Monday, April 21, 2014

It was really nice to see my kids again after the long break!  I don’t know how excited they were to be in school again after the break, but I know that I had a good day.  This also happened to be my last lesson that I designed and led for the 9^th Graders, so that was very bitter-sweet.  We did a primary source document assignment in which the students found two primary sources to read and write a description over before comparing and contrasting the two articles.  That concluded their exploration of World War I.  Hopefully they learned a lot and can be ready to describe the war to their parents when the 100^th anniversary of the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand comes up in about two months.  In the after school period of the day, I did my best to grade some of these assignments, but the Thunder game was going on.  So I Skyped my brother Jordan and he put the computer in front of the TV and we watched the game together and yelled at the TV and all that jazz.  Even though it was an OT heartbreaker, it was fun to watch it with my brother from 2.000 miles away.  

Sunday, April 20, 2014

The first thing that I heard this morning (aside from the shower running and my breakfast being devoured) was a series of fireworks to say “He Is Risen!”  So Happy Easter!  The firework/ cannon-bomb things were fired from the Catholic Church nearby and seemed to say “Hey, come to Church!”  It was kind of a neat Costa Rica-ism.  I did very little for the rest of the morning and afternoon; it was mostly just a good relaxing day, perfect for watching soccer and working on livetext.  Zoe got back into town right before dinner, so it was nice to see her and hear all about Guatemala and Belize.  Zoe had run into Sarah at the airport who told Zoe to come over after dinner, so over we went to hang out and see everyone after the Semana Santa trips.  

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Once again, I did very little on this fine day.  I did work on my Student Teacher Work Sample, leaving me with only eight more short reflection essays.  I will be incredibly relieved when this assignment is finished, acting as the last major hurdle between me and a degree.  But don’t worry, I did spend a good chunk of time relaxing while watching TV.  I found the Astros game on television.  It was even on the Houston sports network that my grandparents can’t get in their Houston suburb, but I got 1.500 miles away.  On top of that, I got the Oklahoma City Thunder game on the tube, too.  Both of my brothers are home for Easter, so we Skyped and provided commentary to the action for a little bit while the Thunder played very well.  Interestingly, their TV was on a 15 second delay compared to mine, so I knew what was going to happen before they did.  So Ha.  I watched my Thunder get a huge halftime lead, blow most of the lead, only to finish strong and clinch game one of the series against the Grizzles.  Oh, and Katie and McCall got back from Oklahoma at halftime, so I’m not alone and afraid anymore.  Seeing how the splendor of my day runs with if the Thunder won or not, it was a pretty good day.   

Friday, April 18, 2014

I did absolutely nothing productive today.  I will spare you the details of my nap and Netflix watching.  On top of that, most things are closed today for Good Friday and the town feels almost desolated.  I guess that happens in a mostly Catholic country.  

Thursday, April 17, 2014

We woke up early and partook in the hotel’s continental breakfast before Grandma and Grandpa drove me back to Santa Ana.  When I got back to the house, there was a little bit of awkwardness as there was a big ole lock that I did not have the keys to on the gate.  And I’m pretty sure Liliana was still asleep.  Luckily the grandma was outside sweeping leaves and gave Liliana a call, so I was saved.  I hugged Grandma and Grandpa goodbye before plugging in the rent-a-car place into their GPS for them.  I spent the rest of the morning finishing up my livetext Submission III portfolio assignment and sending it in for review.  That was a huge relief to have done and off of my shoulders.  I spent the rest of the day doing absolutely nothing productive.  I watched a lot of Netflix and took a nap.  Hey, I’m on vacation.  

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

We packed up our bags and bid our goodbyes to Manuel Antonio.  On the way back to San Jose we got stopped by police again on a random check for IDs and passports.  I haven’t seen anyone get pulled over in the two and a half months I’ve been in Costa Rica and yet my grandpa gets pulled over twice in two days.  We did however make it to San Jose without any further problems.  Grandma was feeling less than stellar, so Grandpa and I drove towards Santa Ana to get gas and find some lunch.  Because I have a big portfolio assignment due tomorrow, I spent a good chunk of the afternoon working on it in the lobby because I finally had decent wifi.  (It wouldn’t be an official break if I didn’t have some sort of big homework assignment hanging over my head).  At least the championship of the Copa del Rey was on television and I got to see Real Madrid beat Barcelona on a clutch goal with five minutes left.  And there were cookies in the lobby.  I got to skype my dad for his birthday, which was a fun event in the day.  We went to El Rodeo Hotel for a steak dinner; eating fantastic Argentinian steak.  To conclude the day, I worked a little bit longer on my portfolio while CNN played in the background.    

