I love second grade

I love my little students. I just love them. They are so mischievous and cheeky, but they are also so cute and funny. I am becoming a lot more comfortable with my job. I think that I am getting more used to being around lots of little children all the time, and I'm also getting used to the culture here in Honduras. I also understand Spanish pretty well now, which helps a lot. Getting over the culture shock has been a big part of feeling more comfortable in my job.

A couple good and bad things happened in the past few days.

Good thing: I conducted my first parent-teacher conference. In Spanish. Haha, a parent wanted to come talk to me about her daughter, so I had scheduled a conference yesterday morning. We have two principals at my school- one who speaks a little English and one who speaks no English. I had assumed the one who knows a little English would be there...but nope. So I had a full out conference by myself with this lady, in Spanish! I was scared, but it went pretty well. I think I was able to get my point across and I understood her concerns, so I feel good that I've reached that level of Spanish proficiency.

Bad thing: Food poisoning. And let's just say that we share a bathroom with the little kids (4 teeny stalls), and trying to deal with diarrhea in them is pretty awkward.

Good thing: I had a meeting with the school principals and administrators, and they made me feel really good about the job I've been doing. They told me that they're really happy with my work here, and that they can see significant changes in my students since the end of last year (I don't think I can take credit for that, but it was a nice thing for them to say). They said that they are really grateful that I'm on staff and they said that they appreciate me doing all the extra work I do. I felt so good that they said that, because I do feel like I do a lot of extra stuff. It was really nice of them to give me that feedback, it made me feel motivated.

Bad thing: We lost our electricity for all of last night, and our running water for most of today. Yeah...try getting ready for school at 5am with no lights...it's pretty hard.

Funny thing: When I was in college, I did laundry maybe once a month, if that. I would just let it pile up and pile up and then when I was finally out of underwear, thongs, and bathing suits, I would do my laundry. Well, I tried to do that here, but it turns out that it's much harder to do a load of laundry when you have to wash every article of clothing by hand. So I ended up standing in front of the pila for literally hours, trying to get my clothes washed. haha... maybe this trip will teach me how to stop procrastinating? Doubt it.

I think so far this experience is teaching me 1) Patience, 2) Organization, 3) Appreciation, and 4) Spanish, and probably other stuff too. Not too shabby, considering I only left five weeks ago. :)