Just when I was sure I was getting a hang of this Mexico thing...

So I don't know how much I said about my internet issues since I've been here in my last blog entry, but there have been a lot. I spent multiple hours on the phone with Telmex every night for 3 weeks asking them why my internet still wasn't working. I got every excuse in the book. A few of my favorites:

"Can you please tell me where there is a Telmex store close to my house?" "No, ma'am, I don't have access to the internet." Really?? An internet company... that doesn't have internet access? Yeah.. ok.

"Can you please call my cell phone when you've figured everything out?" "Sure, ma'am, I'll take all of your information, and I PROMISE to call you tomorrow with an update." Did anyone EVER call back? Nope.

"Can I speak with your supervisor?" "Yes, one moment please." Click.

"Can I speak with your supervisor?" "Yes, one moment please...... (5 minutes later) Ma'am, it turns out that my supervisor is having lunch and cannot talk right now." Lovely.

"Can I speak with your supervisor?" "We don't have supervisors here. Sorry."

"Can I speak with your supervisor?" "Well, ma'am, my supervisor can't do anything more than what I have already offered you." "And what have you offered me?" "Well, to just wait and let our tecs do their job."

And my all time favorite!: "Can I speak with a technician please?" "Sorry, ma'am, but we do not have direct communication with our tecs. We simply send them an email with your problem and they respond within 24-72 hours to fix the problem." "Ok, that's fine, but 72 hours ago was about 336 hours ago."

Needless to say, it was a pretty painful month. Finally, when I threatened to cut my service, amazingly someone was free (weird!) to come over and take a look at my internet. And then it worked. For 5 hours. And then it cut out again. And then I had to do that all over again. But now I've had internet (knock on wood) for one and a half WHOLE weeks without any problems! Hooray!

So, I had a few bad weeks. I really thought that Mexico was out to get me. And then Monday, I had a super successful day! I went to find tennis shoes, which always seems to be a really hard thing for me, but I found them in the second store I went into and I LOVE them and they don't make my feet look as huge as they really are! Super score for Sarah.

And get this: right before that, I had to go pay my Telmex bill for the past month, and I had to use this special phone there to call and see if I could get a discount for the days that I was without internet. Background info: the day I called to report my internet as not working, they told me to wait a week because there was another account still open at my house that had to close. So my first report doesn't show up in their computers until a week after I called the first time. So I call this woman and she says, "Well, looks like you did not have internet for 20 days... so that'll make your bill 800 pesos." And I was like, "Whoa, woman, hold it.... I did NOT have internet for a whole month." "Oh, ok, let me fix that then." (Which got me to thinking, why didn't I tell her it was actually a month and a half.. or two months?!) "Ok, man, that's all fixed, it'll be 700 pesos." "Um, why is it still so expensive? All I should have on that bill now is part of a month of internet and my cable." "Oh, it says here that you had a charge for changing households. Had they told you that they would do that for free?" "Um... yes?" "Oh, ok, let me fix that..... Perfect, it looks like your total will now be 400 pesos." Champion, right here, people!

So I was high on life. My students are becoming EXPERT notetakers, they laugh at almost all of my jokes, and I got an email from eInstruction (they have all kinds of awesome technology for classrooms, like mobile interactive whiteboards, clickers for instant voting, ya know, all the stuff you would have loved to have as a student?). They actually have a distributor right here in QRO that is going to give me an EXCELLENT deal on clickers, a whiteboard, and some programs that will go along with it. So I'm ecstatic about that.

And then I get home. Ugh. There is water... EVERYWHERE. And my shower? Running. You wanna know why? Because I turned it on. Yep.

A few weeks ago, I discovered that the cold water to my shower takes forever to start running (I mean, like, an hour.) One day it only took about 5 minutes, and yesterday I left my water heater running too long in the morning, so I knew I'd need some cold water if I didn't want third degree burns. Well, I turned on the cold water, and what to you know, it didn't run. In my anger and haste, I took the fastest, hottest shower of my life (it could be worse.... cold showers are pretty awful), and in my huffy puffy state, forgot to shut the cold water off. Well, folks, the cold water runs...and runs...and runs. Until my whole floor in my apartment was wet. So that was cool. I guess I can't really blame Mexico for that one... I guess we tag teamed it.

So then I went and ran 4 miles to let off some steam. The end :)

Mexico...... te quiero mucho, te juro!!

A month goes by so quickly

I LOVE SIXTH GRADE! I think that's the best way to describe my year so far! It's been incredible. The students are so sweet, they listen (for the most part), and they're just so precious! I am so impressed by how much they've grown in just one month... I'm excited to see how they'll end up at the end of the year. Some of my students have already said that they can already tell how much I care about them and they love to come up and say hi... I'm so not used to that! The first few weeks, all I did was teamwork building activities... the kids loved it, I'm not sure that they were ready to really learn! haha. I'm learning that they don't know as much as I had hoped, but I'm really hoping to get them up to speed quickly.

I haven't been going to the gym a lot, BUT I bought a jump rope and I feel like a little kid all over again! I love it! I jump all by myself on the roof of my building and it's incredible :)

In other news, I just had the most incredible weekend! I went to San Miguel with a bunch of teachers from school and then headed to León and Guanajuato with four other teachers. It's something that I've wanted to do since I got here, but I let one person determine that for me. And let me tell you, Guanajuato is now one of my favorite cities I've ever seen! If anyone ever comes to visit me, that's where we're going! Pictures will come soon on FB, but some of the details are that I bought a nice leather jacket, I tried to find cowboy boots (epic fail), I ate more than I ever have in my life for the least expensive price ($30 pesos!), I saw a HUGE statue of Jesus!, we almost drove off the road a few times, we saw a TON of donkeys, poor little kids ran next to our car to get money, we saw some natural mummies (that was a bit morbid), I ate lots of delicious sugary pumpkin seeds (mmmmmmm!), I stayed in an incredible hostel with all kinds of funky animal print, I sat on a curb and watched drunk people almost fall down a cobblestone hill, I saw one of my students from last year (FIFTEEN) out at a bar, I sat in a hot tub, I made french toast with Luke for 10, did I mention that I ate a lot?, I tried REALLY hard to get into some techno music, and I didn't do any school work. None. It was GLORIOUS! Until today when I didn't have anything ready and taught 7 periods. Yikes.

Some of the highlights of teaching the past few weeks:

• "What's this, kids?" (holding up a funnel) "A margarita glass?"
• "Ms. Sarah, you talk really fast." "OK, from now on, if I talk too fast, give me a peace sign!" And then having one actually use it today. Adorable!
• Reading "What's Your Poo Telling You" to my students. "Ms. Sarah, are we going to read about poo today???" Thank you, Kathy Blomker!
• EVERY single time that the kids laugh at my jokes!
• My mentoring team winning one of the competitions by all stepping on my back
• Watching my kids scramble to get things done because they're used to coloring EVERYTHING and color coding their writing (Red for punctuation, blue for all other writing)
• Teaching my students how to be organized (a blessing and a curse)

Overall, I've been having an incredible year. My kitty is a little sick (we'll have to take him to the vet), I waited a month for internet, I've gotten pretty sick a few times, I've stressed out at work a few times, I got my hair CHOPPED off! (even though most people couldn't tell I got it cut), but after all is said and done, I am incredible blessed to have this life, have these students, have these friends, have this country! :)