So ESL classes are going well. The kids can be wild and the ability levels are all over the place but I am enjoying it. If I actually had a list of rules posted in my class (yes I am an ONU education failure for not clearly posting my rules in my class, but my classroom is also a church, tutoring center, hang out for bible club, and occasionally a clinic so i havent done much decorating) anywho...these would be some of my rules...
1. Please don´t bring your dog to class, yes he is adorable but he is a distraction.
2. Please don´t whistle at me to get my attention, I will ignor you.
3. Please crawl under the table and do not walk on top of it to get to the white board.
4. If we are playing pictionary,and your word is foot please do not spend 5 minutes drawing a high heel, foot, leg, and skirt.
5. Please don not lie to me about your birthday, I will not break eggs over your head on that day...I promise. (side note-this belief is not a nation wide thing here)
and
6. Yes the classroom is hot sometimes but please refrian from dunking your head, neck, sholders, and school uniform into the water at the sink while I am teaching.
These rules...were they actually followed would make class much calmer...but also a lot more boring. So for now I shall continue to allow dogs in class so long as they dont pee, I shall continue to be patient while they whistle and walk on the table, I shall continue to take the marker away from the student when they pass the 2 minute mark on pictionary, and I shall continue to hide my smile when you return to the table dripping wet from the sink. And with any luck the students will continue learning important english words like ice cream and believed which they pronounce believED
Hope all you teachers and non-teachers are having a delightful day.
Pura Vida
KT
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Miel, Cebolla y Ajo
So today i shall begin with a riddle...
1. what is winnie the poohs favorite food?
2. Shrek tells Donkey that Ogres are like _______...they have layers
3. what is a food that is good for warding off boyfriends and vampires?
If you answered 1. honey, 2. onions, and 3. garlic
then you now know what the title of my blog means in english.
Next question...what do these three items have in common?
Answer...Absolutely nothing.
However, to me in the last 3 days they have become a mildly unpleasant addition to my diet. Why you might ask? Because I have a bit of a cold. Dont really even feel bad just have one of those fun hacking coughs that causes people to turn around on the bus...then once they realize that the large, manly sounding cough is coming from an average sized gringa they are thouroughly confused and continue glancing back at regular 2 minutes intervals. Anywho, I told my family here that I would go to the clinic (run by our ministry) on monday if i still wasnt feeling well...b/c well i hate taking medicine. That was when my host mom told me she had a natural remedy...im all for natural things so i told her sure i would try it. I was then presented with a jar of smashed garlic, chopped onions, and a bunch of honey. It was...interesting. After my first spoonful my host mom luckily told me that this little concoction was an expectorant (GROSSNESS ALERT...if you are currently eating or just have no tolerance for snot you should go back to checking your facebook)...aka...its going to make me hack up phlem. And let me tell you, it works!
So moral of the story is? I´m not going to make any new friends this week b/c my breath (as my host sister regularly points out) is rather nasty.
Hope your weeks are going splendidly and that you are enjoying your fall and all the sniffles and coughs that come with it.
Pura Vida
KT
1. what is winnie the poohs favorite food?
2. Shrek tells Donkey that Ogres are like _______...they have layers
3. what is a food that is good for warding off boyfriends and vampires?
If you answered 1. honey, 2. onions, and 3. garlic
then you now know what the title of my blog means in english.
Next question...what do these three items have in common?
Answer...Absolutely nothing.
However, to me in the last 3 days they have become a mildly unpleasant addition to my diet. Why you might ask? Because I have a bit of a cold. Dont really even feel bad just have one of those fun hacking coughs that causes people to turn around on the bus...then once they realize that the large, manly sounding cough is coming from an average sized gringa they are thouroughly confused and continue glancing back at regular 2 minutes intervals. Anywho, I told my family here that I would go to the clinic (run by our ministry) on monday if i still wasnt feeling well...b/c well i hate taking medicine. That was when my host mom told me she had a natural remedy...im all for natural things so i told her sure i would try it. I was then presented with a jar of smashed garlic, chopped onions, and a bunch of honey. It was...interesting. After my first spoonful my host mom luckily told me that this little concoction was an expectorant (GROSSNESS ALERT...if you are currently eating or just have no tolerance for snot you should go back to checking your facebook)...aka...its going to make me hack up phlem. And let me tell you, it works!
So moral of the story is? I´m not going to make any new friends this week b/c my breath (as my host sister regularly points out) is rather nasty.
Hope your weeks are going splendidly and that you are enjoying your fall and all the sniffles and coughs that come with it.
