friend Marcie and her husband met one of the players in a store when they heard him speaking English. They started talking and he told them to come by the dugout during the game to say hello. So we had to convince three security checkpoints that we had to go to the fence down by the field so we could talk with our American friend, haha. My horrible Spanish skills must have been convincing enough that they let us through! So we talked with him for a little bit during the game and then security guards started surrounding all of us. The player was waving them away and said it was fine but they made us leave anyway. So we didn't get to talk for long but it was still interesting to meet another American so far away. He said that every Venezuelan team is allowed to have 7 US players on their team, which is possible since the baseball season here is just starting. So maybe we will meet them again!

This coming week is going to be Halloween madness at school. My classroom is all decorated and my seven room moms (yes, 7... they all want to help!) are coming on Friday to help me with the class party. There is also a carnival at the school at night with trick or treating so it's going to be a long and sugary week!

Dedicated to the people who asked if I was going to be living in a hut

Here are some pictures of my apartment. Overall you can see I'm living well here! My school pays the rent on my apartment and it came completely furnished. The school rents apartments all over this neighborhood so only one other teaching couple from EBV lives in my building, but we definitely have the nicest apartments so it's worth it even though we live a little farther away from everyone else. I put more pictures on facebook because it uploads faster there for some reason, so look for more pictures there!

My classroom is all decorated for Halloween now. Even though Halloween is not really celebrated here in Venezuela, my school celebrates all American holidays. I think the fact that it's a foreign holiday makes the kids even more excited about it, so the parents are really involved with Halloween stuff at school. Seven moms from my class came to decorate my room one day and they even brought candy so I could have a candy dish for the students this month. I decided to forgo that idea to avoid a two week headache of sugared up students, but their intentions were sweet. :)

The moms are also organizing a Halloween party. They are going to bring in McDonald's Happy Meals for lunch, plus cupcakes and a goodie bag with candy. They wanted to collect about $30 from each student to buy the food and pay for the Halloween decorations and stuff like that (since they were shipped from the US it was probably a little expensive). Still, I can NOT imagine a school in the States that would collect that much money to fund a Halloween party for one classroom! They also wanted to get about $15 from each student to pay for a birthday party and gift for my assistant. Very, very sweet... but still crazy! It's just another example of the population that I work with. They are generous with their time and money and on the whole they are really good people; not stuck up or anything like that.

Here are a few pictures of my classroom, pre-Halloween decorating. I will put some pictures of the Halloween party up after that happens.

Here are some before and after pictures of my classroom:

Election madness!

Elections for Venezuela's "house of representatives" were on Sunday. The results came out yesterday, and many of the locals I know here were very pleased with the results. The state I live in, called Zulia, is the "opposition" state in Venezuela (aka the vast majority of government positions are held by people not in Chavez's party). In the elections, 92% of Zulians voted against the Chavez party. Incredible! But, most of the rest of Venezuela remains "Chavista" and a lot of Chavistas were re-elected or put in office. Still, the Chavistas lost some positions so now in the parliament there are 1/3 opposition representatives and 2/3 Chavistas. This means that the Chavistas don't have enough control to be able to pass new legislation completely on their own--they need to cooperate with the opposition. Everyone that I spoke with at school was very happy that the opposition made progress and hopes that this trend will continue for the next election. I suspect there must be some Chavistas that work at my school but I'm sure they keep their mouths shut since there's a lot of Chavez-bashing that occurs.

Last night there was a big procession of cars and people walking to celebrate the elections. There was music blaring and horns honking (which isn't too out of the ordinary... but this time it was organized, haha).

Since the election process is not very secure or modernized, the city is basically shut down to vote. For instance, my school was canceled from Thursday-Monday. The superintendent decided to cancel school the week before because he suspected that the government would cancel schools around the state on short notice and he wanted to be prepared (apparently the government has done that before and it's been chaotic). So the students didn't have school but we had professional development days. On Sunday, many stores were closed and it was difficult to get around because some streets were blocked off to accommodate the crowds at the voting centers. There were huge lines of people, and vendors selling food and drinks while people waited 1-3 hours to vote. There is an interesting method to ensure that people only vote once. After you vote, you have to dip your pinky finger in to a jar of permanent purple ink. I mean, it's super permanent! Four days after the election everyone is still walking around with bright purple fingers haha! It's an interesting procedure and I suppose it's effective.

