Craziness!

To all my blog followers, I am terribly sorry. Life has gotten crazy busy.

Currently I am sitting my living room/kitchen eating a concotion of melted peanut butter, granola, and banana while drinking Jamaica tea. How is this possible on a school day you ask? Shouldn't I be giving a lesson right now on solving linear systems with matrices? Well, let me tell you the story.

Not only is there no school until next Tuesday, but until then, we are not allowed to even be at school. This weekend is the elections and the voting centers are set up and held at schools. Since our school is attached to a Venezuelan school where voting will be, our school was asked to shut down during this week. For the Venezuelan schools, this is no big deal as they won't even begin school until October. We had thought that during this time, teachers would remain at school to plan, but according to the latest news, we are not allowed to be on the property. So here I am, sitting at home, where I am supposed to be working on planning. However, the director has told us to take it easy, and I am happily obliging.

However, no school actually doesn't mean no classes. We found out the news of our closing on Friday so I had the weekend and Monday to prepare my students to continue their work online. This is no easy task in math. How do I have them submit their homework to me, math notation and all? What about the tests I was planning on giving? Through much work, creativity, and help from our tech teacher, I was able to create plans for the students this week.

Now that those are done, you would think this week would be really light and restful for me. However, yesterday, the first day of no classes, this was not at all the case. I got about 50 emails from my students with tons of questions. It was crazy! I felt like I was getting a new email every minute. On top of the that, one of the sites I had the kids using stopped working so I had to switch everything over to a new site. I worked straight from 8-3 with only a 20 minute break to eat my lunch while I listened to a sermon for Bible study that night. My brain was hurting. However, today promises to be better now that the kinks have been worked out.

The Bible study we are doing as female teachers is great. We are listening to David Platt's Secret Church audio podcasts called “Who is God?” It has been incredibly challenging so far. I have been convicted by the way I approach God with a lack of humility and encouraged by who God is through His names described in the Bible.

As usual, I have filled any free time I may have had. But no worries, I like it that way. Tonight, Kayla and I are experiencing our first Venezuelan birthday celebration. I am excited! Happy Birthday Daniella! This weekend, we have been told lay low because of possibilities for violence during the election weekend. So our friend Minerva is coming over to the house Friday to show us how to make cachapas, an awesome Venezuelan food we've only experienced at restaurants. Saturday we are hoping to have our friend Daniela from salsa classes over to the house to cook.

I continue to practice my Spanish, but am learning slowly. The Spanish teacher, who gives us lessons once a week, and I have made a deal. She is trying to learn English so she speaks to me in English and I respond in Spanish. It's an awesome system. I also practice with the wonderful lady who cleans my room, Marisol. She speaks no English and speaks fast Spanish so it is a challenge to communicate. She often has to write the word on the board or explain it to me a different way. And I have to stop speaking Spanglish. It's fun but I still want to practice more and consistently spend time with people who don't speak English with us.

There is always news about our house. We currently have a mouse staying with us. We scared him out the front door once but since then, his poop has been found in various places. Mouse traps should end his visit soon. Marc and Amy's apartment is finally finished and they will be moving from next to us to 2 apartments down in the next day or so. So exciting for them! On a sad note, the family who was supposed to come in January is not able to come anymore, so the school is looking for a Science teacher for second semester. Please keep this in your prayers.

There have been so many funny stories or weird situations that I say, “I should blog about that.” And then too much time goes by and I forget. I will try to be better at blogging more frequently. If you all responded more, maybe I'd be encouraged to write more. ;-) Thank you so much those of you who have emailed me or skyped with me. I love hearing from you and talking to you. It was so good to talk to you Michelle and get to see Wyatt and Myles. Miss you all!