One week

In one week I’m going to be in Guatemala. A 2 week escape in a sense. I hope that In those 2 weeks some problems get solved. I’m almost ready for my trip. The only thing left to do is a presentation about my school. I already took the pictures but my friend is going to do it. He has done a lot of those for the school so it’s supposed to be easy for him. It was my friend from Guatemala idea to give this to him. I don’t usually give my work to other people. But she told me that he does this kind of thing for everyone so why not for me. I don’t know if I should have. I’m waiting to be disappointed. Things are not the same with him. I can’t tell you more because there is always the fear of someone reading this. That is why I never put their names. I just can tell you that of my 3 friends only one remains very close to me. Nothing has happened but they are just drifting apart from us. Changes, Changes people change.I guess im one of the few that remain the same. My definition of friendship is one thing. I guess is different from the others. Unconditional. I’m your friend because I like you not because I need you and when I don’t it’s the end of the friendship. NO no no….I will be there.. for anything you need me. I guess I’m there to give and not all people are the same. I haven’t lost hope in him. Not yet but it is a short walk. The sad thing is that he is letting others take over his life. He has just left a prison to get inside another and he is not seeing it. Just me and my friend are seeing what is happening but our lips are sealed. The fall is going to be hard but such is life as they say. I’m looking forward to my trip!! I will tell you everything about it. Another adventure.

still waiting…

Still waiting for a miracle so we will be able to sell the building. We are still waiting and waiting but time is running out. I will have no other choice but to take another job after school. Tutoring or something. I am dreading this I can’t hide it but we are running out of choices. I have to wait until I get back from Guatemala though. I just had another small car accident. This time both drivers were to blame. Stupid mistake. We are not letting Vivi drive because we can’t have the luxury of having a car accident even a small one like mine. There is always some kind of money involved. And then it happened to me. I have my mind in many things. I’m mad at myself . The car won’t get fixed for awhile. It’s a shame I was having a good weekend. i was out last night with my friend from Guatemala.We didn’t have a lot of money so we just went to Old San Juan bought a coke in Wendys and sat in a bench in front of El Convento hotel. Talking and just enjoying the beautiful Old City. It gives us energy to start a new week. Now it’s mostly her and me. The other 2 have slowly drifted apart. It’s just not the same. Don’t ask me why. I miss the four of us together. Tonight I could use the support of my dear friend the brother. He knows how to talk to me. He does know how to make me feel better. Such is life. Hate changes. I hope things will remain the same most of the times. I need that miracle as soon as possible.

Getting near

My trip to Guatemala and the much awaited Dec 9. Can’t wait to see all of my friends, John and Ken. Can’t wait to hug everybody. Each and everyone of my angels. I’m also looking forward to bring onboard 2 of my school angels and dear friends to bring together the people that had brought a smile to my face during the most difficult times. My friends both from other countries had never been on a cruise ship. The thing is none of them are completely sure that they can go. Work day for everyone. I know for sure that both of my nephews are going they wouldn’t miss it for the world… so they don’t care. I keep dreaming and imagine that day. The only thing I know is that i’m going to be very happy. I’m also looking forward to seeing every corner of that beautiful ship. I want my friends to enjoy it to the fullest. I hope I have time for everything. That gives me a little bit of stress. Uhhhhh Guatemala…..working on the things we need to do before going…it will be fine if …they haven’t mess up with my flight ticket…it’s not the same name in the passport…ugh!Let’s see what happens. The Brother in charge promise me that i’m not going to have a problem… let’s see…
Ahhhhhhh!! We are on fire! Did you know?
Thank God I didn’t hear any explosion..I was so tired..but the cloud in front of my house is scary.. But that is the only thing the weather and wind conditions are helping. No smell or anything..

