Life continues!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted and I have much to write about!  Over the past two weeks I have obtained my working Visa, visited a winery and small market, and started accumulating supplies for my Halloween costume.

Last Wednesday I left school with a few other teachers and Maribel from HR to pick up my working Visa.  I had heard from other teachers that you have to wait for hours before, but I was just excited not to have to teach my last class of the day.  The way the immigration office works here in Queretaro is that they open the doors for a few hours in the late morning/early afternoon for people to come line up for service.  You’re given a number and then you wait until they call you up—similar to the DMV in the States.  If you do not show up at the open doors during those hours, you miss out and have to come back later.  My group arrived around 12:45 and we were the last group they admitted.  To pass the two hours until my number was called, I read my Kindle, purposely ignoring the papers waiting to be graded in my bag.  I figured if I had to wait then my papers did too :)!  In the midst of my reading I was able to converse with some of the other teachers about school, Spanish lessons, and the books we were reading.  When my number was called, I had the pleasure of working with a very upbeat employee which surprised me.  I signed a bunch of papers, gave my thumbprints, and then had to write my name in their book because for some reason it was not written in there.  The guy smiled and told me I didn’t exist.  I chuckled while mouthing urgent prayers to God that this wouldn’t lead to anything serious.  It turned out not to be a big deal, and a moment later I was handed my freshly laminated FM3 card.  While I was still enjoying the warmth of my legality, Maribel told me she had to take it to finish my paperwork and promised to give it back next week.

Friday after school I went with a couple of girls to purchase fabric for my costume.  I’ve decided to dress as a ham hock like Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird.  No, I do not expect many teachers or students to understand my costume, but I will enjoy the literary nature of it!  I still need to go to Home Depot to get some chicken-wire or something for the internal structure.  I hope it will turn out how I’m envisioning it and not look like a piece of poop…

Saturday morning I met some girls at 10am to drive to Tequisquiapan to visit a winery called Freixenet.  I’m not a big wine fan, but I wanted to socialize and see more of Mexico.  When we arrived, we split a bottle of sparkling wine and nibbled some of the Spanish cuisine while we waited for the rest of our group to join us.  The perfect music match for wine is of course, Jazz.  What I found interesting is that the “Jazz” music they played at Freixenet was pop music that was “jazzed” up.  Some of the songs were ok, but the Coldplay song was a little much for me.   After wine we participated in a tour of the winery which was all in Spanish.  Kerrie offered to translate, but Melanie and I were having way to much fun creating out own tour dialogue.  Some of the finer points included the room for checking the bottles for mice, the percentage of people who made it out of the wine cellars alive, and the proper attire for being in a winery.  I don’t know about everyone else, but I know Melanie and I had a great time!  Then we loaded back in the car to head to the market in Tequis (much easier to say than the whole name of the town).  Jenika was really looking forward to the pottery that was supposed to be sold there, but as we were walking in Melanie told her that she was thinking of the market in San Miguel de Allende.  Nevertheless, we enjoyed wandering around the market talking about Don Quixote art.  After a little nap, we went to La Encrucijada (the Rock House mentioned in a previous blog) and rocked out until a little after 2am.  The rest Sunday I spent sleeping and reading, further ignoring my grading and studying for my Spanish quiz this coming Thursday.

The latest on my computer is that the Dell people will be working on my computer for the next 5-10 business days—I wonder if those are Mexican business days… TIM!  I am encouraged that my computer is being worked on, but I’m prepared for them not being able to fix it.  We’ll see what happens!

Thanks for your prayers and encouraging letters—they are helping!  Keep ‘em coming, and if you think about it, say a prayer for my folks in Kenya.

Moving Forward

I have finished the book The Dream Giver, and I am left to ponder some choices.  You see, I can choose to stop moving forward and focus on my frustrations and struggles, or I can choose to push forward and discover God’s plans for my life.  “The bottom line of every test in the WasteLand is this: When God seems absent and everything is going wrong, will you still trust God enough to patiently allow Him to prepare you for what’s ahead?” (The Dream Giver).  Lately my answer has been no, I don’t trust what God is doing (especially now since my laptop is not working).  Instead of looking ahead and following God’s leading, I have been facing the direction I came from, wondering why I left in the first place.  I empathize with the Israelites when they were led into the desert.  They didn’t understand what God had waiting for them if only they would have trusted and followed Him sooner.  George Mueller once said, “Our heavenly Father never takes anything from His children unless He means to give them something better,” but we have to cross a desert sometimes to receive that “something better”.  I admit I’m short-sighted; I cannot glimpse nor imagine what God has in-store for me.  The question I am facing right now is, how long will I stay in the desert?  I can choose to stay here for a long time and wallow in self-pity, or I can choose to trust God and move forward.  One thing I know for certain is that I DO NOT want to stay where I am.  And while I’d like to pin all of my frustrations on my job and being in a foreign country, I know that the real problem resides inside of me.  I can’t give up; I have to move forward.

