It´s all about ENTHUSIASM!

Hola Todos,

Well, thankfully I have a break right now! You know those mornings where you sleep past the alarm, have hardly any time to get ready, and the rest of the morning feels chaotic? Well, that was how I started this lovely Monday morning. I always set two alarms here (I know I am a bit OCD) so that Anna and I wake up with enough time to get ready at a reasonable pace and get to school on time. Well, last night Anna and I went over to Lorena and David´s house after church to have "Tecito" (a "light" dinner) and when we got home it was midnight. So, I set my alarm on my cell phone, 6 am for the 20th, which I thought would wake me up this morning. Well, I didn´t even realize that when I set the alarm it was already Monday technically so the date I should have set the alarm for was the 19th! Does that make sense? I am a bit tired so I am by no means eloquent right now...:). So, yeah I woke up and raced around the house to get ready, rode my bike quickly to school, and barely had enough time to put away my lunch and bike before the bell rang.

So, there I was at 8am with my 8A class (8th grade) with my mind in a whirl trying to psych myself up for teaching. Well amazingly I was able to pull myself together and feel enthusiastic about the lesson (which wasn´t all that interesting). The class was a little chaotic because we did a reading and then I asked them questions, but all in all it went well. After the class I was thinkng how funny it is that sometimes I feel super prepared and have a great lesson to teach, but the lesson comes out lame because I didn´t get into it and feel excited about it. I remember that some of my best teachers-professors in High School and College were passionate about what they were teaching and about connecting with the students. I guess what I am saying is that one of the many things I have learned from the crazy experience is that when you teach you have to teach with passion and express enthusiasm for the lesson of the day even if you really don´t feel it. The students play a HUGE role in how the class turns out and one of the best ways to motivate them to make the class fun and exciting is to be fun and exciting yourself. Does that make sense?

So, yeah that was my lesson for the day...or at least for the morning since it is only 10 am! Thankfully my second class for the day has a Test so I get a break to drink some nasty Néscafe, prep. for the next class, and write you you all. Ok, well that pathetic excuse for a cup of coffee is calling my name so I will talk to you all later!

We are now members of...

the Copiapo LIBRARY! Yes! I´m so excited! I have been wanting to go to the library for a while now and we finally made it there. It´s kind of lame that we are just now getting around to it...being that we only have a month left. haha. Oh well. When we first arrived though I wouldn´t have been able to read a THING! Jason has been using his school library since we got here. I checked out today though "Mujercitas." Can you guess what that is? Yep, Little Women. Kind of funny. I thought that it would be best to check out something that I am familiar with. Anyways, I´m reading it and for the most part understanding it. Yay! During my 7 months here I in fact HAVE actually learned something...though sometimes I really wonder! :) Anyways, it´s exciting. I read that book sooooo very long ago and so it´s fun to pick it up and give it another go...pero en español!

Jason also checked out some book of Chilean poetry that seems SUPER hard. What a smarty I have on my hands! He wants to focus on Chilean literature becuase it´s so plentiful and accessible here. There is a decent Spanish section in Barnes and Noble at home and I´m sure in the SLO county library too. He can read the more general novels and books in Spanish at home.

Anyways, that´s what we did today! Now we are going to go home, read our books, and I´m going to make some homemade chicken noodle soup. Yummers!

Cheap As Dirt

Hola Todos,

Hey GuYs! How are you? Well, after this week Anna and I only have 5 more weeks of teaching! Crazy! We are looking forward to going home, eating lots of American food, and seeing you all, but we are sad to see that we have so little time left. That said, there are a couple of things we won´t miss! One of them is being VERY frugal. Yeah yeah, I know what you are probably thinking "But you guys have traveled!" Yes, we were blessed to do a bit of traveling, but while we have lived here in Copiapó we have lived off what the Chilean Gov.-United Nations has given us (which isn´t much!!!). I think when we crunched the numbers we found out that we make something like 2 dollars an hour :). Here are a few ways we try to save money to make it to the end of the month.

Laundry in the Tub

This sure isn´t glamorous work! We live in a great location (inbetween our schools and close to a Supermarket), but there is no laundrymat near us. So, instead of hauling all our heavy laundry across town we clean it in the tub and then hang dry it. It is time consuming, back breaking, and no fun but it saves us money!

Pepper Mill

Ok, so Anna had this great idea to poke a hole in our plastic pepper mill and refill it to save a little money. It is cheaper to buy the pepper corns and refill our old mill than buy a new one each time. We could of course buy ground pepper, but fresh ground tastes better. So, with Anna´s bright idea we get cheap fresh pepper!

A close up of the hole Anna made.

So, as you guys can see we do what we can to try and save money. The end of each month is a pain and we barely scrape buy, but in case you are worried we don´t suffer. Anna is a great cook and makes each meal super yummy and in our budget we get 10,000 pesos each as an allowance(about 18 or 19 dollars). Of course, that personal money goes super quick since it is only about 4-5 dollars a month to spend. Oh, and we have a "Fun Money Envelope" for weekend fun to do internet, get ice cream, rent a movie, etc. But, all that said we are looking forward to getting jobs that pay more and not being so tight on funds each month.