Pura Vida
KT
Friday, October 15, 2010
Soccer makes me happy.
so todays blog is a shoutout to soccer and all my wonderful soccer teammates...who better be following my blog otherwise we are fighting.
This tuesday began my first tuesday of training with the girls soccer team at the refuge. they have an actual coach but she can only come friday and saturday so i add tuesdays for a little extra practice. Tuesday went really well...i learned that i know very few soccer words in spanish and so i did lots of demonstrating and saying "do this." Then wed we had a practice for the tourney we are having this coming monday and...thursday i could hardly walk :) i was reminded for not the first time in my life that when one is going to do extreme exercise one should probably ease into it or suffer the consequences. So like i have chosen to do countless times before...i am now suffering the consequences...but secretly loving the daily reminder that i finally did some physical activity here. Also i scored a goal and did not get a yellow card in the practice tourney so i´m already doing better internationally than my previous attempts at futbol.
on another note i learned this week that i am truely truely horrible at futbolin...aka foosball...not only that but i learned that my host dad is a legit champ at futbolin meaning that i lost approximately 30-3 and no that number is not one of my typical exagerations.
and finally wed we had a pizza and praise night for the short termers...it was the first time in a long time that i sat in a circle and sang with a guitar praising God...made me very much miss my team. it also reminded me that i cannot sing high notes.
so basically this week has be extra divertido b-c i have finally gotten to get reinvolved with the sport that has shaped so much of my life. So shoutout to the ONU soccer team...keep playing hard. And to my fellow alums...miss you bunches!
Currently giving praise to God that i chose to play an internationally loved sport!
pura vida
kt
This tuesday began my first tuesday of training with the girls soccer team at the refuge. they have an actual coach but she can only come friday and saturday so i add tuesdays for a little extra practice. Tuesday went really well...i learned that i know very few soccer words in spanish and so i did lots of demonstrating and saying "do this." Then wed we had a practice for the tourney we are having this coming monday and...thursday i could hardly walk :) i was reminded for not the first time in my life that when one is going to do extreme exercise one should probably ease into it or suffer the consequences. So like i have chosen to do countless times before...i am now suffering the consequences...but secretly loving the daily reminder that i finally did some physical activity here. Also i scored a goal and did not get a yellow card in the practice tourney so i´m already doing better internationally than my previous attempts at futbol.
on another note i learned this week that i am truely truely horrible at futbolin...aka foosball...not only that but i learned that my host dad is a legit champ at futbolin meaning that i lost approximately 30-3 and no that number is not one of my typical exagerations.
and finally wed we had a pizza and praise night for the short termers...it was the first time in a long time that i sat in a circle and sang with a guitar praising God...made me very much miss my team. it also reminded me that i cannot sing high notes.
so basically this week has be extra divertido b-c i have finally gotten to get reinvolved with the sport that has shaped so much of my life. So shoutout to the ONU soccer team...keep playing hard. And to my fellow alums...miss you bunches!
Currently giving praise to God that i chose to play an internationally loved sport!
pura vida
kt
Friday, October 8, 2010
Things that make me smile :)
So I desperately want to take a photo of this one sign i pass every day in the bus i´m just not sure how to do it yet but i will describe it to you and hopefully you can create a visual image in your mind.
Here in Costa Rica there is a restaurant named Spoon. It looks quite good and hopefully i will get to try it out one day, anyway...you know those street signs for restaurants that have a fork and knife on them indicating that a restaurant is up ahead? well this particular sign includes the name of the restaurant so the sign that makes me smile every day is the one with a drawing of a fork and knife with the word Spoon written boldly under it :)
Other things that make me smile...a candy shop next to a dentist office :)
-Getting free hugs from kids every day. :)
-Playing memory 10 times with my 6 year old sister and only winning once (and yes i was trying :)
-A compitition I have with my brother Jonathan...we each pick a soccer team and whomevers team wins that person gets a point. We also get points for correct answers on who wants to be a millionaire in spanish. So far I am losing 10 to 6...but as i tell jonathan every day...i´m here till may and i shall win! (but in all likely hood i will lose...he kicks my butt at who wants to be a millionaire in spanish :)
-Birthday cake :)
-the fact that the jonas brothers and demi lovato have a concert here in october...and bon jovi was here earlier. :)
-finding out that there is a mini soccer tourney in a week and i´m going to play and then hopefully start helping the girls team here
-the fact that it only downpoured one day this week...and october is suppossed to be the wettest month of it all :)
-my view out my window right now is blue skys over a mountain with pretty fluffy white clouds :)
-Chocolate :)
-Taking Fridays off :)
-Hearing about my wonderful ONU soccer team :)
-Knowing that next wednesday we are having a pizza party :)
-Knowing that oct. 31 I am breaking open the bag of mini-snickers i brought for my host family in honor of a holiday they dont celebrate :)
-and the list could go on and on. Basically when i stop and pause for even 30 seconds...or for an hour and a half on the bus...i wind up thinking about all the little things that make me happy.