There seems to be a pretty good turnout for voting here. In the US voter registration is ridiculously low... and I can't imagine what would happen if people had to wait 1-3 hours in line to vote! People here really seem to value democracy, and especially now that the democracy they have come to know has changed so much in the past ten years they want to have their say. I hope their passion helps them achieve what they want to... but I can't help but wonder if I would feel differently if I lived in a Chavista state. I'm still on the fence about him and probably will stay that way for a while.

I guess I've been busy...

I haven't had much time to update my blog. First of all, I have tried REALLY hard to put new pictures up and a video of my apartment but it's just not happening. :( I will continue to try... some days my internet is faster than others so I hope soon it will go through! My classroom is finally exactly how I want it. I got a new bulletin board and a map and those were the final additions, so

We are now in week five of school and it's unbelievable a) how quickly time has passed b) how much I still have to do! and c) how my students have grown. Even though we're in our routines and have the schedule sorted out there are still days where I feel a little flustered because something always changes. Some days I might need to spend more time on reading, which pushes back writing, which eliminates spelling.... it can get dicey! But I feel like I've gotten better at making myself follow the schedule more closely so I can get to everything I'm supposed to.

The parent open house was last week. I was SO nervous but it went really well. :) I started by thanking the parents for coming and they all said "No, thank YOU for being here!" and they were all so smiley and attentive during my little speech. All the moms kissed me on the cheek, so their kindness and friendliness made up the the inadequacy I felt standing next to them! Most of the moms dress and look like supermodels... lifestyles of the rich and famous I guess! One family in my class owns like 1/3 of the dairy farms in Venezuela, another owns a popular grocery store chain, others work in the oil industry. I don't know how much tuition is for the school (it's kind of a hushed subject) but I know it's a considerable amount. The school doesn't have any scholarship students either so it's generally a safe bet to assume all of the students in the school come from wealthy families. Even still, many families are generous with their money and time--several parents told me that I can notify them if I need something for the classroom or if I need help for a party or holiday. I will be sure to put them to work! ;)

After living in Maracaibo for six weeks now, I am ready to get out of the city!! I'm going to a coconut farm on the Caribbean this weekend and I am so excited! It will be a great chance to relax, lay on the beach, and drink some coconut milk. I go to the pool every Sunday, and that's a nice break from reality, but I'm looking forward to a whole two days out of town.

I'm going to start writing a book

Kids in general say really funny things, but I feel like English Language Learners say even funnier things... and most of the time they don't even realize it.

Me: "When a man is married to a woman, he has a wife. What does the woman have when she is married?"
Boy 1: "Children!"
Boy 2: "Baby! Lots of baby."
--True, I guess....?

Girl 1: "Miss, I see cock-a-roach in the classroom today."
Me: "What?! Where is it?"
Girl 1: "I don't know... I see it this morning."
20 minutes later:
Boy: "Miss, I see the cucaracha!"
All students: *sing* "La cuca-ra-CHA! La cuca-ra-CHA!" ... etc.
--The girl told me that they sang to make me feel better because they all know how much I hate cockroaches! I think it will be a tradition, haha.

Me: "Tell me about a special person in your life."
Girl: "I-Carly... because she talks like you, Miss!" [I-Carly is a Disney show]
Me: "No, I mean someone that you know. Like someone in your family or a friend."
Girl: "I know her! I see her on TV all the time."
Me: "Ok, but you can't talk to her or play with her."
Girl: *pauses* "But, Miss, I have a Build-a-Bear that sings the I-Carly song!! And so it is the same."
--Eventually I helped her make a list of her friends and she wrote about that, though I think she has convinced herself that she is friends with I-Carly.

