Monday, December 20, 2004

Pictures!!
My brother is home and solved the no-zip-drive dilemma, so here are some of my pictures!...

First, some pictures of my kids- they love getting their picture taken







This is a picture taken from the outside of one of my classrooms



and this is one of my classes in session



This is Kathryn, one of the other teachers, with some of our students



The kids put on a Christmas pageant the Friday before vacation. We arrived at school to find a baby lamb tied up outside the teacher's lounge-- here is the students dressed up as shepherds with the lamb



This is a picture of the Mt Carmel campus. The posts in the lawn were set up for football. The two story building, and the row of buildings on the right side are classrooms. There is another row of classrooms on the left side, along with our basketball court and lunch area. The small building is the teachers lounge and administration.



Here is the street I live on. The blue roofed house at the end (left) is ours.



Here is inside our house. These are the main two rooms, our living room and kitchen. There are three bedrooms and a bathroom out of sight.



That's all for now. We got snow today, the first since I've been home!

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

I'm finally home, and enjoying all the little things I missed. Here's a short list:

wearing socks
hot showers
playing the piano
reading InStyle
eating- apples, donuts, pizza...
snuggling with blankets and cats
Christmas music

I have some pictures I took before I left, but they are on a zip disk, and we don't have a zip drive at home right now. But I'll get them up eventually!

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Last Day of Classes!
Tomorrow we have Mass and a Christmas pageant, and then at 9am Saturday my traveling starts!
Today I gave tests in my classes, and I gave my freshman girls a bonus question- I thought I'd share some of the responses...

What do you want for Christmas?

-I would want a big big doll so I can com her hair. -Mary
-I want for Christmas a big softly teddy bear. -Karen
-For Christmas I want to go and visit my family. -Vanessa
-For Christmas I want that my family is happy and no mad. because the other Christmas my father and my mother is mad and this Christmas I want that my family is happy - Evelyn
-for x-mas I want to be with my family. To have a good time together as a beautiful family like the one that Jesus had with no violent and fights. Luckily I have my family together and for that I thanked God. I wish to have a merry x-mas with my whole family. - Karla
-I don't want anything material. I want that my father to have a merry Christmas in USA. And that my family and I have a merry Christmas too. Although I know that my father miss us a lot and we miss him too. But I'll asked God to bless him. -Mabelyn
-I will like to find a job for Christmas. I will like to be with my whole family and the friends from church. -Jeidy
-For Christmas I would whant to be with all my family. I would like to eat a lot of grapes and apples, to be in peace and to be happy. -Dilsy
-For over Christmas I had wanted a bracelet. but I don't matter because if I had the love from my family its much better. -Beatrice
-For Christmas I would like to have a very enermous teddy bear with sweets in it. -Patty
-For Christmas I want that my father be all day with us instead of going working that day and coming late night and also that my family be together that day. -Glinka
-I want to spend time with my dad and grand-mother. -Deyanie
--I whould like to have my father with me but he whent with God! or, a storybook and clothes. -Kely
-For Christmas I don't want nothing like toy and all other things I only want to pass the Christmas with my family and to pass it in peace that nothing happen to one of my family or other person. -Nelly

Monday, December 06, 2004

We spent this weekend at sunny San Pedro, trying to remember that it is December while lying on the beach....but I brought papers with me to grade, so it wasn't all fun :) It is really nice to live a few hours from a beach, I have to say. Tourist season is really picking up, though, so it was kinda crowded. I not used to being treated like a tourist, either, so sometimes it was frustrating. People take advantage of tourists a lot, and guys try to talk to you. Guys come up to us and ask us where we are from, and when we say Benque they get really confused. It's kind of funny.
It looks like the kitten will be evicted from the house. Alison has declared she has had it. Hopefully he will find a home with another one of the teachers, so I can visit him a lot.
Friday this week is a Christmas pageant at school, so all my lessons have to be completely wrapped up by Thursday. I am finishing topics completely, so I won't have to worry about reteaching everything they forget over break. It will be sooo good to be home. I'm looking forward to hot showers, pizza, salad, bagels, sweaters, Christmas, and tons of other things. People here have Christmas lights and decorations up, but it just doesn't feel like Christmas when it is 80 degrees! I have seen a couple of pointsetta trees in bloom, though, which is definitely very cool!