I´m hungry...

So I´m sitting at school, just finished planning with Mercedes, got some time to kill before my class with Tania, a little tired because I´ve been having sleeping issues becauseof noise and randomly waking up in the middle of the night for no reason. Also, I think I need to just be on Zyrtec for the rest of my time here. And I bought some delicious fruit to feed myself for breakfasts, but I have no desire to eat when it´s 6:30 in the morning. But right now, at 8, I am a bit ravenous. Things are getting a bit better because I took one day off of one of my classes, things would be great if I could sleep well. But I actually have free time now. I actually get BORED now. Which is kind of nice, for now. My phone broke because I kept dropping in, and the guy in Dolores who fixes cell phones and video games tried to fix it but I ended up just buying a new one. I´m also gonna give him my laptop, which has been pretty slow for years, but I never installed a REAL antivirus program that I had to pay for on, just the free ones that you can download which he says apparently don´t really protect you at all. Also, the enter key on my laptop broke, which I will see if he can fix for an additional fee. He probably thinks I´m a rich irresponsible American who doesn´t care about my things. Oh well. But it might be a good thing if my computer falls apart (it´s like 6 years old) because I have been wasting a ton of time on facebook and the internet and watching The Office and thinking about starting to watch Glee now that I have internet access in my house. I could be spending that time reading and studying and improving myself and my projects. Oh yeah, this weekend I am going all the way up to Quilali to visit Julie! It´ll be a good 8 hour bus ride, but there is no school on Monday because of Mother´s day here. I´m going with Sam, and apparently a few other volunteers are gonna be there too. I am probably the farthest one away though. I´m glad I´m finally gonna see other parts of Nicaragua. I´m going to observe a class of Gilberto, one of the San Gregorio teachers, today, so that should be interesting. Also, Luis recently joined what appears to be some kind of boyband, but I´ll have to see him perform to explain exactly what it is. It involves singing and dancing at parties and stuff. I´m going to laugh at him when I see him, which might be horrible of me, but I can´t wait to see it, haha. I´ll try to post a video. K I should go now. Byebye. Also please add me on Skype, I prefer that kind of talking to gchatting these days...

Es que tengo pena....

What do I have here that makes me happy? My host mom. My landlady's mom. Michael and Katherine and Tatiana and Carol from my Wednesday community class. Emmanuel and Rosita and Larix and Roger and pretty much everyone from my Saturday kiddy class. My little pink rose plant that Luis gave me. A group of boys that are entertaining without being disrespectful in my 10th grade B class. Mangoes. Luis. Random kids in my classes whose names I don't know. Megan (a nearby volunteer) cooking me delicious non-Nicaraguan food, and giving me wine, haha. Doky and Pelusa (my host family's dogs). Legit corn tortillas. A video I recently posted on facebook. Training friends. The people that are too nice for words. When students legitimitally understand what I am trying to teach and prove it.

...not necessarily in that order.

What do I have here that make me sad, angry, stressed, and frustrated? People who are too shitty for words. Feeling inadequate at my work. Feeling tired all the time. Being too busy to teach myself how to cook and to exercise. A bad day in class where I speak too much Spanish and the students don't listen to me but listen to Tania. Luis, sometimes. A bad day in class where I get flustered because I'm not quite sure about somethign I'm trying to teach. Weight gain. Feeling like Tania thinks I'm useless. Feeling like this planning and teaching thing is harder for me than it is for anyone else.

...not necessarily in that order.

Pictures of my new place...

Bathroom! The trashcan is clean, and full of water, so I can bathe myself and flush the toilet when there is no running water...

Bathroom...very, very nice for Nicaragua...

My work supplies and other things...

My bed and clothes...

My living room slash kitchen!

My water and my dishes and my baby fridge...

My stove and food storage place...and clothes rack...

"Nadie aqui tiene la razon."

- Stuff with Tania is going pretty well, getting better slowly in terms of my confidence and focus. Things with Mercedes are kind of falling by the wayside, I probably only teach 1 hour with her a week out of 3. There is so much to think of at one time. Lesson planning structure, inclusion of communicative activities, decreasing the use of Spanish in class, and figuring out ways to make sure the students get it. Doing this with both people. I'll stop going on about this. They are both great.
- Adult community class is great as always, a group of about 8 people that are sincerely interested and come regularly. Teenager community class is falling apart, I might end it. Kids' community class is also going great, there are some especially cute ones. One is named Emmanual, I'll post a picture of him. Another is Juan. And this little teeny tiny one named Alejandra. Did I ever mention we have a class mascot? It's this little toy animal thing named Paco, each week a kid takes it home to take care of it. They go crazy, it's really funny and cute.
- San Gregorio guys are off and on. But they're cool. Working with them isn't too stressful.
- Miscellaneous Peace Corps work: There is going to be a workshop/training next Friday for the English teachers in Diriamba and Dolores that me and Megan are leading, so that's gonna be scary, and more work, but kind of exciting.
- My social life is getting better. I've made quite a few English-speaking friends. I don't have that much time to go out and hang out, probably because I spend most of my weekend time with Luis in Niquinohomo or on a day trip somewhere, but it's nice to have people to speak English with. My host mom legitimately treats me like her own kid, which is pretty nice, for example she insists on still feeding me and doing some of my laundry even after I've moved out. Yes, I have moved out! And I get wireless internet here! Which I pay for, of course. It's this big long room which I am going to divide in two, with it's own bathroom, and I share a backyard with the owners of the house, but the place has it's own street entrance. So these past two weeks have been pretty overwhelming having to buy a shitload of stuff (like a fridge and a stove and a gas tank and furniture) and there is still a bunch of stuff left to buy like pots and utensils and a shelf and a mirror and maybe some chairs. But it's really nice to have the luxury of sitting on my bed late on a Friday night with internet access.
- The next time I post, I need to describe in more detail the people in my life. I also need to write about my mom's visit 3 weeks ago! And pictures will be appearing on facebook soon from the visit and of my new place. Once I finish putting it together nicely.
This will be all for now. Good night.