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Grandma and Grandpa went for a short drive up the hill, getting stopped by one of the random police stops wanting to look at IDs and passports, while I did the whole getting out of bed and waking up thing.  We spent the rest of the morning exploring Manuel Antonio National Park.  We saw fun things like monkeys jumping from tree to tree across the trail and a pretty good view of Bigfoot (aka a sloth).  When we finished, we deserved ice cream.  Even though it was a bit of a cloudy day, I spent the afternoon at the beach.  We spent the early evening driving around Quepos, exploring a new part of the world before having dinner at a pizza by the meter place that Katie and McCall recommended.  I spent the rest of the night trying to get motivated to start my homework, but failing miserably.  So I did other things like read and watch Netflix. 

Monday, April 14, 2014

We woke up and had breakfast at the little restaurant attached to the hotel.  I had some good gallo-pinto.  After that, we drove the car up the hill to find a bank and check out what we could find towards the pier in Quepos.  After stopping in several little shops, we tried to go to the national park in Manuel Antonio, but apparently the national park is closed on Mondays.  So we called an audible and grandpa and I went to the beach instead.  After a nice little siesta out there, we loaded back up in the car and went to El Wagon for a lunch that consisted of pizza and allowed us to sit in rocking chairs.  After lunch, I went back to the beach and was eventually joined by grandpa.  After a little while, grandma came down to the beach and sat at a restaurant on the beach.  We joined her for a little bit before getting our last little bit of sun out of the day.  After a quick shower, we ate at the restaurant on the beach, consuming Mexican food in Costa Rica.  Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and I worked on some homework, because that’s how I like to spend my vacations.        

Sunday, April 13, 2014

We woke up this morning and enjoyed a delicious continental breakfast at the hotel before packing up and heading for a little bit of a day trip to Poas Volcano.  We passed through Alajuela (seeing the soccer stadium) on the way up towards the national park.  It was actually a pretty short trip up the mountain taking only about an hour or so.  After peaking in the Visitors Center, we walked up the short 600 meter trek to see the Crater.  It was really cool (actually warm) because we saw it shooting out steam.  While standing at the observation deck, I could feel the warmth of the steam compared to the crisp morning up in the elevation.  After that, Grandma walked back to the Visitors Center while Grandpa and I hiked the 800 meters to the lagoon.  The lagoon was super cool, too.  It was green in color and surrounded by the green trees and plants that beautifully decorate Costa Rica.  After making the trek back down to the Visitors Center, we caught up with Grandma and checked out the souvenir shop.  I finally found a full-sized Costa Rican flag that I bought (which will be going up in a future classroom or office when I accentuate the fact that I lived in Costa Rica) and they bought something that they told me will be a graduation present.  I wonder what it could be.  Anywho, we drove back down the mountain towards the airport and then past the airport towards Santa Ana.  We stopped at my school and took a picture (from a distance) and continued to on towards a lunch at Wendy’s.  I think the Wendy’s here is better than the Wendy’s in the States, but that could just be me really enjoying a little taste of home that I do not normally get.  We filled up the tank and then were on our way to Manuel Antonio.  The trip was pretty uneventful except for the sights of palm trees, bits and pieces of the ocean, and the little towns along the way.  When we got to the hotel, our room was not quite ready so we moseyed on down to the beach to drink something cold since Manuel Antonio is a little bit warmer than the high reaches of the volcano.  We also went down to a supermarket at the bottom of the hill and picked up a few things like a pineapple, watermelon, and other essentials.  Eventually the room was ready for us, so we got our stuff inside of it and went to dinner at “El Avion” a place that has an airplane’s fuselage acting as the restaurant’s bar.  At dinner, we saw several monkeys playing in the trees.  They were monkeying around, I guess.  At the conclusion of dinner, we drove the car to try to explore the hill between Quepos and Manuel Antonio that all of the hotels and restaurants sit on, but it was a little too dark for us to gain much from it.  So, we returned to the hotel and enjoyed the air-conditioning for the rest of the night.       