Plenty of work and celebration

The dreaded Middle State week is over. It all started on Tuesday with an excellent dinner at the school cafeteria. 12 members of MSA were at our school, the largest number to visit a school in PR, and I can tell you they were everywhere. On Wednesday I could see them from my classroom all day coming and going. Wednesday is one of my busiest day at school so I was almost the whole day at the classroom including the afternoon without my assistant. Yes her daughter got sick with the flu and she was out for the whole MSA stay….great! Well anyway I could see them but I was the only one who didn’t get their visit that day. They came on Thursday 5 minutes one of them and 3 the other both on math class and it was over. The thing is they left the school impressed and with all the 12 standards approved. Yes we might complain but the thing is with have a great school with all the latest in everything. We are lucky. After that some of us went to Chili’s to celebrate and after that a few of us went to a friend’s house. My friend from Guatemala and I stayed until almost 11:00. We had a great time as always. On Saturday we had my other friend daughter’s birthday. She wanted to go a park at Condado and to eat Pizza. Sitting beside me at the restaurant was another Brother friend of my friend who lives in the place I’m going in Guatemala and I got to talk with him about a few things. He is not going to be there when I’m going but I think he is going to arrive one day before we come back. So now I’m going to be preparing for my trip. I’ll be writing not as often but I will.

Long awaited week and other things

This week finally is the dreaded and long awaited Middle States visit week.We have worked very hard for this and we are very tired and eager to finish with all this. Everything starts Tuesday night with dinner at school and ends Friday starting at 1:00 with the report for the whole school. Each day I wonder how much my attitude have change towards all this. Believe me everything is under control. I keep thinking if something went wrong what’s going to happen?? Nothing! Nothing at all the world it’s not going to end. We are also determined to make the best of it. Tuesday I’m going to pick up my friend from Guatemala to go to dinner and after that we are planning on our usual stroll in El Condado. Doesn’t matter if it is a week day. If we went home for sure we were going to stay awake until 11:00 for sure. Wednesday and Thursday are the most stress full days with them going to watch in the classroom. I’m not worried either. On friday after the report we are all going to eat at Chili’s and after that to one of our friends house. One thing that I’m looking forward too is my trip to Guatemala. AHHHH! I’m excited! I’m telling everyone who wants to listen at school. The ones that really understand me are the ones that have already gone. I’m learning everything I can and doing things. I already started to make some little notes. Decorating some papers because we have to leave notes for everyone during the 2 weeks. also this week I’m going to be taking pictures of the school for a presentation we have to make of the school to the others. The Brother is going to help me with that. I also have learned a lot about the place I’m going to be staying. I’m asking a lot of question to my friend. I’m going to be meeting her family at some point. It’s going to be a life changing experience that I’m going to enjoy starting right now. Making preparations and everything. Enthusiasm is what we need and that I got lots. I can picture myself that day entering the place with a big smile. Passion doing what I like and what I want. The thing is that with something like that on the horizon one starts to worry about getting sick, swine flu and everything and not making it to Guatemala.I haven’t worried about those things in a lot of time. That is one bad thing about traveling. I have forgotten that part. Can’t wait to write a show you picture about my experience. Meeting new people, new cultures. AHHH!! That’s what I like….

Finally ON?

It seems that finally someone turned On the light at the end of the tunnel or at least I’m beginning to see some of it. Two things have happened this week that made me happy. The first one is that it seems that there are 2 offers to buy the the building we are selling. So please pray that we can finally sell the building. The second one is that  the school principal has invited me to go to Guatemala in November. I don’t know if you remember but I have told you about my school sending people to our school in Guatemala for two weeks for a kind of retreat they do each year. I’m pretty excited because I’m going to my friend’s country and I’m going to be meeting people from our schools in Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Nicaragua. I’m looking forward to some sightseeing also, not much I been told but anything is good. I have never thought of visiting Guatemala but from I have been told It’s going to be great. I We are there for an spiritual experience and formation mostly. Maybe and just maybe and if it can be done my friend is going to talk to her sister to find out if she can pick me up one day and take me sight seeing or something. I’m looking forward to that. I’m smiling because even though it is for work I am going to be traveling. My passion…. it has been too long for me.. Excited? YES!!! Things are changing…I hope that finally things are changing for the better.

