I'm writing from this squiggle of a country. You're probably thinking

A) 'Oh good, she's alive' because you were fearing from my lack of posts
or
B) '...when did I sign up to get alerts from...OHHhhh!' because it has been too long since my last post.

I'm sorry for the delay, but I am alive and thriving (teehee, that word makes me laugh) and also, if you've forgotten who I am...my name is Cheryl, we may or may not have been friends at some point, or we're possibly family. I'm currently living in Panama and being submerged in English...not in water (yet).

Moving on. Things are going well. I'm getting involved and am feeling very used by God. I like feeling used (in the appropriate way), especially for God. :) There is a lot of work to be done and it tends to get frustrating when I see just how much needs to happen for these middle school kiddies. Working with ESL students is very frustrating at times, but I see how I can make a difference...even if it ends up only being a small one. I tend to want to jump in and be the Superhero English teacher, but I don't have a cape and I left my tights back at home.

Please pray I don't get frustrated with these students. I do so much want to help, but I can feel the frustration bubble.

I've made up a new discipline policy that seems to be working for my classes. It gives them strikes for talking that would then lead to the most dreaded, horrible punishment of having to write and be graded for grammar and spelling. They hate that...so, it's perfect :D I feel I'm pretty strict in 6th grade, but that they are also needing it...it surprises me how easy it is for me to switch demeanor between grade levels. I've got mad skills.

Love you all!


P.S. The delay in writing was due in large part to my inability to write a sentence of my own without trying to fix grammatical errors. I am pathetic and even write carrot commas in my own journal book. Please note: Anytime anyone sends me anything...I am looking at your grammar and sentence flow and judging/grading you by it.

Hahahah! Kidding...
Or am I?

WW Sharing

It seemed sharing my creative kids' writings was a hit, so I thought I'd quickly share the happenings of today.

In writing there are 6 traits that must be present in your writing. These 6 traits are what teachers look for in grading an essay. They include: Idea, Organization, Voice, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency & Conventions (which is grammar and such).

Now, ordinarily a teacher would lecture each trait individually and then combine later. However, as I am not ever the norm, I decided that by throwing creative juice at it I could make it fun (which, I'm sure you are thinking is impossible), creative and informative.

Today the students were given a project where they had to create a character who had a dilemma that would need to go through all these traits or setbacks in order to conclude the dilemma. After the shocked, frustrated, unknowing, sad faces I decided that in order for my lovely, creative seat-fillers to grasp this project correctly I was going to have to give a good example. So, together, as a class, we created this lovely layout of a story...
A flying horse named Sir Prize has had his teeny, tiny pony, Brocco Lee, stolen. He must save him. He plans and has the 'Idea' to gather an Army to attack the pony-nappers. He 'Organizes' a 100 man Smurf (trademark) Army. The defense this Smurf Army uses is their sing-song high-pitched 'Voice's, which they use to kill off (or, make their enemies pass out as we are a Christian school) their opponents. Their 'Word Choice' for these sing-song killings is Justin Bieber songs. Now, as our Smurfs trek through a forest land to save Brocco Lee they'll come upon a river (which is where our 'Sentence Fluency' comes in...get it, flow...like a river?) which they'll have to cross. Each stepping stone they jump on to cross is a word part of a sentence. As they prepare for a singing duel, they are armed with 'Conventions' (aka weaponry). They throw punctuation marks at their opponents and have exclamation and question mark swords and armory.

I really wish 1) I would have had decent writing to have been able to take a picture and show you the map we created and 2) Been able to remember all the other ideas those weirdos threw at me. Ultimately, the highlights we hit were not necessary the best out of the ones thrown, but helped the story move along and made it easier to connect our story with the 6 Traits.

Thursday I have a separate WW class...we'll see what they create.
Love you all! Pray for tomorrow as it's Meet the Teacher for Parents and I'm nervous. Luckily each period has only 7 minutes with parents so it won't be too long me fumbling for words.

Que te vaya bien.

Oh my goodness, I'm posting!

Hola Ya'll

If you guys want some pictures...Look at Rebecca's Facebook or...

Sorry for the delay in posting...I've been a busy girl!

I've gotten through my first week of teaching and am now on to the second. We had an unknown holiday today, Fundacion de Panama. It's great! I love random holidays! Feeling ok going into the second week...have a lot of fun/interesting projects lined up that'll be very interesting once they get under toe. Have to be the bad guy going back to school tomorrow. Lay down the law with a couple of groups to minimize the chatter. Writer's Workshop is dragging along. Mean Ms. Jones has to show her wrath (aka: the vampire) after two sets of WW's poked the bear (the bear is me). One group left before the bell, so now I get to keep them (I've got a wicked evil, cackle grin on) and the other just wouldn't shut their mouths! But all bad things have a bright side and after I made one group write me 'Why it's inappropriate to talk when someone else is talking', I got some very entertaining answers.