Me: "In Spanish, to ask 'Can I go to the bathroom' is 'Puedo ir al bano?' To say 'I can go to the bathroom' is 'Puedo ir al bano.' So in Spanish, they are the same, but in English we have to change the first two words around to make it a question.
Boy: "Miss, can you say the Spanish again?"
Me: "Puedo ir al bano?"
All students: *laughing hysterically*
Me: *laughing* "What? That's how you say it, isn't it?"
Girl: "But it's SO funny when you say it!"
Girl 2: *glares at the class* "Hey, STOP it! Miss Van try really hard and she don't know she can't say it right."
--Since then they have begged me to say things in Spanish! At least this opened up a nice conversation to talk about accents and how people who speak different languages have them, etc. However it was very sweet of that girl to stand up for me and my inherent gringa-ness! :)

Que paso?

I don't know how it happened but my first week teaching is already complete! Time is absolutely flying by. Now that my students have the classroom routines down and we're settled in I can start some real teaching! We are still waiting on a shipment of math textbooks and science kits (I guess that's the downside to teaching overseas... mostly everything is ordered internationally and that means it takes forever to get here even when it's planned ahead). So for now I'm using the math worksheets that I spent hours and hours scanning in to the computer back in March when I was student teaching. I'm so glad I thought about doing that... it has saved me quite a headache!

During my time in Maracaibo, I have realized that this city of 3 million feels more like a small town sometimes. Last week I was at the supermarket standing next to a woman who was complaining about the bad quality of the bananas. I replied, "Si, claro" and then a guy standing next to her looked at me and said: "Are you American?" Haha, he picked me out from just two words! But we got to talking and found out that he lived in the States for 18 years, part of which he was in Bloomington, IL. He asked what I was doing in Maracaibo and I told him I worked at EBV only to find out that he went there when he was a child. We talked a little more and before we parted ways him mom said that if I need anything to please call her, and to come over for dinner sometime! We exchanged numbers and she asked where I lived and we discovered that they live in the building right next to mine. Small, small world. Since then I have been over to their place for tea and the son, Napo, took me to a park on the lake. Sometime this week she is going to take me to a plant store and help me pick out some flowers for my little window garden. I'm incredibly lucky to have met such a great family who wants to adopt an American girl in to their lives. :)

First day of school!

My class is REALLY great! They are sweet kids. I have 17 students, all of whom speak Spanish or another language (Portuguese and Italian for a few) as their native tongue except one. This was fairly evident and I know I'm going to have to work a lot on connecting their background knowledge to new vocabulary. I only have one student that knows hardly any English at all but luckily I got to spend some time with her during new student orientation so I know her a little better than the other students. She's also VERY shy so most of the talking she did today was whispering in my ear, haha.

The kids are not allowed to speak in Spanish or any other language during class time, but they can at lunch and recess. This is going to be a hard rule to enforce because even in one day most of the students asked me: "Miss, como se dice ___ en ingles?" (how do you say ___ in English?). I tried to have them describe the word but in some cases we might have to pull out the bilingual dictionary! So far my Spanish has really come in handy in introducing myself to parents and talking with the school staff that doesn't speak English, so it definitely motivates me to study and improve because I know my grammar is horrible right now!

The day went by SO fast! I overplanned, as usual, but I always prefer that to having a classroom full of students and not knowing what to do next. We did mostly community building and learning the procedures and rules today. Also, everyday the students have a special (PE, art, or music) and Spanish class so there's about an hour and a half cut out of my day. Plus they have an hour for lunch, and 30 minutes for morning snack and recess! My teaching time is fairly limited so I want them to get in the habit of routines and how to move from one activity to the next so we're not wasting time. So far my "disappointed" voice is working well... I always like that better than raising my voice anyway. ;)

Now that my first day jitters are out of the way I'm really looking forward to tomorrow and the rest of the week and month and year! :)

Weird things that happened to me this week.

1. My run-in with the Army
I saw a big truck full of about 20 Army guys parked across the street when I went to lunch one day. One of them waved so I waved back and then suddenly ALL of them were jumping and hollering and waving at me! The Venezuelan girls I was with quickly ushered me in to the restaurant saying "Why would you do that?! You can't wave at them! They know you're not from here!" I told them I didn't think waving was bad because they're the Army and they are respectable and all of them chuckled and rolled their eyes. Ignorant American party of one, haha. The Army is pretty corrupt here, and as the girls explained to me there are quite a few Cubans in the Venezuelan army due to the relationship between Castro and Chavez. So not many people trust the Army because often they abuse their power by making people pay to pass on a road, get help when stranded, cross the border, etc. and the money just goes in to their own pockets.