Saturday, April 12, 2014

I woke up in the morning and had an omelet for breakfast; because omelets for breakfast are delicious.  I went ahead and packed my bags for the long awaited arrival of mis abuelitos and spent time working on my Submission III Portfolio for OSU, because I have the misfortune of having it due while I’m on Spring Break.  I even had a smoothie.  At about 2:00, I caught a taxi to the Hampton Inn close to the airport to meet up with my grandparents.  After waiting for about 20-30 minutes I saw my grandma walk over to the hotel while my grandpa finished up the arduous process of getting a car rented.  Before too long, he had arrived as well.  We got their luggage up to their room and then headed back to Santa Ana so that I could show them my house and town and have them meet my host mom.  After a little bit, we took Liliana out to eat at a restaurant called the “Old West.”  It was a lot of fun to have Liliana at dinner with us.  Afterwards, I grabbed my bags and we made our way back to the hotel.  We hung out at the hotel room for a little bit and watched some of the Saprissa and Alajuela soccer game before retiring for the night. 

Friday, April 11, 2014

I heard Zoe leave bright and early this morning before I had the courage or fortitude to get out of bed.  That means I’m the only American left in my neck of the woods.  As such, I got a hearty breakfast before being lazy all morning doing things like working on my computer and watching Netflix.  By the late morning, I figured I might as well do something fun to start off the break so I told Liliana that I was off to the Multiplaza.  While there, I ate some Mickey Ds and walked over to the Cinemark.  I saw Capi’tan Ame’rica: El Soldado de Invierno.  I’m sure that’s what it’s called in the States.  The theater was pretty nice with reclining chairs and assigned seats.  The movie was even in English with Spanish subtitles.  This was good for me, but it created a lot of talking from others, especially the three little guys next to me who may or may not have been able to read all of the subtitles.  In addition, it is apparently acceptable to answer your telephone and carry on a conversation in the movie theater here.  Despite these grievances, the movie was really pretty good and I feel somewhat up to date with at least a little bit of popular culture, having seen a movie that’s only recently come out.  I even had good timing with catching the bus there and back.  Since it’s my first day of break, I managed to be rather unproductive the rest of the day besides updating this and writing a TEACH reflection prompt (OSU homework, don’t worry).  Like I said, Netflix has been my friend today and that’s not a bad thing.      

Thursday, April 10, 2014

The first thing in the morning, I got to cracking on the rest of the exams.  By 11:00, I had finished all of them, making for less than a 24 hour turn-around.  I let the kids come by and see their grades throughout the rest of the day.  I was happy to have that task done and felt brain-dead and ready for a nap by lunch-time.  But lucky enough, it was the last day of school before a nice break.  I got home and laid down until dinner.  After dinner, I went with Zoe to a carnival at a park on the outskirts of San Jose Central.  I was almost more like a craft fair that had live music as much as anything.  After listening to some music, Zoe’s friend Taylor found us and hung out until it was time for us to catch a bus back to Santa Ana.  It was a pretty fun night before Zoe goes to Guatemala for break.  

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Today was exam day.  The exam was a little lengthy, but I knew that the kiddos were ready for it.  They kept asking me questions for clarification before school and obviously did not actually need the clarification because they knew it already.  During the actual class period, I spent my time walking around the class, helping answer questions and seeing how students were progressing.  I also started grading some of the tests during the later class periods to get a jump on it.  At lunch, I played basketball with a half-dozen of my students.  That’s always fun because no matter how bad you are that day, they just think it’s cool that they got a teacher to play and take them to school.  I went home at the end of the day with a stack of exams to get through, long essays included and all.  By the end of the night, I had gotten through 2 of the 3 classes exams.  I’m either a stud or have no life for getting through that accomplishment.  By 10:00 it did not take much for me to fall asleep.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

With the exception of observing a class, I spent most of the day doing the non-teaching part of a teacher’s job: copying tests, stapling tests together, and grading papers.  I would love to fill you in on the details, but I assume you can use your imagination.  The papers were from the Treaty of Versailles assignment from yesterday and I was very impressed with what the kids came up with.  I may have a future treaty writer from the United Nations in my class.  Except for dinner and sanity breaks, that was essentially what my day consisted of.  The definition of excitement. 