Celebrate life

First I want to apologize for not writing. It seems that lately I’m either too busy or I don’t have to write about. I will continue to wrote though even if it is once a week.
Celebrate life was our theme at school this week and I’m trying to do just that. It has been a busy but good week. The weekend has been fantastic and it still haven’t end. Today is my friend’s Monica birthday. She wanted to celebrate it all weekend long with us, her 3 best friends. So on Friday she wanted to do something on Saturday she was going with our friend the brother to see Rent at the theater and on Sunday we are going to go with our families to a restaurant in the town of Cidra. Plans changed for Friday because she had her little girl to take care of and she was also tired. We decided to meet at my house and spent some time together. For 2 hours we were the 4 of us again as is used to be. Two of them went home early and my friend from Guatemala and I decided to continue the night at El Condado. We went to eat, walk and talk the things that we enjoy the most. As always had a great time and we ended the night walking to the car in pouring rain. Soaked but laughing. Celebrating life, oh yes. On Saturday I went to pick up Mike and Lynn at the Caribe Hilton hotel in the morning. It was so good to see them!! We went to El Morro and to walk around Old San Juan. At night we went to a restaurant the we like. It was a wonderful day with friends. Today I’m looking forward to making this day a great day for my friend. It’s been some hours since I wrote the first part of this blog. We went with our families to the restaurant in Cidra. My friend was beautiful and loved the gift we gave her. We ate a lot as always. The only one missing was the Brother. Next time we have to bring him. I know he is going to love it. Anyway it was a great weekend and I truly hope that we helped our friend have a great birthday even though I know she is not going through the best of times. I wish we could have done more. The 3 of us did the best we could. I know she had a great time yesterday with our friend and that the play was very good. I’m glad. That ’s what friends are for.

Small victories

It has been a rather boring, but full of work week. Boring because nothing strange or exciting has happened(see pepper spray or vodka), but I had a lot of work to do because on Friday I had to give some individual reports to students that have less that 70% in one of the class. So I was grading things the whole week to have this done on time. My morning assistant is not coming to school because she has doctors orders to stay at home. So in the morning were I have more classes I’m alone until Tuesday. Yesterday was a good day at school. I knew from the others that my coordinator was visiting to observe classes for some days now and for some reason she hasn’t visited me yet. Strange because I’m always one of the first because I’m right in front of her office. Well I have been aware of that the whole week and planning my classes with activities that I knew she would like. The thing is this are the sort of activities that I should do with assistant not alone. So i decided to take the risk. Yesterday I have two of this activities just in case. One for spanish and one for math. This classes are the most likely for her to see because they are the first in the morning. She didn’t come at Spanish and the work being done took longer than expected so after English class instead of starting with math I continued with the activity. It was at that time that she came in. Great… Went she comes to see classes mostly I ignore her and block her so I don’t get nervous but this time I went to her and ask her if I should tell the children to put away last class work and start with math She told me to continue like I was. One good thing about this is that she got to see the Spanish work also. Continuing with my story .. I gave them 10 minutes to finish and I told them to put everything away to start the math class. ummmmmmmm this part is always bad with this kids. This year class is very talkative and they get distracted very easily. So changing activities have become a pain for me at least for know until they finally get used to my rules( this has taken much longer than usual) well yesterday It went smoothly. You don’t know how many things were running through my mind. Well I started my class (place value) and then one of my students started to have a behavior (that I can’t tell you about because It’s too serious but It’s not disruptive to the class) that the coordinator already knows about but that the new school psychologist haven’t seen. That’s when it all started. When my coordinator saw what she was doing she went out grab the first teacher that she saw at the hall and told her to get the psychologist. Well she didn’t get the psychologist she was looking for so she got the other one. She came in and talked with the coordinator saw the behavior and went out of the room to stand at the front door to look at the girl. So now I’m giving my class the coordinator was at the back of the room one of the psychologist was outside by the door looking inside. Then the other psychologist came in and sat at the back also. So you can imagine me giving the class while this people were all over…. coming in, going out,standing outside and talking with each other. One will have thought there was an emergency in the classroom.OMG! Meanwhile and this is the good part. I remained focus, calm and in control. Blocking all this and with my kids attention!! I was doing all this aware of the presence of this people in the classroom and out. But I was not making eye contact and I was not getting details. I only knew they were there. About all the details I learned later when I talked with the coordinator. It was funny how I could do it because all the time this was happening I was giving my classes and thinking this only happens to me!! I was also thinking about how I was doing and thinking was I was doing wrong or not or how it would have been better. Anyway by the time I put them to work again a difficult activity to do alone. The psychologist were gone and like a miracle for the first time this year my kids did understand everything got to work alone and all the time in good behavior. It was a small miracle and a small victory. I was very proud of myself and aware of how much I have change. I am more confident and secure.I take things in a different way so I’m more relaxed. Now I know what I’m able to do and that I’m good at it. Now Im not afraid of the Middle state visit. If they come to my classroom I know I can deal with it. In the afternoon my coordinator talked to me about the girl’s problem and told me what happened while I was giving my class. Many things I didn’t see. One time I even told the girl to sit down and ended the behavior when one of the psychologist came in. I’m used to do it so i do it without thinking. Thank God she did it again after that. Al of them saw the behavior so now we can get something done. She also told that she like both activities and everything I did at the class and other work already done that was on the bulletin boards and most important of all how I continued to be completely focus in my class while all this was happening and with the complete attention of my kids. Wow! For me that was music to ears. I’m happy I can hide it. Each day is getting easier. I’m seeing the good and taking the bad easier. I’m learning. Let’s see what this week brings.In other things I’m looking forward to Dec 9!! OMG ! The Carnival Dream is soooooo beautiful!! I’m looking forward to hours onboard with friends and not missing any part of that ship. I want to see everything!!!!!! I also want that my 2 friends that have never gone near a cruise ship to see all the beauty of this ship. We are going to have a blast!