2. I spent four hours at the bank and three hours at a cell phone store
Waiting in long lines is just something I will have to get used to because it happens everywhere. A staff person from the school took us to the bank to open an account and get a debit card. We got there at 8am, 30 minutes before the bank opens, and already there were about 25-30 people lined up outside. By the time the bank opened the line was around the building, through the parking lot, and down the street. Even though we were relatively close to the front of the line we still waited about 3 hours to meet with a banker, and then another hour to make a deposit in our accounts. The next day we went to a cell phone store and it took the three of us us about three hours to wait in line and get a sim card for our phones. There were seven people working in the store and about 20 customers, and all of us seemed to be there for about the same amount of time. Life just moves at a slower pace here! I will be a very patient person by the end of two years, haha.

3. I pretended to be pregnant to use a bathroom
While we were waiting at the bank I had to go to the bathroom, but alas there are no bathrooms at the bank. I walked across the street to a Burger King with one of the assistants, but it was closed for another hour. There was a guy inside mopping and a security guard (every place here has a security guard, from restaurants to grocery stores to apartment buildings) and they said I couldn't go in. Then Andrea started talking to them through the door. It was very stormy that day and the wind was super strong, so my dress was billowing all over. The security guard asked if I was pregnant (which I understood and was about to deny) but Andrea said "Yes yes and she needs to go very badly!" and then they let me in, haha. I'm sure they were a little disappointed when I stepped inside and my dress fell flat!

4. I saw a taxi start on fire.
There's not too much else to say... it was a super old car (like 60s or 70s) so it was about time that it died. The guys sitting in the back of the taxi just got out and walked away and the poor driver was throwing handfuls of dirt in to the engine to try to put the fire out. The police here really don't attend to stuff like that and we left shortly after he put the fire out so I'm not sure what happened.

5. I bought a fan for $70
Electronics of any kind here are ridiculously expensive but I caved and bought it anyway, even though it would have cost about $15 in the States. I'm still getting used to converting bolivares to dollars and I'm surprised by the cost of somethings, both cheap and expensive. For example, a jar of peanut butter costs more than my monthly cell phone plan. A full tank of gas is cheaper than a half gallon of milk. For the price of my fan, I could have bought 8-9 bottles of wine. Every time I shop I'm surprised by the prices... I'm already making a list of things I want to buy in the US in December because it's too expensive here!

One week already?

So far time is flying by. I spend all day at school in meetings or preparing my classroom but I still feel like I haven't accomplished that much! :\ At least my classroom is finally in working order and I'm ready to start planning tomorrow. It's a little terrifying that school starts on Tuesday and I don't have a whole lot put together yet in terms of lessons. Eek.

I have been eating out a lot this week trying to a) explore my neighborhood b) take advantage of invitations when I get them from my Venezuelan co-workers! Every elementary classroom has a full time bilingual assistant, and all of them are so sweet and welcoming! Most of them are about my age so it's great to talk with them and ask them questions about what they like to do, what they watch on TV, where they hang on the weekends, etc. It's also great to go out to eat with them knowing that they can help translate if I need it! This week we went to a couple of American places (McDonald's and Subway) and a couple of local places. Subway is nearly exactly the same except they don't have cheddar herb bread or shredded cheese, haha. But you can get plantain chips! McDonald's has a smaller menu but generally the same items, right down to Big Macs and McCafe. At the local places we have been to I've been able to read the menu and order pretty much on my own, which is reassuring! At one restaurant I found THREE vegetarian sandwiches. It is officially my favorite restaurant ever.

I don't feel like I've learned a whole lot of Spanish yet... I'm still wiping away the cobwebs with the occasional reference to my Spanish-English dictionary. I hope to take classes starting in about a month so that will be a tremendous help! Today we went to buy internet modems and try to get our connections set up. The school hires a driver to take us around for errands four days a week, so he drove us there and came in to the store with us. He doesn't speak a word of English but he is good at translating in the sense that he can break down what they are saying in to simple terms and say them slowly. I understood enough to know that my building doesn't have the wiring required for a cable connection, and my friends' building needs to put in a request to allow them to install it so we have to go back in a few days. Luckily in this instance, as with others, everyone has been patient with my struggles and able to laugh with me at my mistakes.