So hopefully you are having as delightful of a day as I am...and even if your day stinks right now pause and remember that God has given you this day and if you look hard enough there will be things to make you smile.
Pura Vida!
KT
Here in Costa Rica there is a restaurant named Spoon. It looks quite good and hopefully i will get to try it out one day, anyway...you know those street signs for restaurants that have a fork and knife on them indicating that a restaurant is up ahead? well this particular sign includes the name of the restaurant so the sign that makes me smile every day is the one with a drawing of a fork and knife with the word Spoon written boldly under it :)
Other things that make me smile...a candy shop next to a dentist office :)
-Getting free hugs from kids every day. :)
-Playing memory 10 times with my 6 year old sister and only winning once (and yes i was trying :)
-A compitition I have with my brother Jonathan...we each pick a soccer team and whomevers team wins that person gets a point. We also get points for correct answers on who wants to be a millionaire in spanish. So far I am losing 10 to 6...but as i tell jonathan every day...i´m here till may and i shall win! (but in all likely hood i will lose...he kicks my butt at who wants to be a millionaire in spanish :)
-Birthday cake :)
-the fact that the jonas brothers and demi lovato have a concert here in october...and bon jovi was here earlier. :)
-finding out that there is a mini soccer tourney in a week and i´m going to play and then hopefully start helping the girls team here
-the fact that it only downpoured one day this week...and october is suppossed to be the wettest month of it all :)
-my view out my window right now is blue skys over a mountain with pretty fluffy white clouds :)
-Chocolate :)
-Taking Fridays off :)
-Hearing about my wonderful ONU soccer team :)
-Knowing that next wednesday we are having a pizza party :)
-Knowing that oct. 31 I am breaking open the bag of mini-snickers i brought for my host family in honor of a holiday they dont celebrate :)
-and the list could go on and on. Basically when i stop and pause for even 30 seconds...or for an hour and a half on the bus...i wind up thinking about all the little things that make me happy.
So hopefully you are having as delightful of a day as I am...and even if your day stinks right now pause and remember that God has given you this day and if you look hard enough there will be things to make you smile.
Pura Vida!
KT
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Fear and Trust
When you tell someone in Costa Rica that you work in Carpio and live in Pavas they shudder and ask why. These two towns, Carpio in particular, have reputations for being places where bad things happen and where police are constantly around. To me these places are home. Maybe it is ignorance, maybe it is simply a defense mechanism, and maybe it is trust in God but I am not afraid when I am in Carpio and Pavas.
I was only afraid once and that was when we took the wrong bus to a shady part of town but the bus driver was super nice and we got home safe and sound. This sort of fear is natural and fine as long as it doesn’t consume you but more recently I have felt a different kind of fear. It’s the fear of the unknown. But not in the typical recent-college-grad-doesn’t-know-where-she-will-work-the-rest-of-her-life but something different. This fear of the unknown is the fear of what God will ask me to do in the future.
I’ve been reading Oswald Chambers book My Utmost for His Highest as a morning devotional…amazing little book and I highly recommend it…as long as you’re willing to be challenged. A couple of quotes that really have stood out to me are the following:
“No enthusiasm will ever stand the strain that Jesus Christ will put upon His worker, only one thing will, and that is a personal relationship to Himself which has gone through the mill of His spring cleaning until there is only one purpose left—I am here for God to send me where He will.”
Sometimes I worry what that spring cleaning will look like in my life. Which of my desires will God mold and change, however painfully, so that I become the person he has designed me to be?
And this quote,
“God does not ask us to do the things that are easy to us naturally; He only asks us to do the things we are perfectly fitted to do by His grace, and the cross will come along that line always”.
