I have been having a fantastic time being a teacher here over these past two weeks. I didn't think that it would happen this fast but I absolutely LOVE my job. Small classes (about 17-19 kids), great students who are a lot of fun to teach and flexibility.... it's great. Every day in the classroom seems to be getting better as I get to know the kids more and more. This was a great way to start teaching. Everyone talks about how the first year of teaching is a year of hell where you don't sleep and barely have time to live any semblance of a normal life, but here I only teach one class (Grade 8 science with five sections) so I basically have 1/3rd of the prep to do that I would at home in Ontario. I never figured to have time in my first year of teaching to rigorously evaluate the kind of teaching I'm doing and still have time to relax in the evenings but I can usually leave here at 3:30 and take next to no work home with me. I'm still coming in on Sundays but I figure that's a small price to pay to have everything ready to go for the week. Basically I'm in an unheard of situation for a first year teacher.... guess I made a good descision.
Yesterday we started a new unit and today I'm going to be showing an episode of MYTHBUSTERS where they investigate appliances falling into the tub.... should be fun!
Our water heater is going to be installed today!!!!! YAY!!!!! Now I know what you're thinking... Why do you need hot water in a warm country hey? Well, cold showers here might not be as bad as back home but I'm still getting really tired of them. It's about 19-21 degrees celcius in the mornings and although that's not cold by any stretch a little bit of warm water is going to go a long way. Gas is much cheeper here than electricity so we got three of the elements of our electrifying stove turned to gas burners yesterday and our new water heater is also gas. The old one that we have is electric but only worked once (that one warm shower was really nice though). To try to fix it our landlord ripped the plug off the cord, took off some of the power cord insulating rubber then shoved the bare ends right into the wall socket. For safety he then shoved the now usless plug in after to hold the bare wires in place. Needless to say we weren't really pleased with this (can anybody say "fire hazard") so we just kept to breaker turned off (it didn't work anyway when the breaker was on).
Some more interesting things about Colombia:
-It is illegal for two men to ride together on a motorcycle unless they are police. Ask me about why another when you see me.
-It is not unusual to hear other people on the line occasionally when talking on the phone.
-You can buy milk that just sits on the shelf until you're ready to use it. No refridgeration necessary (prior to opening). Jordan and I were really leery of this at first but it's just fine... sure would solve the problem of having no place to put milk in the fridge.
-You can't buy hot peppers here.
Yesterday we started a new unit and today I'm going to be showing an episode of MYTHBUSTERS where they investigate appliances falling into the tub.... should be fun!
Our water heater is going to be installed today!!!!! YAY!!!!! Now I know what you're thinking... Why do you need hot water in a warm country hey? Well, cold showers here might not be as bad as back home but I'm still getting really tired of them. It's about 19-21 degrees celcius in the mornings and although that's not cold by any stretch a little bit of warm water is going to go a long way. Gas is much cheeper here than electricity so we got three of the elements of our electrifying stove turned to gas burners yesterday and our new water heater is also gas. The old one that we have is electric but only worked once (that one warm shower was really nice though). To try to fix it our landlord ripped the plug off the cord, took off some of the power cord insulating rubber then shoved the bare ends right into the wall socket. For safety he then shoved the now usless plug in after to hold the bare wires in place. Needless to say we weren't really pleased with this (can anybody say "fire hazard") so we just kept to breaker turned off (it didn't work anyway when the breaker was on).
Some more interesting things about Colombia:
-It is illegal for two men to ride together on a motorcycle unless they are police. Ask me about why another when you see me.
-It is not unusual to hear other people on the line occasionally when talking on the phone.
-You can buy milk that just sits on the shelf until you're ready to use it. No refridgeration necessary (prior to opening). Jordan and I were really leery of this at first but it's just fine... sure would solve the problem of having no place to put milk in the fridge.
-You can't buy hot peppers here.
posted by Matt and Emily at 9:02 AM
1 Comments:
Yah tell about hearing other people on the phone line. At some points, I could hear the crazy spanish lady better than you.
No hot peppers. That's insane.
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