Fiesta Forever: 2011-02-13

My regular day in Mexico:

- Wake up at 7:30 (uuuughhh)

- Go on a run around 8:00

- Get back around 8:30 and shower, get ready (2 minute showers I mentioned before)

- Head to the school around 10:30

- Prep for the days lessons, write up lesson plans for next week, hang out with teachers

(sometimes just tan)

- Set up my classroom

- Leave the school between 2- 2:30 to get back for lunch

- Come home and do chores

- Ask if our family needs any help, to which they always respond "Set the table" I am now a very, very good table setter :)

- Read on the roof/ blog/ nap/ email

- Eat lunch till my tummy wants to 'splode

- Read more

- Head to the school at 4:00 to get ready for the little chillin to come

- 2 hours of crazyness and fun until 6:30

- Clean up

- Have either a very quiet-on-account-of-how-tired-we-are walk home or a I'm-so-glad-everything-went-so-well-and-school-is-done-for-the-day happy walk home

- Chilllllll

Seems pretty run-of-the-mill, huh?

(By the way could I go any farther with these dash-type-sentence-thingys???)

Well, friends. Today my day has been interrupted.

By Valentine's Day :)

Not a horrible interruption if you ask me.

Carly and I went to the grocery store (La Gran Bodega) and bought our fam-jam a lil cake to express our lovey dovey-ness and appreciation for them.

Lemme tell you, friends- Mexicans know how to do cake.

Normally, I hate cake. In fact, I detest cake. The dry icky feeling in your mouth mixed with 10 inches of waxy colored frosting just revolts me.

But here in Mexico?

I love me some cake.

But the best best best best best best best part of my Mexican Valentine's Day was Secret Valentines with these awesome folk:

We did Secret Valentines between the five of us and it was so much fun.

So here's some cute lil piccies from my Mexican Valentines day.....

Carly's Valentine was Jordan. Jordan loves pineapples so she bought him a pina and put the fanciest shmansiest wrapping paper ever around it.

My Secret Valentine was Cryshel. And she happens to love chocolate. And cereal. Sooo... GENIUS! Chocolate cereal. Aren't I intelligent? I also wrote her a poem, and here's an excerpt:

"She loves her cereal box.

And her wit? As quick as a fox.

People like her a lot

Good qualities she's got

Including her bodacious brown locks"

I'm just a modern Robert Frost, folks.

And guess WHAT???

I got my first valentine from a student!!!

She was a total sweetie, and pulled it out of all her backpack all shy and said "Here Teachar".

It was the best chocolate covered marshmallow cookie I ever had.

Here's a pic of the little cutie pie.

Here name is Aylen.

She just decided one day she wanted to wear her Snow White costume to English class.

Did she wear it to her other classes?

No. Just to mine.

Kate had me for Secret Valentines and she picked up some serious bling, knowing my affinity for tasteful accessories...

Jordan looooved his pineapple.

AND Jordan had Carly as well. So they were closest out of all of us to having a legitimate Valentines day. He stuck a bunch of candy bars all over a big heart poster.

Precious.

Cryshel lovin on her cereal box.

Kate with her Twix and poem from Cryshel.

And me? Just enjoying the fruits of a good V-Day...

It has been a tough past few days.

I've felt a liiiiiiitle emotionally and physically drained. Which is never fun.

But let me tell you friends- there is a cure.

Camping!!!

What?

You don't agree? Well, I happen to love camping. I love being outside, and having a campfire, and sleeping in a tent, and getting away from the city.

So on friday night the 5 of us teachers, plus our other teacher friend Kristin and a bunch of our host families headed out to a family ranch about 20 minutes outside of the city.

I was really excited to just get away for a while and enjoy the un-cluttered lifestyle.

I won't lie though, camping has its downfalls.

Like:

Being greeted by about 100 daddy-long-leg-spiders in the shed
Freezing my toesies off at night cause I didn't bring enough blankies
The teeth-brushed face-washed clean feeling doesn't really exist
Sometimes, no matter where you sit, the campfire smoke always finds you

The food we ate was pretty interesting though.

Mexicans like hot dogs. They call them 'salchichas' here, and its kind of their replacement meat. They use it on sandwiches and put it in their eggs, and do all sorts of other things with them. They ALSO use them while camping. Kind of chalky tasting, but it helped keep the camping spirit alive.