It's been a long long time

It's been well over a month since I've last posted and a lot has happened.

I returned back to the US for a visit with family and friends and to celebrate the holidays. Before I could get to the festivities, I graduated from college. I finally finished college!! Whoo Hoo! I graduated Cum Laude. :) Fancy fancy... made the Deans List last semester, too! Not the Uncle Dean list, but the other kind ;). Because my flight was three hours delayed the night before the ceremony, I didn't get to take part in all the pomp and circumstance. Christmas and New Years were nice. It was good to see everyone again. I had a hard time spending time with people because I knew in the back of my mind, that I was going to have to say goodbye to everyone very soon. It was much easier to be a hermit. Proabably a decision I will regret in the future, but oh well.

I came back to the DR on the 7th of January. It seems like forever ago, but I've only been here for 23 days. Not fair... feels like a month. My kids have been a bit calm this semester. I redid the seating chart with them and it seems to work better. I'm holding my classes military style as well.. it's hard, but I have to. We're learning about the election process in the USA this month and next month. It's kidna fun to work with the kids on this topic. We'll be starting out mock elections in Feb. Since I'm not in school myself this semester I'm able to spend some time working on special clubs, celebrations, and activities for the students in the school. I have finally gotten approval to being my English Reading Club. It should be a lot of fun; already 7 students have signed up and signup goes until Feb. 5th with the group starting on the 7th. Two of the other English teachers here and myself are taking on the Spelling Bee, 100 day celebration, and spirit days for the school. There is absolutely nothing for the students to look forward to. And we've proposed things in the past but have gotten shot down. This time we're just going to go ahead and do it without waiting for the 2 week turn around from our superiors. Something has to be done. Another thing we have in the works is a motivational reading program--similar to Pizza Hut's Book It. Hopefully that will be up by the end of Feb. as well. Can you believe that there isn't a program like this in the entire Dominican Republic. I'm sure other schools may have something that they use, but nothing that is nation wide like Book It is.

My school days themselves are a little less hectic. I'm teaching 2 less hours a week that fall semester. Apparently my schedule was wrong last semester... oh well. I'm still tutoring M-R until 7pm... so I have 12 hour days 4 days a week and then on Fridays I'm going to start tutoring another student after school for a few hours. There are so many kids here who need help... I feel horrible that so many people in their lives before me have failed them.

I live for the weekends here in Punta Cana. Every weekend I spend 1 day cleaning my apartment, doing laundry, and some school work and the other day I spend at the beach with Albena. It's fun fun fun! I promise to come back in the summer with a tan! I'm already the same color as a few of my students! We usually go to the puntacana hotel beach. I love to lay out on the beach with my book. It's so relaxing. We eat at the hotel too. You can get a fancy drink there (no umbrellas :() or my favorite, the Long Islam Ice Tea (should say Long Island, but they have long islam on every single one of their menus)

On a technological note: my computer is pretty much shot. It's a miracle of Juan pablo Duarte that I'm even able to see what I'm typing right now. My computer monitor has decided that since I've finally gotten an external keyboard that works, not to work. The images jump around to the point that a person could get a seizure. Then the images will freeze, screen turns black, and then that's it. Game over. But today was a good day for my computer, it's been workin gthe entire time! I'm very happy with this and that's why I was able to write something.

My parents are coming to visit in a month and a half! Very exciting. My sister may come sometime too! I'm working with bridget to see if she can come. I'd love to have more visitors!!! (HINT hehe)

Take care!