Journal
10 May 22, 2013
Today started as a regular day. We went to breakfast at the usual time and
ate cornflakes, ham, an omelet, cheese quesadillas, fruit, and juice. After
that, it was off to ABSS!
Becca and I started the morning
Spanish period in the teacher’s lounge with Miss Lacey asking her questions
about her experiences here in Honduras.
One of our assignments for the courses we’re taking is to write about
our teacher and his/her experiences. The
things we learned from Miss Lacey were awesome!
She is such an honest and open person, so she’s been a great first
mentor. We asked her about her
experiences in the States before she came here, her experiences while adjusting
to culture here, and a lot of other things.
It was really cool!
After our mini interview, Miss Lacey
said Becca and I could do the math lesson again! The lesson was on counting by 100s by using
boxes of paperclips with 100 paperclips in each box. When we taught the lesson, JoAnn came into
our classroom to observe. Becca and I
took turns explaining to the class what we were going to do and also took turns
guiding the students through different strategies counting the boxes. Compared to the bean activity, the students
really seemed to understand the activity and the lesson. We were surprised at all the different
strategies the students used on the board, so it was really cool!
In fact, later in the afternoon,
JoAnn talked with me and gave me some feedback.
She said that I did a fantastic job with my part of the lesson today and
that I seemed really animated, which was good to keep the students’
attention. Also, she said I seemed to be
naturally good at standing up in front of the class. I felt honored to have that kind of praise
for my first time really doing anything like that! She gave me a piece of advice too: When there
is a student at the board, I need to make sure I still give attention to the
class so that I don’t lose their interest.
It wasn’t something I had really thought about, but it was good advice. So overall, I felt really good about the
lesson.
Something else that was interesting
about today was that the students played a 3rd grade vs. 4th
grade capture the flag game! Although we
have some speedy and athletic kids on our team, the 4th grade beat
us by one point! The students are all
very competitive, so they were pretty mad that they lost.
Then, during first recess, an
embarrassing and very awkward thing happened.
So most of the girls on this study abroad trip think the librarian, Mr.
Danis, is very cute. Some of us were
sitting in the library and talking to some of the students, but periodically
glancing over at Mr. Danis to see him peer up from looking down at his desk
with his gorgeous eyes and give us his signature little smirk/grin. Well, Becca started taking creeper pictures
of him while we were sitting at the tables and talking, but when she went to
take one with my camera, the flash was on and he looked over and saw us! I started crying because I was laughing so
hard, and none of the students understood what was going on, so they were
asking why I was crying.
It was even worse at lunch. Since it was Wednesday, we only had a half
day in the classroom because the teachers had professional development
afterwards. So, we had a teacher
appreciation luncheon with all the teachers in the multipurpose room to thank
them for all they had done for us so far.
Megan stood up and said a thank you, and then Laura did one in
Spanish. We had the delicious tacos that
we had the other day, and also some yummy cake: one was stress leches, and one
was chocolate! It was really good! Also,
Mr. Carlos, the music teacher, played some songs and sang to us! It was really neat! But anyways, to Katie and my good fortune,
Mr. Danis sat at the table across from us, so the entire lunch we stole glances
at him across the room. The problem was,
he continued to make eye contact with us and every time he did we kept giggling
like little girls. We really wanted to
know how old he was, because it’s hard to tell if he’s younger or older than
us. So we got Laura to join in on our
plan: after lunch, we would go to the library and Laura would take a picture
with the librarian and a teacher she works with a lot. Then she would just ask them their ages to
see how old he was. Katie took the
picture, and when Laura started asking about the pages, we started dying
laughing! We had to turn our heads away
because we didn’t want them to see us laughing.
Turns out Mr. Danis is 19 years old, same as us! (Even better than that was that when Katie
and I got on Facebook tonight, we had a Facebook inbox message from him!! We have no idea how he found us on Facebook
since he didn’t know our last names, but I’ve been talking to him most of the
night on Facebook chat! It’s fun because
he doesn’t know English very well at all, so it’s all in Spanish. Surprisingly, it’s not as challenging as I
would have thought to write to each other in just Spanish, but there are times
when I have to pull out Google Translate J)
Well, after that excitement at lunch,
we left to go to the pool, even though it was pretty cloudy and we thought it
was going to rain. The students also had
swim lessons today, so we got to see some of our students. Rather, we were splashed by our
students! We read our books a little bit
and studied a little, but we headed to the little stationary store to get some
paper to make cards for our students for our last day on Friday. Becca and I worked on them tonight and we will
finish them tomorrow. We then went to the little food store to get some candy
for them as well, but I also bought a huge pack of Chiky’s, the little cookies
Gustavo gave us yesterday. They were so
tasty! They had different flavors too,
so I think I’m going to have to buy some more.
But, it is 1 in the morning, and I
must get some sleep! Goodnight!!
Photos (kind of out of order, but I'm way too lazy to change it):
My man, Norman ;)
Lunch; hooray for tacos!!
3rd vs. 4th capture the flag
Breakfast
Cake for lunch
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