April

The last two weeks have been filled with a lot of busy-ness...

Thursday, April 14th I took the bus to the capital, Santo Domingo (about 2 hrs away) to present at a workshop at Domican Americano-- the only English University (I think) in the DR. The other SST teacher teaches a college class there, and the Senior Education majors were putting on a workshop on Targeting Learning Styles with Technology-- and they asked me to present. This was my first time navigating the bus system-- but I was able to do it ok. I sat at the bus station for quite awhile (getting there at 2:45, and then picked up at 4;30), and then they picked me up to go to the University. It started late, and then the first speaker took a little longer than they thought (as well as some technical difficulties)-- she was a psychologist talking about what learning styles are, and the theory behind it. After my presentation, there was another activity, and I needed to wait for them to finish, in order to get a ride back to the bus station. The traffic in Santo Domingo is absolutely terrible, and though it isn't that far to drive, we sat in a lot of traffic on the way there. I had missed the 7:00 bus, so I took the 8:00 bus home, and was home by about 10:30...

Wednesday, April 20th, I flew out very early, to go to my brother' wedding in Omaha, NE (6 a.m.). Evidently taxi driver's do not like to pick people up at 4:00 in the morning, b/c I had a terrible time getting someone to pick me up! I almost thought that I wasn't going to make my flight-- as I got to the airport at 5:00, and was to board at 5:40... My connecting flight to JFK was a bit tense as well, as the line going through security at JFK took awhile, along with the bus shuttle to a different terminal, getting me to my gate just as it was boarding....Once I got to the Minneapolis airport, I had some time to actually sit and eat lunch, but I had to sort out my credit card (which thankfully Minn has free wi-fi!!). With trying to add minutes to my pre-paid phone (and possibly the connection), somehow it appeared as fraudulent charges, and my credit card was deactivated... After I got to Omaha, I rented a car, and drove to Topeka to meet my friend Alicia, who came with her two girls (3 1/2 and 5 mths) and her mom, until driving back to Omaha Thursday evening. They had driven 6 hrs to see me-- and though it was a short time, it was nice to be able to catch up. :-) We were even able to get a little bit of shopping in, but b/c I had only brought carry-on's, I couldn't buy too much... Friday morning my brother drove with me to take my rental car back to the airport, and then we had lunch with Rachel's family and our family.


 We had a few hours to kill before we needed to go to the church to help set up, so I went with Zach, Caleigh, and Dylan to Wehrspann Lake, which is a few miles from Jason's. It has a really pretty trail around the lake.

 The centerpieces...

Later that evening, Dylan and I went to the school park, and challenged me to 2 games of HORSE (Dylan won).... Saturday morning, my niece Caleigh and I had hair appointments before the pictures at 10:00, with the ceremony at 11:00 for immediate family only. The reception was from 1-4, and for me it went by so fast, with talking to family and friends that I hadn't seen for a long time. After the reception my dad's side of the family was able to spend time together at the hotel they were staying at, and later that evening my parent's drove me to my hotel that I was going to stay at, since my flight the next morning was at 5:40 (and close to the airport)! This time my flights were a lot smoother, but still with not very long layovers-- I got back to my apartment by 6:00. This morning came extremely early for me....

We don't have school on Monday, for Dominican Labor Day, which will be oh so very nice, after having such a busy week!!!  :-)

Back to "Normal"

We are back to a full week of school after having 4 days last week, and prior to that was Spring Break. I stayed in Santiago for Spring Break, and taking advantage of having some down-time- (and to having the apartment to myself for a few days) Netflix movies, grocery shopping, picking up packages, La Campagna (coffee)... I'm a bit of a homebody, and really don't get bored being home by myself. On Easter there was a group of us that got together and had an Easter dinner-- pork chops, veggies, potatoes, and Reese's cheesecake, home made ice cream and puppy chow for dessert! Along with the dinner we decorated Easter eggs (which is an American tradition-- it is not something that Dominican's have heard of doing), and hunting for 100 Easter eggs in the apartment.

We have entered the last 9 weeks of school, which is so hard to believe we're there already. I'm finishing up testing another potential SST student, and will start doing end of the year testing my student's and then meeting with parent's to sign contracts for next year. I'm to the point in my schedule, where I can't fit any new SST student's, so if they qualify, then we have to wait till next year to provide services. As many other teacher's know, there's just not enough hours in the day to fit everything in, or get everything done!! One of my student's has alternate Math, and due to my schedule, I couldn't teach her by herself, so I have her with other student's at that time. I've been using Moby Max on the computer with the student, and so far it has been going well. There are also some 7th grader's that are using it for a Reading intervention. I just discovered it this year, and am trying to familarize myself with it. I also have another student that their class was reading a chapter book for Reading, and the book is too hard for him, so we decided to pull him, and he would come to my room during that time, and I have Reading independent work at his level that he'll work on-- I'll be multi-tasking, b/c I will have other student's in my room as well.

I've also been working on a presentation that I'm going to be presenting at a workshop for some college students at the University in Santo Domingo next week. The other SST teacher teaches at the Univ in SD and she told them about me, and a few weeks ago they asked me to present on "Targeting Learning Styles with Technology." I've never done anything like this before, so this will be a new (and a bit scary for me!) experience for me! The workshop is from 4:30-6:30, so I'm taking a taxi to the bus station from school to get the 1:00 bus, and then they will pick me up, and also take me to the station when I'm finished. That's been taking up a lot of spare time working on that, but It's been an exciting opportunity!

T-13 Days till I leave for the States! I fly out here at 6:10 on  Wed April 20th, to go to my brother's wedding. Every day is pretty much planned out with something to do-- it will be busy, but I'm very excited to be able to go, and see everyone!