I felt a little bit more normal walking to the bus stop today

First day without the dreaded uniform. I didn't get off that lucky, I still had to wear a uniform, but we finally received our Friday sports gear. It's not perfect, (it's extremely large... since most Colombian women are uber short I think that they think I am much taller/wider than I actually am) but it's a hundred times better. It's the same uniform the students wear, so I think at the mall today the girl helping me at the shoe store thought I was in high school, which was weird. But I think it might be better than appearing as a walking fashion disaster and it may even help me fend off the creepers. I'll take it.

In the past few days...

The new trainee from DC arrived. We picked her up from the airport Saturday night and then hung out at the trainee house and chatted. I also taught everyone how to play one of 438's favorite games: Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll. They were pretty good for first timers. I think I'm improving.

I went to a sweet flea market on Sunday with a couple GBers. It's in this really cool neighborhood called Usaquen and they sell really awesome stuff for really cheap. Tons of jewelry, art, precolombian souvenirs, delicious food, puppies, etc, etc. (Okay, I am NOT kidding about the puppies. People walk around carrying puppies like they are babies and they sell them. It is the most adorable thing ever. I want to take them all home with me. I think that if Jo and Dave saw them, they would be flying home with a new friend for Fletcher.) And the flea market is huge. We were there for 5 hours and didn't even get through the entire thing. Guess I'll just have to go back this Sunday.

I had my first parent-teacher conference today. And it went really well. I hope all the parents are that nice. Everything else school related is mehh. I don't feel like getting into it.

I ALMOST got my package delivered today. ALMOST.

I've also been trying to figure out my Halloween costume. Surprisingly, Halloween is pretty well-celebrated here. One kid even asked me how you say Halloween in English. I was happy to inform him that it is in fact, the same. I've encountered a couple problems while searching for my next disfraz. One being that I also have to dress up on Friday at school. And I don't think I will be able to use the same costume for Friday day and Friday night. It seems that my referee shorts might be considered a tad inappropriate for private school rules. Problem two being that everyone seems to buy their costume already complete. I have not done this in my entire life, and I don't feel like starting now. Bogotá could really use a Jo-Ann Fabrics.

So that's what's going on right now. I promise a more fluid post next time.

snail mail

Mail here SUCKS. Big time. According to my roommate, no one ever mails anything. My first experience with the mail here was not a good one due to weirdly coincidental circumstances, but that point aside, the mail here still sucks. I haven't seen one post office since I arrived, and the closest place I found to send something internationally is an hour away. And then it cost me $35 to mail a single piece of paper.

I have been patiently awaiting a package from my mom for about 8 weeks. A month and a half ago I received a letter saying that the package was here, but if I wanted it I'd have to pay a $25 dollar tax. Never mind that my mom already spent an arm and a leg to get it here. To do that, you have to go to a bank to pay, and then they send it to you. Well it took me a couple weeks to figure out how to do that, and then find the time to actually do it, but I did it and two weeks later I am still packageless. My roommate asked me about it a couple days ago and I told her I was still waiting. Then she informed me that I needed to call the place to tell them that I paid. I guess they can't figure it out themselves by looking at their account balance.

Today I made it home early enough to call this office and tell them that I paid their stupid tax and I want my package. I actually understood the woman pretty well, so I was getting pretty pumped when she told me that they were going to deliver it on Monday. But then she told me that when they deliver it I have to show them my passport, the letter, and the receipt from the bank. Which means I have to actually be present for when they deliver it. Problem: They will deliver it between 8 and 5. I get home from work at 4, if I'm lucky. I asked them if they could make sure to deliver it after 4pm, but they of course they cannot. So then I asked if I could leave my information with the security guards, and they said that would be fine, as long as I give them an authorization letter. That means, a formal letter with a notary stamp. I might be back in Wisconsin before I even get to see the box. Lame.

Mixed Feelings

I've been reflecting a lot lately on my time here so far, which has led to a lot of mixed emotions. Granted, since I arrived my emotions have been teetering very close to the surface. I've finally grown out of the culture shock stage and have begun to accept and also appreciate the differences between Colombia and back home. I miss everyone terribly, but I have met so many awesome people. I finally went out with a couple other young teachers this past weekend, and it was extremely refreshing to get to know them outside of the workplace. I get homesick quite a bit, but I'm not ready to move home. I can't wait to go home for Christmas vacay, but I also can't wait to use some of those days to travel. I couldn't imagine only being here for two months, and I'm starting to think that maybe I should change my return flight so I have more time to travel around the country once I'm done teaching.

