Good News/Bad News

The good news is I love my new job.  The school is great, the teachers are wonderful, and the kids are well behaved and considerate.  The director of the school could not be more different than the last director.  She's always in and out of classrooms staying involved and in the know of what the teachers and students are doing.  If there is a disciplinary problem she's there, sometimes before a teacher can even have time to ask for her help.  She nips problems in the bud and the students seem to fear her and respect her at the same time.  She's the perfect mixture of loving and stern, dishing out chocolates to the students who behave and participate and lecturing students who are slacking or acting out in class in her office and setting up meetings with parents if she needs to.  None of this, "well we know kids are using textbooks as weapons against each other buuuut...there's really nothing we can do about it" that went on at CEYCI.  The teachers are great too.  The school really focuses on English so most of the teachers speak a good amount of English and they've all been eager to help me if I need it or seem lost/confused (which, let's be honest, happens a lot with me, even if I know exactly what's going on.  I just have that "how did I get here?" look on my face a lot)  The students are all intelligent and relatively eager to learn.  They're elementary school kids after all so sometimes making jokes about cheese wins out over learning when class runs long but that's to be expected.  They're all happy kids and I haven't seen one instance of bullying between them which is a refreshing change.  In the halls everyone says hi to me even the students I've never worked with.  It's a great school.

The bad news is they don't have much for me to do.  Right now I'm just helping the English classes, working in a conversational role with the students, and acting as a sort of substitute teacher when other teachers are sick or can't come in for whatever reason.  So I really only work 1 or 2 hours a day.  Which isn't enough to pay the bills.  This week I'm not working at all because the students are having tests so there's nothing for me to do.  So I'm going to have to try to find another job.  I'm hoping to be able to find a second job on top of this one because I'm still holding out hope that something will come up and they'll need me full time.  That'd be the best case scenario because it's really nice to look forward to going to work and leave in a good mood!  So once again, fingers crossed!

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures!

Well I realized I've been taking a lot of pictures and not doing anything with them so I figured it was about time I put them on here.  So here you go...

This is from the Halloween parade at my school.  These are the first graders.

The second graders cheered as they waited their turn for the parade.

these are the fourth graders I work with a lot.

more parade.

these are the fourth graders again

the teachers all dressed up as witches.

these are the oldest kids, the 6th graders.  They weren't too keen on the idea of dancing around for the parade but finally did it anyway. 

These are some of the fourth graders I work with.

After the parade a small dance party broke out.

Octavio & one of his classes visited the worlds largest open air market in Mexico City.

Someone got lost but luckily it wasn't Octavio!

more of his trip in Mexico City.

Mexico City

There's a small cave near our apartment.  We went during the time they weren't giving tours so we'll have to go back again to actually go through the cave instead of just peer in. 

They had their own mini alter for Day of the Dead at the cave.

There was a little garden area above the cave that we wandered through also.

Later that day we went to one of the graveyards near our apartment for Day of the Dead.  This graveyard was all super old from the 1800s and early 1900s.

Then we headed down to the centro to see what festivities were going on there.  The cathedral had decorations featuring the Pope.

There were alters set up by different schools and organizations downtown for Day of the Dead.

This one was from a school in the gulf of Veracruz so their alter had a shipwrecked theme.

the Cathedral across from the alters

The governers building.  The alters were set up underneath the arches

I thought this was a dolphin but now that I look at it not up close I think maybe it's a dove. 

more decorations on the Cathedral.

another alter.

This alter featured the ancient god of the underworld or death.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

another alter.

Sadly, my camera died at school and I didn't get a picture of the alter the Spanish teachers had set up there because it was super elaborate and pretty.  Day of the Dead might have to be included in one of my favorite holidays now!