Overestimating

Estimating is not a gift I possess.  Overestimating and underestimating, on the other hand, seem to be my forte.  Whether it’s my appetite at dinner, my judgment of abilities, or my understanding of situations, I end up miscalculating somehow.  Perhaps this is a result of my indifference for everything mathematical and my affinity for everything Right-Brained.  Regardless of the origin of this insufficiency, it continues to plague my life.

For the past month I have been teaching my students about figurative language and poetry.  The summative assessment was an analysis of a poem we had previously discussed in class.  Students were asked to identify figurative language, imagery, mood and tone, to summarize the poem in their own words, and to explain briefly the main idea of the poem—all things we’ve been practicing in class.  On top of that, I showed the students yesterday how the final assessment would work and modeled how to answer the 10 questions.  Today I gave the assessment.  I learned three things: 1) My students do not listen to or follow directions, regardless in what form they are delivered, 2)  My students have no idea how to think on their own or problem solve, and 3) I have no idea how to teach them.  I can honestly say that today was one of the most frustrating days I’ve had so far at school.  Have I overestimated their ability?  Have I overestimated my ability as a teacher?  Listening to the questions and seeing the frustrated and confused looks from my students almost pushed me over the edge today.  There is a disconnect somewhere between what I am teaching and what my students are learning, and I don’t know how much of it is my inefficiency at teaching this group and how much of it is due to their laissez-faire attitude towards learning.  I understand that subject content is not a priority for most adolescents, but I’ve never struggled so hard for attention in my classroom since my first year of teaching.  I’m not saying I’m a bad teacher, but I have no idea how to teach rich, ESL students who function between a 2nd and 5^th grade level in English.  Neither my education classes nor my teaching experiences have prepared me for this position—I have underestimated the difficulty of this job.  If I wanted to find a job that would completely destroy my passion for teaching, this is it.  And what kills me is that I genuinely like my students and the people I work with.

On a completely different note…

About twice a month I make a trek to the grocery store with my backpack to stock up on food.  I am too cheap to pay for a taxi to drive me 1.3 km to my house with all of my bags, so I load them in my backpack.  This causes many weird looks during my trip.  The apartment guards just stare at me and laugh when they see me with my overstuffed backpack.  People in cars and on the street do double-takes to figure out what I’m doing.  It’s weird and some work, but I save myself $35 (pesos) every time I use my backpack!

Disruption

Friday I received a package from home with some very important essentials (I have ranked them in order of most important to least important): Swedish fish, Hershey’s Hugs, winter coat, t-shirt and camisole, lunch bag, Crystal Light packets, inhaler.  All of these items were crammed in a medium USPS flat-rate box.  I was completely blown away with how much my mom shoved in that box!  I was also amazed that the box arrived intact without any issues!  The mail here in Mexico is sketchy at best, and after hearing horror stories about boxes being lost and held by customs agents in Mexico City, I didn’t think the box would ever arrive.  I now feel ready to face the week, Winter, and running!  Thanks mom!

In the last blog I mentioned that I’m reading the book The Dream Giver: Following Your God-Given Destiny by Bruce Wilkinson.  I’ve finished the parable portion (the first fourth of the book), and instead of being encouraged, I find myself a bit disheartened.  The main character, Ordinary, meets many challenges and struggles in pursuit of his Dream.  He eventually comes to the city in which he is to accomplish his Dream.  After a little while, the Dream Giver tells Ordinary that he needs to move on and pursue his dream in a new place.  Like Ordinary, I felt a stirring in my comfortable life in Colorado Springs which led me to Mexico.  And now that I’m here, I just want to be back in the land of the familiar.  The thought that as soon as I’m comfortable I will have to move again is daunting and unwelcome.  Is this what my life is going to be like?  Am I destined to live a life of discomfort and constant disruption?  This is not a happy thought, and one that leads me to ask, “Lord, what are you doing in my life?”  Now of course I still of 3/4 of the book to go, so maybe I’ll find some encouragement yet, but I’m not holding out for it.  My parents’ pastor told me he would be praying that God would disrupt my life while in Mexico, and I can say without hesitation that his prayer is being answered!  God is working on my heart and my mind; I am so far outside of my comfort zone that I don’t even know where to look to catch a glimpse of it.  In a way I’m pretty excited, but mostly I’m just terrified.

I’ll let you know how the rest of the book goes.