Anyway, the bulk of confusion has mostly come from my job. I feel like my blog posts have been somewhat bipolar, and when I talk about work they are never on the upside. I'm trying so hard to get the cultural experience that every @er raves about, but I feel like my job is preventing me from getting there. My life in Colombia is my job. I am gone for 11 hours out of the day and then come home just to continue working. I don't go anywhere during the week because I am so busy with work. And even on the weekends I'm so exhausted and am just thinking about what has to be done for the following week. And the cultural differences at school are some that I think I will never get used to, or even want to get used to.

Yesterday I finally finished a huge project that was supposed to be due last Wednesday. I'm happy that I spent the time doing a good job and making it professional, but when I didn't have this thing done by last week, I reached somewhat of a breaking point which has been the reason for all these reflections in the first place. Am I really happy here? Is this truly what I want my experience to be?

It's supposed to be a rhetorical question, but I guess the answer is yes and no. I've returned to the realization that you can make or break your experience abroad. I have the resources here to make changes; I am not completely helpless and I just have to use them. What those changes might be, I'm not 100% sure just yet, but living here has been a big learning process. And I'm getting there.

Today after school I had to take an English test. And I do mean like an English proficiency test. I was not pleased, and I just added this stupid policy to my list of stupid policies. Not to mention that it was extremely poorly written, with many grammatical errors and unclear instructions. I find it pretty hypocritical that the owners of the school complain about the poor quality of the tests the teachers write, but then they come up with this crap that fails to measure any level of English properly.

I tried really hard to get out of it. Even after my boss said no, I went to Catalina, the woman who hired me, to see if I could get out of it. No such luck as it is a requirement for every bilingual teacher's folder. I actually don't have much contact with Catalina since I began teaching. I have like 8 bosses, and since she's in human resources I don't see her too often. So she took this opportunity to check up on me and see how I was doing. And I was honest with her; I've been better. Last week's demands were really hard for me as the 22-year-old recent graduate with no teaching experience whatsoever and I felt overwhelmed with unwanted responsibility. I talked to her about the hierarchy of the school system and how I don't think I will ever adjust to it. There is really only so much Catalina can do, but talking to her was reassuring. I tried to mention some similar things to the head of the English department yesterday, but I cut my conversation short as I didn't think it was going in the direction that I wanted.

My conversation with Catalina came back to me after the test this afternoon. And actually in a really good way. I was told that she is really impressed with my work so far and that she thinks I will be a strong asset to the school among a couple other nice comments. This came as a glimmer of hope, as I see myself constantly sucking and being defeated by my job. Maybe work will get better. And then maybe it won't. Either way, some things will be changing and I am content with that.

Villa de Leyva

LDC

Last weekend I was finally able to make it out of the city and didn't have to think about work the entire weekend. It was the weekend of all the regional AIESEC conferences in Colombia, so I decided to tag along and try to meet some more people while doing something that was familiar.

The conference (LDC) was from Saturday to Monday (Monday was a holiday... Colombia has a lot of holidays.) so we left bright and early on Saturday morning. Well, it wasn't exactly bright as the sun doesn't come up until six and we had to be at the meeting place at 4am but there were three coach buses waiting to drive us to a small town north of the city called Villa de Leyva. The drive took about 4 hours, and I slept for the first two. But after stopping in a small town for breakfast (or lunch... everyone ordered hot soup) I stayed awake for the rest of the trip and chatted with the other @ers. Once we got out of the city and into the mountains, the drive was really pretty. The sun was actually out too so that made it even better. Villa de Leyva is located really high up in the mountains, so to get there, you have to drive on cartoon roads. (For those of you who don't know what cartoon roads are, they are roads that have no guard rails and then after the extremely tiny shoulder there's a steep 90 degree drop. I came up with this term on my family's trip out west because they reminded me of the roads that are in the Road Runner cartoons.) The roads would occasionally have guard rails on the turns, but in a large coach bus I don't think they would have done us any good. So I tried not to pay attention and just pay attention to the scenery.