Here's a few of my favorites:
*One student turned me into a vampire, hence the call out above
*Many of them call me "Ma'am" & apologized
                 "We must NOT interrupt you ma'am, you will get very angry"
*One kid blamed it on a couple other students
*Many of the reasons not to was because, "It'd make Ms. Jones mad"
*And my all time favorite: "We cannot talk at the same time as another because the teacher will get confused and won't know what we are saying. She won't understand and none will get what they want. Also because it is annoying and bad and other classes will hear us and be angry and tell it to the principal. Then Ms. Jones won't work here and will get another job and then die because she will miss us a lot and a magic doctor will bring her back to life and she will teach in our school again."

At least I'm being entertained by the rising amount of writings I have to read. Hahah!

Bananananas Resort was very nice. Took a boat out to a remote island, got to swim in the Caribbean, climb a very steep mountain. Very beautiful, fun and relaxing just to get away for a little bit.

Lots of other stuff going down down here, but I've still got quite a bit of work to get done. I hope everyone is well...I'm attempting to keep up to date with all of you as far as Facebook stalking, but forgive me that I've not written a whole bunch. I might as well be beaten at school with a yardstick the way I come home so tired. I love you all! Thank you for your prayers and curiosity in reading this bloggy.

Best part of the day: Standing in the Asian grocery store letting Mami shop. I poking and prodding random things as I do. I find a wall of soaps and start sniffing. I walk a little further and find what looks like sparklers and with excited glee yelp, "Fireworks! No, sparklers!" Abby looks at my findings and says, "Incense" and cracks up. I still got a pretty good giggle, but I was definitely disappointed they weren't selling sparklers along a wall in a grocery store. Also, I found myself picking up galleta jellies and jumping to Abby saying, "Poke this!"

I am Le Tired so this won't be long (coughcough it's not even 9)

Look at all those Bananas or Plantains

This awesome tagged sign was more inappropriate before I put my Photoshop skills to work. I love the top hat and cane though. The fart cloud is a bonus.

Just some random Indians playing in the street

After a pouring rain and yummy bagels we stopped to pick Einstein's nose.

Things have been tricky what with not having Internet at the house (until recently), almost all my clothes are dirty (but we ARE going to laundromat tomorrow), then at school Internet cutting in and out on me, my computer not connecting to print, my files not converting right on another computer, plus the chaos of having a full teaching day! Yowza! Today was much better though. Glad it's done and so thankful tomorrow is a half day. Hahah! I need a breather, already! Maybe not a great sign, but I'm reassured by all my lovely colleagues that it'll only get easier. Classes are chatty, but do-able. Writing Workshop is going to be a challenge. I have 24 seats in my classroom, 25 counting mine; one WW has 23 students the other has a full-fledged 24. They are all so eager to be creative, but it's going to be a challenge to combine the creative/fun aspect of writing with the technical/boring. Let's pray I manage. God's gotten me this far. I know I was meant to be here, so at least I've got that on my belt.

Last weekend was interesting. To sum up, Rebecca and I were in three different worlds (practically) in one day. We hit Central, where we had a native look as well as a pack of sexual dogs and a schizo crazy lady with shorts up her bottom; we had the eclectic/Canadian villa bagel shop stop; and then the uber-Americano PriceSmart (aka Costco) run. I am constantly having to remind myself where I am...it's easy to become discombobulated here.

HUGE Hooray! We're going to the beach this coming weekend for a small resort retreat. We're staying at the awesomely named: Bananas Resort on Isla Grande. It should be a pretty good sized group of teachers going, so I'm pretty excited. PLUS, there will be snorkeling and it looks like from some pictures there will be sitting on rafts to peddle boat things! I'm so excited and I don't even know what they are! 

I hope everyone is well. Thank you for your prayers as I was trying to get through my first few days and trying to keep my head. Please continue to pray for me, this will be a good year/experience all round, but it's going to be very hard.

Thanks guys! Love Ya!

P.S. If you didn't see on Facebook, best line to date in class: "Have you been writing anything or just smelling your armpits the whole time?"--It was a completely serious question.

Internet is Still Out!

Here's My Classroom

 And my bathroom pass

 And this is for you Momma!

Hello All!

Hooray, I've managed to write something!!! Yesterday went pretty well. Kids were very curious, overwhelming and fun. My homeroom--7th graders--will be a handful. They are chatty and tend to get a little crazy, but in comparison to what I had during my student teaching, they are great. In comparison to the other grades, 6th and 8th, they are lacking. Hah! Eighth graders are AWE-some! They laugh at my jokes, they want to share themselves, they're smart and very witty. Sixth graders are good. Ask A LOT A LOT of questions. So many! They raise their hand to ask a question, put it down for a second, then shoot it up again for another. I like them though, just have to figure out how to manage that little...trait. They're so cute though. They think I know Spanish cause they asked "Por que," not thinking I knew what they said, but I answered. Hahah! Overall I felt good about the past few days. I found myself shifting from grade levels pretty seamlessly, which I was worried about. I mean, I communicate with each group differently. I think I'm going to really like my creative writing class. There are only eight of them and two were absent. We'll get to know each other very well. They are excited about poetry! I told them it'll be a good introduction to college life (as they are Juniors and Seniors). They seem like the type of group that's going to work really hard...I hope I'm able to push them creatively...I want to be good at teaching, especially at Creative Writing teaching.