The truth is that I been lazy and busy

Sorry for taking so long to write another blog. I have been busy and lazy…both. Last sunday I got to see Gloria aka Sue. Went to get her and her mother ant the airport and took them for a ride around some places and later we went to Old San Juan, El Morro and lunch at El Mojito. We had a great time. It hasn’t been an easy week and I am still overwhelm by all the work that the start of a new school year involves including a Middle state association visit this coming October. At school they are driving all of us crazy with all the preparations. I think we will see a relief after their visit the first week of October. This week? more drama..
Elementary school kids with pepper spray and vodka. Both stupid accidents that we have to blame parents. Also this week I finally learned that I’m not going to Guatemala and that they are  not going  to give me a job in the afternoons. No to both. Drama, Drama… and what do we ladies do? Call our Brother and cry. JA! it seems he has become our shoulder to lean on. Poor..
He got lucky with this friends God gave him. So dramatic. My part was about complaining about the Brother Superior and the other was one of my friends that got sick and she was also crying. ahhhh! It all went well after all. We all ended up at this sick friend house yesterday afternoon and that made her very happy. After that my friend from Guatemala and I went to El Condado and we ended up sitting in the sand at the beach with the full moon reflecting on the water. It was beautiful!! We talked and talked for hours. Perfect ending of an stressful week. Let’s see what this week brings!

recap of a weird week

I’m using the email that I wrote to my friend to explain everything that had happened in the school until Wednesday to remember it all. The 3 of us that remain at the school are sticking together and trying to laugh at the many things that happen. Starting with the dreaded swine flu. Finally there are some confirmed cases of the influenza type A at school. No swine flu that we know of yet but you can imagine how rumors are flying and the hysteria it creates. Me? I just trust God. What can we do? 1,500 children and a whole bunch of employees. Everything is under control for know but I know it’s going to get worst. Plenty of work or too much work and to that we should add the new grade program, the hand sanitizer , the water bottles and you get a very slow beginning. I don’t know what is it but we haven’t clicked. Something is wrong and I haven’t figure what is it but this kids are not really that prepared for third grade. Handwriting, reading, everything. Each time they come more inmature and they get distracted very easily. It has been a though 2 weeks. It was only Wednesday when I came to school all worried with all this things in mind. I have lost a notebook and an important paper things I never do. I was so distraught that the new Brother replacing my friend noticed and asked me twice if I was ok. He told me that if I needed anything he was there on his office( remember or refugee?) Ahhh how nice! made me day. I’m glad that the one that came to replace my friend is also different not like the others. He is not likw my friend but at least he is caring and that makes a difference. Me and my 2 friends like him but we still haven’t got time to visit him at the refugee. We are planning of taking control again JA! No, really we need it. This week they show us that this thing is not really over. One of my co workers went to my boss office to complain about something my new assistant did. I won’t get into details but we know that there are still many people we can’ trust. I’m also trying hard to get the Brother superior to send me to Guatemala for like a 2 week retreat they do every year. He teases me with it. He has never asked me to go before and now he tells me it’s not my time. Why not? Nobody else wants to go Why not? he likes to do that. He tells you no and at the last minute he sends you. He likes the power I think. Oh well. Tomorrow I have to get Gloria aka Sue and her mother on the airport. We are having lunch and we are going to take a ride to see some things before I drop them at the Carnival Victory. It’s going to be fun.