"Maracaibo is like one big frat house"

One of the teachers that's been here for a few years said this in the sense that people do whatever crazy stuff they want to and no one's going to stop them. The drivers are nuts; it's optional to stop at a red light, pedestrians don't have the right of way, and it's normal to drive the wrong way down a one way street if it means you'll get there faster. I've only been in one taxi so far and it was ok, but we've been around the whole city in one of the school's buses and witnessed the insanity. There are police but they break all the traffic laws too so there's no enforcement. Another thing that might take some getting used to is that people don't like to wait in line. Rather, they will kinda push their way forward until they can slip in front of you. This also happens with traffic! ;) Something else that stands out to me is that there's also a lot of graffiti... everywhere. I live in one of the "nice" neighborhoods and there's still some here. Sometimes residents will spray paint messages ranging from "No Mas Chavez" (or "Viva Chavez" depending on their politics) to announcements like "Please Don't Dump Garbage Here." Also, politicians running for office spray paint with a stencil on some concrete walls... probably with permission? Who knows. Lastly, there's plenty of swearing! Even the little kids do it because they don't know any better. I don't know all the words yet, haha, but some of the teachers have told me the ones to look out for so I can remind the students that it's inappropriate.

Yesterday the school took us on a city tour and we got to see all the touristy things: the lake, the basilica, the plaza, an artisan market, the huge mall, and the historic district where the old Spanish-style houses still stand. After the tour a few of the other teachers and I went to the pool for the afternoon. The water was unexpectedly hot! It was like taking a bath basically, haha. I'm guessing they probably don't have to heat it with year round temperatures of 95 degrees. We got lunch at the pool and the options were grilled chicken or hamburger. I explained that I didn't eat chicken or beef and the waiter paused and said "Quiere hamburguesa?" I said no, I just wanted a cheese sandwich with lettuce and then he looked really confused and replied "Hamburguesa con queso?" I explained again and then he seemed to understand (but didn't know why anyone would want just cheese, haha). I ended up with a ham and cheese sandwich. In all fairness ham was not on the list of meats that I told him I didn't eat! He was probably just trying to be nice and give me something more substantial, hehe. If there is one thing I have found so far it's that the people in Maracaibo are very forgiving, compassionate, and willing to help!

The internet is a little too slow right now to add pictures but I will do that when I officially get internet in my apartment!

Avocado is not a Spanish word

The school has taken us out to eat a couple of times so I'm getting some good practice in learning what is vegetarian and asking questions of the veteran teachers when I need help with the menu. Last night I had an avocado, tomato and palmito salad [which is how I learned that avocado is actually aguacate in Spanish... who knew?]. Palmito is one of my new favorite veggies! It's a white stalk sort of thing. It has a similar texture to asparagus because it's a little fibrous... with some salt and oil on it it's very good! I also had some onion soup, which was probably made with chicken broth but I'm over it, haha. As long as I can get by without eating chunks of meat I'll be a-ok. ;)

We're going off to the mall now so that should be interesting! I will post some pictures when I can get internet in my apartment. Adios!

I made it!

I'm here in Venezuela safe and sound. I don't have a lot of time to be online today {it might take a while to get internet in my apartment... and Facebook is blocked at the school}. BUT everything has been great so far!

My apartment is HUGE! I have three furnished bedrooms and three bathrooms! Also, there is a "maids room" and another bathroom off the kitchen. It is the only part of the house that is not air conditioned. Poor maid! So those rooms will not be used at all. I also have a kitchen, dining room, living room, TV room, and another extra bedroom that's empty. So... five bedrooms and four bathrooms in all! I hope someone will come visit me so I'm not alone in this huge place! [hint ... HINT, haha] So far no cockroaches [some of the girls had to deal with those last night!]

I had an interesting conversation with the customs guy last night. For some reason they had to go through ALL my luggage! :[ So while he was doing that he came across my Spanish grammar book and we had a short conversation in Spanglish. He gave me his phone number and said if I need anything or if I get lost to call him, or to call him if I want to be his language partner so we can learn together! He's like 70 years old so it was really sweet. :} Then he told me to be very careful, haha. So far everyone has been incredibly friendly and patient with my shortcomings in Spanish, plus most people I have come across know a little English so we can muddle through it together.

