10/12/2009

"Te quieres montarme?" -Armored Bear (Epics have gotten suck)

I really worked on my classroom today. I'm getting serious thoughts of this completely failing. It is very hard to get materials here, especially useful ones. But if you ever need sugar or coffee...oh wait, Venezuela ran out, I forgot to mention that. Even if something isn't useful, you still probably wont be able to find it here. People hoard things as soon as they get into stores, luckily I was able to pick up a phone card today. Unluckily it doesn't work. I am at a huge disconnect with Los Estados Unidos right now, which I don't mind so much, and was partially my intention of coming down here. There are some people I'd really like to talk to back home, about 3 or 4 of them, just to let them know that I'm doing alright and I'd really like to have the internet as a resource to help me with my class. Although, I was able to check my facebook at school and my favorite 5th grade teacher offered me some great advice on the classroom. It's a tattle jar, for each student that tattles something that is not an emergency, they have to write down what happened and place it in the tattle jar. Then later I can go over and look at all the tattles. Such a perfect plan, MUAHAHAHAHA!!!! I laugh thinking about how fun that's going to be to implement. Wanted to mention golf is banned here as well.

I had no run ins with either Sucre or Schubert today. It rained all day, so badly that I couldn't walk 300 feet from school to my house. It's probably a good thing, because I heard somewhere that someone in the iguana gang has been telling Sucre I've been stepping all over his mangos. I know he's got control of that tree and his slab, and I never would do such a thing. Hopefully he'll sleep it off and we can work things out in the morning.

Last night Arqui gave me a call and I ended up hanging out with him and his friends. We watched the hangover. I don't recall all of their names, but we went to a really wealthy estate pretty close to my school, where a brother and sister lived. They both spoke English really well, and are currently going to school in North Carolina. I met another girl, who I forgot her name, who currently goes to school in Tennessee. There is a huge disparity between the rich and the poor here (who could've guessed?). It was somewhat calming knowing that such a wealthy family just had a gate and a few dogs roaming the yard. We went out in 2 cars to get some Lebanese Schwarma, which was absolutely delicious, Arqui assured me it would be fine to go out at night because we were in such a large group. I hadn't even entertained the though until he mentioned that. Later I played Texas Hold-em and lost horribly. No real money was put on the table, thankfully.

I recalled a memory of when I first got here, I watched the end of Minority Report in spanish, I can't believe I never knew that Max Von Sydow was in it. I don't know how I never put this together, but am somewhat disappointed in myself since he is some of my favorite films of all time. Later I watched Mission Impossible 3, and got the exact same thing out of it in Spanish as I did in English. Absolutely nothing. Satellite TV is finally working, and I'm highly anticipating the NBA season. I haven't been able to check on any updates :( but I have high hopes for this year. Even more so for next. Speaking of basketball, I made 8 out of 10 free throws today. Probably the best 8 moments of my life.

I just watched The Reaping, it was about as gratifying as drinking curdled milk to wash down your peanut butter. Mediocre acting, completely irrelevant scenes thrown into the movie to create a perfect storm of unintentional confusion, combined with the lamest twist since The Village made a perfect remedy for something productive. Next time I know something is good going on, I'm going to watch The Reaping to make sure it never happens. Currently Honey I Shrunk the Kids is playing in the background, en espanol. I still can't listen to music, it's a strange thing, it makes me too sad :(