I forgot...

Well its nice to know someone is interested enough in my blog to post a comment, so I thought maybe I would write a little update.

Things are going well here. The frantic first month is over and I´m getting accustomed to my school. The kids are little monsters (I guess its retribution for my teenage monster years). For example, its school policy not to allow students to go to the bathroom without approval by the office. So I had this 8th grader today, who just to spite me wrote marker all over her mouth so I would have to let her go to the bathroom. It backfired when I NARCed on her, but I figured that was the kind of thing an infant does. I never thought I would become a disciplinarian, but I´m surprising myself with my ruthless draconian classroom demeanor. In general, the kids still like me, but I think I´m working on the right mixture of fear vs. fun.

Other than that, things are pretty relaxed here. I´m done by one o´clock every day and usually take a ciesta, then go down to the beach for ping pong, basketball or swimming. Ah if only life in the states was this laid back. I still haven´t surfed yet, but hope to in the near future.

This weekend I´m going to San Pedro de Atacama which is about 3 hours from Antofagasta, because we have Monday and Tuesday off for a Federal holiday. I can´t wait to see the famous Valley of the Moon, the flamingo reserve, and the salt flats there. Should be good wholesome fun.

Also, I´m teaching guitar lessons (At least 6th graders don´t know how bad I really am)and basketball to some of the kids at my school on Saturdays, which can be a bit of a struggle after Friday nights but worth every minute.

Today, I played basketball with my house brother (Who´s 10 years old)and my friend Lisa (Who really has no basketball skills). So we played 3 on 3 with these Chilenos, and I´ve never seen three grown men be more satisfied with beating on a child, a woman and an old man with a gut. But, I did show some flashes of the skills that made me legendary on the mean streets of the A-D-A.

Last night I went to a cafe with my house sister and we spoke in Spanish for like four hours. I was pretty proud of myself, but I´m sure my sentences sounded more like ¨Me go beach, ha ha very funny. Sippo Sippo.¨ I guess my new nickname in my family is TJito (It sounds more like TGito) and my house mother has pretty much adopted me as her own.

Last weekend, I also used my increasingly complex and in depth knowledge of the Spanish language at my friend´s family´s party, which was really fun. I talked some smack about my ping pong skills, which I´m going to put on exhibition on Thursday and generally had a swell time.

Let´s see, other than that, I still think Homer Simpson speaking in Spanish is funny and Casado con Hijos (Married with Children) is growing on me. I´m sure I´m forgetting mucho stories, but I´ll try to get back in the swing of writing in this blog and hopefully include these stories soon.