Beautiful Chrysalis?

Things rarely turn out the way I plan them.  You would think I have learned this lesson by now, and I would stop obsessing about my own plans.  Looking back at my life up until now, I can see that God has given me what I needed when I needed it.  Every amazing blessing has come about through giving up a part of myself and my desires to pursue God and where He takes me.  Mexico has been nothing like I imagined it would be, and that’s ok.  I’m in the midst of being transformed, and if everything was easy and as I expected, how would I change? 

As November approaches, so does the time of year when Monarch Butterflies will migrate to parts of southern Mexico.  I’ve been doing a little bit of research about these creatures, and I have been reminded about how important change is.  In one year, the butterfly life cycle will begin and end four times, with the last generation living a bit longer to ensure the survival of the species through the migration process.  Each life cycle consists of four parts as well: larvae, caterpillar, chrysalis, and adult butterfly.  While this cycle cannot be completely parallel with the Christian life-cycle, I do see similarities.  The larvae and caterpillar stages are all about eating and taking in the needed energy to allow their bodies to make it through metamorphosis in the chrysalis stage.  So it is with Christians.  We have an infancy stage in which we require information to be fed to us in order to withstand the changes that will come later.  Some of us never make it past this stage in our transformation and so never reach adult butterfly stage.  Some of us try to jump ahead to quickly and do now receive enough information to make it to that last stage either.  Currently I view myself in the “chrysalis” phase.  God is in the midst of morphing me into the creation He has in mind for me to be.  Many changes are taking place, and honestly, I hate them.  Why can’t I just stay a caterpillar forever?  It’s a life I know and is comfortable for me.  But I believe God calls each of us away from that comfort zone eventually.  I cannot affect real change in my world if I do no leave my comfort zone.  God has a beautiful end for me, and in order for me to attain that last stage I have to go through immense pain and changes.  I hope one day to respond as Heimlich did in A Bug’s Life: “Look at me!  I’m a beautiful butterfly!”—Only I hope to be more transformed than just a pair of wings jutting out from my back!

By the way, I’m reading The Dream Giver: Following Your God-Given Destiny by Bruce Wilkinson, and it talks about some of the ideas above using a parable.  I find it challenging but also comforting in the midst of my time here in Mexico.

Saludos!

Jaguar Day

Jaguar Day: an occasion to present the new basketball jerseys at a “pep-rally”, and then let the kids run free for the next two and a half hours.  The entire campus convened in their auditorium, from the youngest Kinder students to the oldest Senior students.  Expecting an explosion of lights and sounds to engage the students, I was disappointed when the entire presentation consisted of the flag ceremony and a high school student reading a speech in both English and Spanish.  There was someone running around in a Jaguar costume, and a young student in a little Jaguar costume, but that was the most exciting part of the gathering, and when they had us chant “We are, we are Jaguars, Jaguars” (same beat as “We Will Rock You”).  Afterwards, they ushered all of the students out of the auditorium to go find an activity to visit.  From that point forward, it was a free-for-all.  I was supposed to help with jump rope, but I decided to be a rogue teacher and start my own activity of frisbee.   I think it was a success, and I only lost one frisbee (which I hope will show up later). 

After we kicked the students out at 11:30pm, all of JFK staff returned to the auditorium for some bonding.  A man in unfortunate bright green track pants told us all (in Spanish of course) about the Jaguar and how it’s a powerful animal.  Then we played a series of games in which I had to follow along blindly because I couldn’t understand much of what this guy said—not just because of my lack of Spanish, but this guy had a type of lisp and did not enunciate well.  The first game we wandered around while the guy sang a song and then when he stopped he told us how many people we needed in a group.  Left over people had to do a little dance while the guy sang.  Then we had to pass balls around in a circle and whoever had one of them when the guy stopped singing had to do the same dance from earlier.  After that, everyone was given a hoola-hoop to place on the ground.  When the guy sang, we had to “swim” outside of the hoops (which I guess were supposed to be boats).  The first time the music stopped, I totally biffed it trying to get in a hoop—I don’t know quite what happened, but I did land in the hoop!  Each time they took more hoops out and we tried to cram as many people in the hoop as possible.  Then we were all given handkerchiefs that we stuck in our pockets, and then we had to run around and steal as many as we could in the time allotted.  There were a few more activities, but the last one was unforgettable.  Track-pants man led us in some dances to different songs.  The first song was about a man who got hit by a train and how he danced—of course we emulated his dance—completely inappropriate, but amusing non-the-less.  The last dance was an interpretive dance to classical music.  It was fun to be goofy with the staff.  The rest of the afternoon was spent in meetings—true excitement!

Was this day a total waste?  No, just mostly! :)