Monday, April 7, 2014

I started each class off my reminding the students of the main points of the Treaty of Versailles and showed them a picture that made it explicit that the peace was built on quicksand, meaning that it would only last for 20 years before Hitler would rise to power.  Afterwards, I had the students get into groups and we made our own revised Treaties of Versailles.  I had the students research some positive aspects of the treaty and some negative aspects of it.  From there, I had the students keep the positive aspects in their new treaty and rectify the negative aspects of the treaty.  The treaties turned out fantastic.  After an afternoon run and some supper, I got to do what every full-blooded American man wanted to do: watch the NCAA National Championship.  It was even in English.  It was nice to have that taste of home of watching sporting events that the rest of my fellow Americans have the ability to keep up with.  

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Sunday was a shorter day because of the Costa Rican elections.  Glen, Neena, and I were in charge of seeing the kids finish the conference strongly and see students come up with resolutions to their conflicts, even if they did kick us out for secret balloting.  The closing ceremony saw several of our Pan-American students get honorable mentions for top-delegate of their committees and even one received the honor of being the top delegate.  Overall, it was a great experience to see what the Model United Nations was all about and see students passionately participate.  We got back to Pan-American at about 3:00 and I wanted a hamburger, so I finally got my Wendy’s fix.  Afterwards, I walked to the grocery store nearby and picked up some bread, jelly, and two bottles of wine.  Katie and McCall went to Manuel Antonio this weekend to celebrate their birthdays by going white-water rafting.  I tried to go incognito and leave their bottles of wine on their beds before they knew what hit them, but they beat me home by two minutes.  In the evening, I finished making test corrections and hung out with Zoe.  I also watched a little bit of the political coverage over the presidential elections here.  One of the presidential candidates stated that he did not want the gig anymore a month ago or so, so the election was a foregone conclusion.  People were still happy and it was still a big deal with people driving around, honking their horns late into the night.  

Saturday, April 5, 2014

Today, it was just Glen and I with 60 kids.  During the day, I had the chance to meet and chat with teachers from schools from throughout Costa Rica, as well as observe the different councils.  I was able to take plenty of pictures of all of my students as they got to make substantive points and contribute to solving a world problem.  Many of the topics included were fascinating.  For example, one council tried to solve the issue of organ trafficking, another looked at bio-ethical problems, another looked at child labor, while another was set in 1982 and tried to prevent the Falkland Island War.  It was fascinating to watch.  It was set like a United Nations conference in which they had an agenda and each student represented a different country.  They would have to raise their placards if they wished to speak and had to be called on by the committee chair.  From there, they could attack other countries’ positions on the issues and fight for how their particular country would want to solve the conflict or problem.  I’m pretty sure I saw a future delegate to the United Nations in action today. I even participated in a world trade game in which the room was almost set up like a stock market where students could buy, sell, and trade goods and bonds.  I was at the trade table where students bought bonds, which was crazy busy and quite a rush to participate in.  I really wish that there was something like this in Owasso when I was in high school.  I got home at around 6:00 that evening and was out like a light pretty early.  

Friday, April 4, 2014

Today, the rest of the classes made their own gas-masks out of the paper plates and paper bowls before I gave a lecture on the eastern front and the end of the war.  I was super impressed with the creativity that the students exhibited.  I had kids add on the tube at the end of the gas-mask, making for extremely authentic looking creations.  After school, I attended Model United Nations Conference at Lincoln School.  On Friday night, I went with Glen (one of the middle school global studies teachers who runs the program at the school) and Francis (the middle school coordinator) as chaperones for about 60 students.  We saw the opening ceremony where the Costa Rican ambassador to the United States Muni Figueres gave a speech where she talked about Costa Rica's diplomatic history and told the students that charm is key in politics.  After that, we had a teachers meeting while the students started their councils.  Over the course of the weekend I got to meet some really interesting teachers and school directors from the different American schools in Costa Rica and even one in Honduras.  