The conference itself was amazing. So many things were similar, but a lot of it was new for me. What is cool about our region, is that the entire region is made up of the LCs in Bogotá. There are five in the city, so there are enough people to make an entire conference. Unlike ROKS, this conference wasn't just geared for new members. The sessions were relevant for everybody, including me who isn't even doing @ work right now. We spent a lot of time in small groups, so I got to know some people really well. And as the token trainee, it was like being a celebrity... I got to help faci a "go abroad" session and improvise a speech for a "Nobel Prize" session. And then people I hadn't even met yet wanted to take pictures with me. I had a good time.

The parties of course were fun. For as great as the rest of the conference was, the themes were actually pretty lame in my opinion. The first we didn't even get to dress up for, and the second one was angels and devils. Obvi went as an angel with glittered wings (Teresa) but it was no Spring Break '97. And there was no Numa Numa. But, everyone walks around with a bottle of liquor and there are drinking competitions, including a beer bong competition on Saturday night, which is always a good time.

Every LC has role calls, chants, their own t-shirts, but what this conference has that the US does not have is a papaya box. A papaya box is what you could call a gossip box (again, Teresa). If you see any gossip, hear any gossip, know of any rumors, or want to confess your love to your crush, you write it on a piece of paper and then put it in the box. And then during the closing, they read the box to everybody. It's pretty fabulous, and should probably become an @ US tradition ASAP.

The last day of the conference we were able to see a little bit of the city. It's a cute and safe little town. It's touristy in the way that I would maybe call Cedarburg touristy. All the buildings are white and have colonial architecture. They have cute little shops and we stopped at a cafe to eat delicious arepas before coming back to the hotel. I wouldn't mind coming back for a day trip some weekend.

Coming back to school on Wednesday was definitely not easy, but this weekend was exactly what I needed.

Welcoming the Newbies

I gotta say, I am pretty proud of myself for figuring out how to make a video and put it on YouTube.

More to come on the past weekend and LDC.

Holy Crap

And I mean that in almost the most literal sense.

I walked into my apartment today and was greeted by a bunch of crap. Stacks of moving boxes, leather furniture, other random chairs that don't really seem to have a place to go, a dining room table, night stands, laundry baskets full of stuff, and a couple desks. This was a lovely sight for my sore eyes because my apartment has been practically empty since I moved in. The building is only about 4 months old, so it is very new for my roommate and her mom also. And my roommate has been living here since then sans furniture and a whole lot of other stuff. It's so nice that I can finally move all my work off my bedroom floor and sit at a table to do it.

In other news, today at school I had to take a two hour psychology test. Normally I thought they did these sort of things before you got hired, but maybe they just need it for their records or whatever. The first one was to draw a person in the rain. My person was stick, but my umbrella and rain clouds were pretty sweet. The next test had 16 boxes on a piece of paper and each box had an unfinished picture. Like a line, a dot, a square, a curved line, etc. We were supposed to complete each box with our own picture. Drawing isn't exactly my forte, and I was trying extra hard to be super creative since it was a test, so it took me almost an hour to finish the thing. The last test was timed and was basically about how well you follow directions. Except it was in Spanish. I finished first out of my group, so I could have either nailed it or bombed it. I'm really hoping that they find something awesome out about me, or I may consider those two hours a solid waste of time.

Tomorrow we're supposed to have our syllabus, lesson plans, and 1st period final exams ready per order of the owner of the school. Yeaaa, not even close to being done.

Not quite what I had in mind

Today was not the productive day I was hoping for. Instead, I sat through the 9 hour LTM equivalent.

Shoot. Me.

Snow Day

Maybe it's a long shot of a comparison considering it doesn't actually snow here, but I remember how exciting it was when we found out we had a snow day. That is how my students felt on Monday times ten. Fifteen minutes before the end of the day, one of the assistants came around to drop off notes for all the kids to take home. I didn't read it before passing it out because I was still trying to teach, but due to something or another, the students would be getting a vacation starting the following day (Tuesday) to the following WEDNESDAY! Pretty lucky if you ask me. Pretty unlucky that the teachers still have to go.