God doesn’t ever tell us that life will be easy. I love the verse Jeremiah 29:11…”For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” And 29:13… “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” But the more I cling to that verse and the more I see the world around me and the more I pray and read about God the more my perspective begins to change. I don’t see it anymore as a promise that God will grant me a comfortable living filled with prosperity. I don’t read “not to harm you” and think that my life will always be safe and comfortable. I read “plans to give you a hope and a future” as a promise that He will not forget me and that he has a purpose for my life. And when I read verse 13, I see an important truth that I have often over looked in the past…I will find God when I seek Him. A relationship with God is not a one way street. I can’t put him on the back burner and call on him only when I need a hand or when I’m nervous about something. Following God is not a part time job, it’s a full time/ life time commitment. And that scares me like crazy. I have never really understood when people say to fear the Lord. Why would I fear the one who created me and who has great plans for my future? OF COURSE I SHOULD! Who knows what sort of crazy thing He might ask of me if I follow him!
And this is where my mini-epiphany came in today. Despite my fear, I trust Him. He won’t always take me on the easy road. He may not show me more than one step at a time in the grand scheme of my life. But I trust Him. Completely.
So despite my uncertainty, my nerves, my fear, and the general lack of a game plan for the rest of my life. I trust God. He has plans…to prosper me…maybe in a way I can’t even fathom right now. He has plans not to harm me…he won’t ever abandon me in the difficult times. He has plans to give me a hope…even when all seems lost…I will find hope. He has plans to give me a future…a wild and unpredictable and unknown future that will always include Him.
And so…I Fear the Lord…and I trust Him with all that I am.
And I look forward to the unknown. Because it is all in His hands.
Joshua 1:9: Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous; do not be afraid, for the Lord your God will be with you where ever you go.
Que Dios Le bendiga!
KT
I was only afraid once and that was when we took the wrong bus to a shady part of town but the bus driver was super nice and we got home safe and sound. This sort of fear is natural and fine as long as it doesn’t consume you but more recently I have felt a different kind of fear. It’s the fear of the unknown. But not in the typical recent-college-grad-doesn’t-know-where-she-will-work-the-rest-of-her-life but something different. This fear of the unknown is the fear of what God will ask me to do in the future.
I’ve been reading Oswald Chambers book My Utmost for His Highest as a morning devotional…amazing little book and I highly recommend it…as long as you’re willing to be challenged. A couple of quotes that really have stood out to me are the following:
“No enthusiasm will ever stand the strain that Jesus Christ will put upon His worker, only one thing will, and that is a personal relationship to Himself which has gone through the mill of His spring cleaning until there is only one purpose left—I am here for God to send me where He will.”
Sometimes I worry what that spring cleaning will look like in my life. Which of my desires will God mold and change, however painfully, so that I become the person he has designed me to be?
And this quote,
“God does not ask us to do the things that are easy to us naturally; He only asks us to do the things we are perfectly fitted to do by His grace, and the cross will come along that line always”.
God doesn’t ever tell us that life will be easy. I love the verse Jeremiah 29:11…”For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” And 29:13… “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” But the more I cling to that verse and the more I see the world around me and the more I pray and read about God the more my perspective begins to change. I don’t see it anymore as a promise that God will grant me a comfortable living filled with prosperity. I don’t read “not to harm you” and think that my life will always be safe and comfortable. I read “plans to give you a hope and a future” as a promise that He will not forget me and that he has a purpose for my life. And when I read verse 13, I see an important truth that I have often over looked in the past…I will find God when I seek Him. A relationship with God is not a one way street. I can’t put him on the back burner and call on him only when I need a hand or when I’m nervous about something. Following God is not a part time job, it’s a full time/ life time commitment. And that scares me like crazy. I have never really understood when people say to fear the Lord. Why would I fear the one who created me and who has great plans for my future? OF COURSE I SHOULD! Who knows what sort of crazy thing He might ask of me if I follow him!
And this is where my mini-epiphany came in today. Despite my fear, I trust Him. He won’t always take me on the easy road. He may not show me more than one step at a time in the grand scheme of my life. But I trust Him. Completely.
So despite my uncertainty, my nerves, my fear, and the general lack of a game plan for the rest of my life. I trust God. He has plans…to prosper me…maybe in a way I can’t even fathom right now. He has plans not to harm me…he won’t ever abandon me in the difficult times. He has plans to give me a hope…even when all seems lost…I will find hope. He has plans to give me a future…a wild and unpredictable and unknown future that will always include Him.
And so…I Fear the Lord…and I trust Him with all that I am.
And I look forward to the unknown. Because it is all in His hands.
Joshua 1:9: Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous; do not be afraid, for the Lord your God will be with you where ever you go.
Que Dios Le bendiga!
KT
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