Ok, time to get to work!

I'm waking up in 2.5 hours

My flight leaves Appleton at 6am today! After layovers in Chicago and Miami, I will be in Maracaibo at 7pm.

I'm excited nervous happy anxious curious... and a little nauseous, haha. I don't think I can sleep but I'm going to try to nap for a few hours before I need to wake up and start getting ready. I don't know how long it will take to get internet in my apartment but when I have that luxury I will be sure to update and add some pictures if I can!

Adios, amigos!

Party, Play, Panic, Pause, Pack, Plan

This is my agenda for the next week. ;) I'm leaving bright and early next Thursday, August 5 so I will arrive in Venezuela that evening.

Party- My graduation/going away party is tomorrow. Pretty much my entire family, all the neighbors, my parents' friends and some of mine too will be here so it's going to be a nuthouse! It will be nice to see everyone before I go. I am prepared to answer 87293 questions about Venezuela, play some bocce ball, and eat a lot of my mom's good cooking.

Play- Rachel is coming up from Milwaukee for my party so afterward we're going to hit the town... erm, yeah, if you can say that about Appleton. I'm sure we can cook up something fun. :)

Panic- After all my relatives leave and the house is cleared out I will have space to organize and start packing. I haven't started packing AT ALL so I'm a little nervous about how this will work. I already can't find some of the things I thought I set aside to be packed, like my extension cords and power strips, so this is not a good start. Many trips to Target may be involved!

Pause- Take a break from the panicking and packing to watch several episodes of Nip/Tuck, which I'm not sure I will be able to watch in Venezuela. That might actually be a good thing because I should be lesson planning instead. ;)

Pack- I hope to be mostly packed by Tuesday so I can weigh my luggage and not be too rushed the day before I leave. It can't be over 70 pounds (wait, can I even lift 70 pounds?) so I might need to re-arrange and stuff like that.

Plan- I want to start planning some stuff for the first week of school if I have the time. I have Harry Wong's book "The First Days of School" which is helpful but also intimidating because I realize I have so much to do!

So that's the game plan. I can't think of anymore words beginning with P that are pertinent to my proceedings. Maybe I will do my first unit on alliteration....

The actual countdown begins - 29 days

It's difficult to count down to something when you have 30+ days to count, but now I have less than a month until I leave! I can hardly keep track of what day it is with my schedule being so.... free. I have absolutely NOTHING to do EVER so my internal clock is really confused. I don't think I have ever been this sedentary because all through high school and college I was jumping from one activity to the next with some breaks for homework, my jobs, and sleep in between. Now with all of my new-found free time I can daydream... and have nightmares about Venezuela. I haven't had any scary nightmares, just really weird ones so far. Like the time I dreamed I didn't pack anything except peanut butter. Or when I woke up believing that the walls in my apartment were melting because it was so hot. Or the one where I got held hostage in a luggage store when I was looking for the perfect suitcase to haul all of my stuff (ok, maybe that one was scary).

It's so bizarre to think about moving to a place I know so little about. I have my apartment assignment (two bedroom place all to myself!) and I know what grade I'm teaching and who the other second grade teacher is. I've even met another one of the new teachers because she lives near me in Wisconsin. Still I can't help but wonder about random things. What does my apartment look like? Will I be able to walk to a grocery store? Who are my neighbors? How much are they going to laugh when they find out some gringa who hardly speaks Spanish moved in next door? Haha I'm probably going to be laughing at myself so it's all good. And then there's everything about the school! How many students will I have? Are they all Venezuelan? What does my classroom look like? What books should I bring with me? It's a good thing I don't have real things to accomplish right now because I'm sure I wouldn't be able to focus on it anyway.

For now it's fun to daydream... the real work begins when I have to pack and ship my boxes in a couple of weeks!

So I have a blog now.

I have never had a blog before so I might be bad at updating this... we'll see! I don't have a lot to say yet and probably won't update until my departure date draws nearer.

I leave for Maracaibo, Venezuela on August 5th. 51 days!