Although it would have been great to have a surprise vacation and I would have probably immediately booked a bus ticket to the coast, I am looking at the bright side. I really do have a TON of work to do (it honestly feels like finals week where I have so much to carry around that I have resorted to using my backpack) and now I will have a lot of time to do it during the day. Unfortunately our day today was packed with painfully long meetings where I felt good, and then I felt bad, and then I felt better, and now I'm exhausted. There are a lot of changes to be done in the English department, as well as a lot of changes I think I need to make myself (main one being classroom management, surprise, surprise). It is however, refreshing to be working, but not teaching. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a successful week.

weird day

I'll start with the morning.

Today at my bus stop a dog got hit by a car and was killed. It was one of the saddest things I've ever seen. It was laying on the side of the road and there was this other dog that was trying to play with it. I tried to stand as far away as possible so I wouldn't cry, but if I moved too far away I would risk getting sideswiped by a bus. There are actually stray dogs everywhere, and every time one crosses the street I cringe because drivers here are far from cautious. Luckily my bus wasn't too late this morning so I didn't have to stand there for long.

Every Friday at school is Sports/Arts day. This means that for two hours in the morning the kids in elementary are split up into groups to do their preferred sport or art. This also means that there are some lucky teachers that get to be in charge of a group. I (unfortunately) am one of the chosen ones and must chaperone a group of 25 to a sports complex for bowling. I already have zero free time during the day, so I was going to take advantage of my time there to do work. Just before I got on the bus however, the elementary supervisor informed me that I was not allowed to bring my bag or any books because I had to pay attention to the kids. (I remind you that while I am there, they have two different bowling instructors and only need me to take attendance on the bus and tie some bowling shoes.) I was not happy with this, and I believe on Monday I will be trying very hard to get myself out of this. It would be so glorious to have two full hours to myself to be in my classroom and do work. I was pretty bitter about this, so I decided to take advantage of my situation and I rented my own pair of bowling shoes and hopped in with the kids. At least I'm getting free bowling lessons. I need them too... I discovered that I'm not very good.

Also at school today the head of the English department found me and told me that there was now a spot open to teach 8th grade. He asked if I would prefer to stay in third or move up. I didn't know what to say. I tried to debate the pros/cons within our short conversation, but then just asked him what he thought was best. He said he thought I should stay. I think I agree with him. Sometimes, I really hate my job. And sometimes, I really can't stand my bratty kids. But I think slowly things are getting better. I still question my qualifications, but I am feeling better about taking on the challenge. Some days are just better than others I guess.

After school however, is when I had quite the experience. I booked it to the transmilenio as soon as I got home to the only place I could find that mails things. It's not close... it's a good 90 blocks away. I have been trying to mail my ballot request for three weeks now, and it seems that no one here knows how to mail a letter. Mail is a completely different blog post in itself, so I won't get into that now, but I made it there about 7 minutes before they closed. Upon finding out that even the cheapest option was still 15 dollars (I have ONE PIECE OF PAPER TO MAIL, btw) but that it would take longer than two weeks, I decided that fine, I would shell out the extra 20 bucks so that it would get there within 6 days. Just as I took out my wallet, the loudest boom-like noise shot through the air. The guy working ducked behind the counter, so I ran behind it and did the same. It sounded like huge rocks were hitting the ground outside. I had no idea what was going on so I started crying. (Go me.) After a minute, the guy working ran to the window to see what happened. There was an explosion on the fifth floor of the building right next to us. Chunks of concrete had flown everywhere. He called the police and I cautiously made my way to the window to see what had happened. There was now a huge hole in the building next door with water streaming down the side of it. There were no flames, and no people, and it didn't really seem to affect the rest of the outside of the building except some shattered windows. People fled to the scene. Cars stopped on the highway to see what had happened. People were taking pictures with their camera phones. Within 20 minutes an ambulance and a fire truck arrived. Part of me wanted to stay and see what caused it, but most of me wanted to leave due to embarrassment of my lack of composure and also I was a little scared that there might be another explosion or the building would collapse. So I practically ran out of there.

Once I got home I checked the news to see if there was anything about it. Sure enough the first Bogotá headline was about the explosion. One woman was killed. 3 others were injured and taken to the hospital. There were a bunch of law offices in the building, and I guess on the inside it left a huge hole between the 4th, 5th, and 6th floors. They still don't know what the cause of the explosion was, but their guesses as of now are either a gas leak, or an attack. So great.

I'm tempted to stay in my apartment tonight. Those are enough weird things for one day I think.