Other Fun FREE Things We Do:

-Check out Spanish books from the School Library

-Go hiking in the hills behind our house

-Hang out with Chilean Friends

-Play with our three kitties

-Watch programs like "The Amazing Race" (S. American Version), etc.

-Run

-etc.

Ok, well I hope you guys are doing well and will talk to you later! Chao!

Oh, the Benefits!

Well, I am here to tell you that being married officially RoCkS! So, I have had a cold for the last week. I was getting better and then kind of relapsed. It´s no longer in my nose but some where between my nose and my throat...weird and gross! So, I was feeling a little puny. I decided to take a shower in the evening. Jason noticed that I wasn´t lookin´ to spunky and said, "You shouldn´t go to bed with a wet head since you are sick. Do you want me to brush your hair and blow-dry it for you?"

Um...YeaH!!!!

You see, I love having my hair brushed and just my scalp touched in general...but to throw in some nice hot hair at the same time. Yes Please! You don´t have to ask me twice. And yes, it WAS amazing. Soooooo, relaxing. While he was blow-drying my hair he said, "I guess this isn´t very manly huh?" Ha! I think that we can all agree that there is nothing more manly to a gal than a husband serving his wifey. So, being married is grand. I´m a definite fan!!! :)

Can you guess how much 1 peso is worth?

Hola Todos,

Hey Guys, how are you? Ok, so I took these pictures when we first arrived, but I don´t think that I ever posted about them like I wanted to. So, today I wanted to show you guys that there does indeed exist a coin that is worse than the penny...the Chilean 1 peso! Not only is it smaller than the penny, but it weighs practically nothing and is worth 0.0018 cents!!!!

Here are all of the Chilean coins. There is a 500, 100, 50, 10, 5, and 1 peso coin. The 500 and 100 are the most useful and the 50 helps, but the rest are practically worthless.


Here is my comparison of the U.S. penny and the Chilean peso. It is crazy how small the peso is!!!

And to help you see the difference, since you can´t hold the peso, here is a picture of the peso on the penny to show how much smaller it is.

Well, I know that I always complain about the penny in the U.S. and how useless it is, but I am now thankful for it. I rarely get pesos because at the supermarkets they ask you if you want to donate a few pesos to the Firefighters or some charity. That way those groups make a little money and they can give even change. A couple times I have said no so that I can bring a few pesos home, but normally Anna and I say yes.

So, hope that was interesting. If not, too bad!! :) No, really for me those kind of things are interesting. I like discovering cultural differences because it is fun to see how others live and it makes one reflect on his-her own culture. For example, now I like that little copper penny :).

Ok, well talk to you all later!!

Finally!!!.....HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

Well, I FINALLY made it to a computer with internet access. There are two things that are very unreliable in this country. Internet and electricity. haha. Of course the internet decided to not work at school on Mon...when I actually really needed it. It was down yesterday too. Today the electricity was down at school. For the love! I fortunately had half the day off today so I was able to walk downtown to use the internet at the cafe...sooooooooooooo....

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY BirThDaYYYYYY Mother Dearest!

I hope that you had a wonderful actual birthday...on Monday!!! Love you and miss you so much. I wish I could have celebrated with you guys but ´tis not the case. There is also a card in the mail but who knows how long it will take. Maybe a week like the packages? Not sure. That´s going to be late though. haha. You see there is no "mail" envelope with money so I had to wait and send it with my "allowance" money I receive every month. I had to wait till we got paid though which is at the beginning of the month. Does that make sense? Good ole Dave Ramsey. He has taught us well.

200 Pesos, Plus a New Friend

Hola Todos,

¿Cómo están? Well, today is Thursday with only one more day to go until the weekend!!! I like teaching, but it is one of those things that you enjoy while doing it and don´t want to when you are off of work or the weekend is approaching. I guess that is just plain work...even if you have the most amazing job. Anyways, so today I wanted to tell you guys about my friend Jonathan. I met Jonathan near the Sodimac Homecenter (very similar to Home Depot). I usually walk by there to go downtown and one day I went he was there selling his little sweets. Well, me being a sweet loving fellow I decided for 200 pesos I could give his little invention a whirl. He told me the batter he uses is like Pancake batter, but instead of cooking it on a gridle he puts it in the oven and bakes it. He also puts chocolate or manjar in the middle and when they are done, dips both ends in chocolate and coconut. Surprisingly they are quite good and for only 200 pesos (around 36 cents) they are VERY worth it. I like the manjar ones and Anna likes the chocolate ones.

Here I am with my new friend Jonathan. He is trying to learn English and I am trying to learn Spanish so we talk to each other in both languages. He is super nice and a hard worker (it isn´t easy making a living the way he does).

Here are the yummy treats. I don´t really know if they have a name since Jonathan invented them. I think he might call them panqueques since they are made with pancake batter. As you can see the white ones on the left are filled with manjar and the ones on the right are chocolate flavored and have chocolate in the middle.

Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed another small peek into Anna´s and my life here in Copiapó, Chile. Thanks for checking out our blog and please keep praying for us! Pray we continue to work hard and teach well, love the kids and continue to get to know them better, stay safe and healthy, and share the Gospel. Thanks!! ¡Hasta luego!