After school yesterday, Rebecca and I got back to the apartment and our Internet was out. I tried all of my techy skills to no avail...literally everything you could think of, but both our phone and Internet was out. We'd found a bill under our stairs the day before and had given it to the proper guy at school because we weren't to pay that one. So, I thought it had something to do with that...told him today and he said that this often happens here in Panama. So, we are stuck for we don't know how long. Luckily our friends have been awesome and said we could come over for the weekend. They also said we could come over for laundry! Since our spin cycle is kaput and our dryer is currently lacking. Yeah! For Wonderful People!

Yesterday after school and after I realized we were out of Internet, I took a small nap then went for a small walk with Rebecca. We took some pictures around where we were, so enjoy those.

Here is our cat, Tic Toc

Tomorrow we are going to a very native shopping area...so, that should be interesting. Then we are going to a Costco-type store for specifically: toilet paper, possibly chicken and whatever else we think we may need in bulk and then we have plans with some friends from school for dinner. Busy day! I then have to find time to get my lesson plans online for the week and then later my five individual course year maps and syllabi turned-in. [Heavy Sigh]

Yay! Next week we're going to the beach! Look forward to those pictures, I am! Also, I'm going to try and join some concerto choir program...I'll be singing. English, Spanish and Kuna. More updates to come on that.

K, I'm done. Sorry this one was so long, but hopefully you enjoyed the pics!

On to the 2nd...

Had our Internet turned off at the apartment so I wasn't able to give an update and rehash my day. I'll attempt to do that later and hopefully it gets turned back on by the end of today.

Hooray for the almost weekend!

Migracion! Ahh!

Had to go to Immigration (see above illegally taken picture) today to start the process of getting our Missionary Visa. Waited in line for 3 and 1/2 hours! Quite the packed place. A couple of those hours were spent in one location. And, at one point, the one lady at the computer decided it was her lunch break. Not a good day. Didn't get anything done, so I'm attempting to try to get something done tonight...that is, after I'm finished venting here.

A bit of a praise...Rebecca and I decided to go for a swim when we finally got back. We were hesitant at first because we knew we had a lot to do, but decided it'd be a good stress reliever. When we were in the pool we heard some fellow English speakers! So, we asked where they were from. Turns out they are also teachers who have come to start at the new school being built near here. One is from Texas and the other is from Ireland (she is a newbie), but the one from Texas has been here for 2 years, just in another location. Somehow we got around to talking about churches and she, the Texan, goes to an International church that isn't too far from where we are and she invited us. We now just have to figure out how to get there. We can walk, but it's an hour's walk at a fast pace. What's miraculous about the situation is that 1) she's not teaching at a Christian school 2) Rebecca and I were just talking about how we wanted to meet other people. We love all the people we've met so far, but we were just wanting another group to experience different things. So, praise the Lord...there they were in the pool! Hahah. We swapped numbers and the service she goes to is an evening service so potentially we could go to both. She also said that she was thinking of getting out of town soon to go to the valley and maybe we could go too. Hooray.

In other news, I hate ingrown toenails.
This evening I made tacos...they turned out great and they were good enough that I'm empowered to try other things.

I do have a prayer request: I've been so bogged down with everything, that I don't think I've been able to grasp the full impact of my being here. I have mentioned numerous times how overwhelmed I am, but all in all it seems I've been able to handle everything. I've only teared up once...and Mom made me do it. Many of the teachers ask how I am doing and I am so glad they are asking. I say I'm fine, but honestly, I'm not feeling like myself so much. I'm here, but I guess because I'm soooo far out of my comfort zone I don't know what being here is? I don't know, but some people weren't likin' it. And, it's me. I just want to be ok. Be ok. Be ok.

I am continuing my quest through the Old Testament so please enjoy this snippet:
2 Samuel 12: 4-5: "...So Hanun seized David's men, shaved off half of each man's beard, cut off their garments in the middle of the buttocks, and sent them away...they were greatly humiliated..."
I really do appreciate how God is guiding me through the Bible. As I go through the Scripture I'm getting the encouragement I need as well as a little giggle every once in a while :D

What I've learned about Panama:
*They are VERY superstitious-Apparently one is never to walk in the rain, because you most assuredly will catch pneumonia and die. Also, around New Years you are to wear yellow underwear because it'll bring you good fortune. I am planning to do this.
*Best phrase ever: "Puede hablar mas despacio, por favor."
*Laundromats are only .50 for a wash and .75 for a dry! Take that L.A.
*I've not learned this, but I saw it...there was a HUGE cargo boat that went through the Miraflores locks today...it was huge!
*I hate mold.

That's all today folks.
Love you all!