Thursday, April 3, 2014

I had the one 9th Grade class that I had today make gas masks.  We made gas masks out of paper plates, paper bowls, tape, and markers.  I thought they would be hokey, but they turned out really cool.  During the rest of the morning I helped out with position papers again for the Model United Nations Conference and worked on writing an exam for the 9th Graders.  During the afternoon, I finished up the exam and worked diligently on finishing my portfolio checkpoint for OSU.  I will be very satisfied when the portfolio is finished.  Since it is both Katie and McCall’s birthday this weekend, their house-mom, Maricruz, made them a birthday cake.  Maricruz came and got Liliana and I and we set up around the cake to sing Cumpleanos Feliz to them after we knocked on their doors and told them to come to the dining room.  They were super surprised and the cake was delicious.  I spent the rest of the night in Andy sports heaven.  Both the Houston Astros and the Oklahoma City Thunder were on television here.  I did not think that I would have to make a choice between watching the Thunder and Astros while here, but sure enough.  This made for a happy camper. 

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Today we talked about World War I Technology.  The students spent the first half of class (or more like most of the class) finishing their test-corrections.  When they wrapped that up, I put up several pictures of technological advances during World War I and we explored things such as blimps, airplanes, tanks, machine guns, etc.  Afterwards, I put up a BBC online computer games in which students are given a scenario and they must choose the correct combination of technology in order to successfully complete the mission.  I had the class agree on what they wanted to choose and then give it a try.  I think the kids liked the computer game and had fun when I told them that their homework was to go home and play the computer game.  During the afternoon, I did my homework as quickly as possible so that I could spend my evening watching the USA v. Mexico soccer game.  The cool thing about living in a Latin American country is that the game was on about three different channels.  The not so cool thing was that all of the commentators were convinced that Mexico was going to win 2-0 or 3-0.  As I watched the American in their bomb pop uniforms, they played a brilliant first half and led 2-0 at halftime, then I got sleepy and fell asleep.  I don’t think it was 2-0 anymore when I woke up the next morning.  

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

So I quit today.

Not really.  That’s just a lame April Fool’s Joke.  This morning I observed Neena teach a lesson to the 10^th Graders about the events that led up to the American Civil War.  After class I worked on a lesson plan until I had an early lunch.  At the conclusion of my peanut butter and jelly time, I went to one of the other teachers’ room to help students with their position papers for the Model United Nations conference that a lot of them (myself included) are going to this weekend.  I’m actually pretty excited for it.  I have heard some pretty neat things about the conferences and have seen my kids debate in a similar fashion before in class, so I have high confidence that they will do fantastic.  I essentially spent the rest of the afternoon getting a run-down of what the Model United Nations looks like and helping kids prepare for the event.  Katie and McCall went to buy their bus tickets for their weekend trip to Manuel Antonio, so I even stayed around after school for an extra hour to help out.  After school, I kept working on lesson plans and prepared for tomorrow’s lesson on technology in World War I.  My Houston Astros even won their first game today, so it was a pretty darn good day.  

Monday, March 31, 2014

Class was exciting today because I had the students focusing on trench warfare.  First, we watched a short youtube video that depicted what World War I looked like.  It included soldiers marching, digging trenches, soldiers going over the top, tanks, gas masks, and everything else associated with the war.  Next, we played around with an interact map that showed the troop movements during the western front before looking at an interactive BBC website that showed what a day in the life of someone living in the trenches looked like.  Finally, I gave the kids pieces of paper to wad up and gave them five minutes to build trenches before they reenacted a trench warfare battle (essentially a glorified version of dodgeball).  It was loud, chaotic, and awesome!  After school, I had a rather uneventful day of working on homework and updating the blog.  At about 8:30 or so, Zoe returned home from Nicaragua.  I think Liliana’s heart is full again with all her kiddos back home.