Good People

We had a really fun and relaxing weekend. On Friday, two other teachers Dave and Beth hosted a rockin' house party, and somehow at 1am, I found myself surrounded by musicians after everyone else had left the party. Geoff, Beth, and Eric took turns jamming on the two guitars they had and harmonizing softly, and Dave played percussion along to their melodic voices. I was given a set of bells -- very appropriate, considering that I can barely hold a beat on the drums -- but after a while, worked my way to "playing" a less obnoxious small drum. They played all kinds of classic rock songs, and time literally flew by until everyone looked bleary-eyed and we had to call it a night. By the time Geoff and I finally got home, it was already 3:30am! (On a Friday, for teachers, that's really late.) It really was a beautiful time. :)

Geoff and I had planned on visiting El Tunco over the weekend. Ali has been somewhat overwhelmed by work, so we figured it'd be good to go down and party with her and Bamba at least one night this week. And, as it turned out, the other teachers were already planning on a trip down there as well! We ended up spending Saturday night hanging out with a group of really good people from school. Geoff and I stayed out for a while down at the beach, checking out a local dance spot. (It had mostly reggaeton music -- not our favorite. But, the company was good, and I knew Geoff had been yearning for a late night out on the town, so I did my best to hang...) By the time we finally got back to the beach hostel, we were soaked with rain but satisfied from all the fun. --In the end, the only shame from this weekend was that the waves were huge down there this weekend, so we couldn't take any surf lessons! Maybe next time.

Life couldn't be more perfect right now. I'm loving the teaching gig, and thus far, I've been reaping a lot of rewards from the lessons I have planned. It being my fourth year of teaching, everything feels different. The kids are nice; I'm feeling completely in control; and that leaves me with so much energy to make the lessons the most fun that they could be. Having great textbooks to use as a guide is also no small advantage. I am still tired from school each day just from the sheer enery it takes to teach 100 kids, but I love it.

First Surfing Lesson!!

Geoff and I had a fabulous week! On Tuesday, the new international hires played a hilarious game of Charades at Eric's and Colleen's apartment over drinks and popcorn. Then, on Thursday night, some of the same people went salsa-dancing with us at an awesome salsa spot in the neighborhood. The cover charge was $5, but there was a live band and some serious salsa-dancers there! I had a ton of fun asking the locals to dance, and Geoff and I are definitely planning on returning to that place regularly once we start taking salsa lessons. :) Finally, over the weekend, Geoff and I caught a movie (G.I. Joe, which was surprisingly decent), went to scope out the famous volcanoes and the beautiful Lago Coatepeque, and even took our first surfing lesson down at El Tunco!!!

...Surfing was really fun, but also a lot harder than I had imagined. Admittedly, I'm not the strongest swimmer, and my upper-body strength is definitely non-existent. Paddling my way on the long surfboard all the way out to where the waves break was so discouraging, that I actually almost asked my surfing coach to let me go back to the shore. Literally, he had to drag my board all the way out there each time, in addition to paddling for himself. --So embarrassing! It was only later that Ali and Jose told us that it is pretty common that the surfing instructors have to drag the newbies out there, because you just don't build the same upper-body strength doing anything else than surfing. Anyway, the actual surfing part was a BLAST. It's not easy to stand up on the board, obviously, but the long boards we had actually felt really stable; even I caught a wave that pushed me all the way out to the beach! It was awesome! And a definite do-over at some point (after we do some pushups, perhaps).

There were some other things I had wanted to say, but I'm so exhausted from the week that I'm going to just crash now. Tomorrow's the first official day back at work for all teachers, so I'm going to start being very busy! Our school day here starts early -- I will have to leave home at 6:30am everyday from now on, to arrive at school with a little bit of time to spare. Yikes...