family, funfetti, and festivities

well, here we are. it's almost december. what?

that can't be true. but it is. time is FLYING.

week to week. they go by so fast.

so, i've decided that mexico has the prettiest skies. pretty much every single day. and i don't know if i just notice the sky more here than i do at home? but i catch myself thinking 'man that sky is beautiful' almost everyday here. what's up with that?

brittan's family has been here this week. and it's been so so sooo great. they flew in on saturday and they stayed until today. they did SO MUCH for us. i can't even begin to explain it all but a few things they did is cook dinner two nights (spaghetti once and hamburgers the other) which was DELICIOUS. they finished the painting that we had not finished, they bought us lots of things of our house that we didn't even know that we needed. they loved us. brought some family time to mexico. and it was wonderful. they are amazing people. and we had lots of fun with them! we went to Teotihuacan the first Sunday they were here and saw lots of pyramids and an ex-monestary. the trip was really fun & we laughed a whole bunch. and took cool pics.

Thanksgiving was this week. It was super weird going to work on Thanksgiving Day. My kids didn't know about Thanksgiving but all month we had been talking about what we do in the United States to celebrate and what kinds of things we have to eat and traditions we have. So, on Thanksgiving, we had a small celebration in the morning with the 6th graders. It was nice. I sent paper home with my kids and they made Indian hats. We acted like the 6th graders were pilgrims and they were coming into our land (even though the 6th graders were too cool to make hats). Anyway, the kids enjoyed it and I thought it was neat teaching them a tradition we have that they did not know about.

Then, that night, our principal Miss Carol invited us over to her home for Thanksgiving dinner. HOLY MOLY. it was delicious. there was nothing that I did not like. it was all splendid. and we ate, and ate, and ate, and ate. and drank wine. and just talked. There was turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, hashbrown casserole, green bean casserole, pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie, cakes and oh so much more. (the special thing was that mexico doesn't sell pumpkin or fried onions so these things that we had were even better and made with more love) it was so nice of her to open her home up to us that were far away from home to help us feel more 'at home' on Thanksgiving. She really is wonderful.

we have a mouse in our house. we've bought two mouse traps and i'm hoping that we catch that sucker soon. i was watching tv the other night, just mindin my own business on the couch and he went scampering across the floor into the kitchen. and one day, brittan came home to find him walking across the KITCHEN COUNTERS. he needs to find somewhere else to go. i'd rather it be a roach. a mouse? yuckkk.

I'm not sure if I've written about my room yet.

but I love. love. my yellow room.

well, 24 days until I'm home for Christmas.

but, who's counting? :)

love ya'll.

-meggie

new week in puebla

job 8:21

"He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy"

welp. it's wednesday. hump day. middle of the week. tomorrow we can say that 'tomorrow is friday'. is this a bad outlook? probably so. this week has been a little rougher than any others. i don't really know why. i can't pinpoint a specific reason. maybe it's because i've had a lot more alone time this week than before. alone time just to think. which i have enjoyed. it's not really negative emotions that i'm feeling - i think just wanting something comfortable. family, maybe? friends back home? probably a combination of the both. but family & friends - know that you are dearly missssssssssed. and december 22 will be here before i know it! :)

it's F R E E Z I N G here. i don't feel that i'm overreacting when i say freezing. it's COLD. i've been checking weather lately and it's been the same coldness here that it is back home in alabama. the kicker here is that we don't have a heater. and we have tile floors. and these 2 aspects = unbearably cold house. the mornings are TOUGH. it's hard to move. the good news is, i'm going shopping this weekend. and i'm going to check on prices of space heaters, sweatshirts, and winter boots :)

tutoring

so this week has been INCREDIBLE as far as tutoring goes.

i've added 2 students to my weekly tutoring!

one of the students' moms wants me to help her with english as well

so, technically i've added 3 students :)

this is great, great.

what's the deal with cam newton? i'm actually really glad i'm not in alabama to hear about all of that all the time. i get enough from facebook. is it really that big of a deal?

brittan's birthday was monday. people from la casa had a big dinner for her for her birthday - it turned out really great. everyone did so much to make it a success! monday night, we went out to dinner for her birthday & then i came home to start painting our living room! i bought paint and wanted to paint the living room for her birthday. i want her to feel more at home here, and painting would be a good step! but i ended up not finishing. the living room is HUGE. but i got more finished than i thought i would. it's really BRIGHT. it was supposed to be a burnt orange with a light turquoise. but the orange is pretty much brighter than anticipated. i actually really like it though. it looks really mexican & awesome. i'll post pictures when it's all finished and pretty.

i've still been gymnasio'in it up lately. the walk to the gym is getting easier and less of a hassle but nights like tonight - i wished it was super close. it took a lot for me to get up and go to the gym. however, i'm sure even if it was close i would have felt the same way. but my running is improving! hooooray.

that's about all i've got, yawl.

now just some pictures.

some of the biggest pan i've ever seen.

this is pan from dia de los muertos from oaxaca

a gift from one of my students :)

i realized this blog had a lot of negativeness in it.

here's some happy things.

presh.

dear december,

if you could come quickly, i'd love you.

with all kinds of LOVE from chilly mexico

-meggie

halloween, amoebas, acapulco, and parent citas

and the winners for Acapulco's Who's Who Awards...

*highest GPA*

*most likely to succeed*

*best hair*

*best body*

*best dressed*

* * * A C A P U L C O * * *

seriously, BEST vacation ever. for several reasons. i think we were in desperate need of a vacation so the timing was perfect. and then, the fact that we planned a RELAXING vacation at the beach - who could ask for anything better?

our bus left from puebla at 11pm on friday night & we got to acapulco around 6am.

we checked into our hostel & napped for a few hours before hitting the beach.

rewind: the hostel.

the hostel was by NO means anything like the hostel experience we had in oaxaca. our standards were set pretty high - so this hostel just did NOT add up.

*free internet = 30 minutes of free internet.

*air conditioning included = AC is turned on at 6pm and off at 6am daily.

*free breakfast = a bowl of cereal.

needless to say, the hostel was not everything we had anticipated.

BUT - the location, location, location. it was PERFECT.

it was right near the beaches, the restaurants, clubs, bars, everything AWESOME.

the location made up for everything else that the hostel lacked...

our vacation consisted of lots of beach hang time, napping, eating seafood, dancing at night, exploring the area & laughing. OH laughing. we did a lot of that.

acapulco is not a huge "dia de los muertos" area of mexico so we really didn't do anything traditional as far as that goes. we didn't even see an ofrenda, not that i remember at least? but the bars were all having halloween celebrations and we did see a few people dressed up! some mermaids and pirates. nothing too crazy!

this place was absolutely beautiful.

HALLOWEEN

well, we had our halloween celebration at the american school. it was really a fun day! all of the kids were dressed up in their expensive costumes & we had TONS of candy. we had a parade for the kids in each grade level to walk and then a time for teachers & parents to walk. it lasted for about an hour - and it was fun to see all of the different costumes that were in the other grade levels! after the parade, my class went "trick-or-treating" to the other 2nd grade classrooms and then we had a pizza party in our classroom. needless to say, the kids were HYPED up on candy and drinks and pizza. all we did was play board games and halloween activities all afternoon.

here are some pictures of our halloween celebration day:

"miss megan! get a picture with the pirates!"

one of my classes & their lovely costumes.

miss brittan, me & miss colleen at the halloween parade.

football playa - nerd - barbie

wow, creepster in the back....

"miss megan we need un foto"

<---AMOEBAS--->

i'm not sure when it happened, but my stomach got invaded by amoebas. i'm still suffering, somewhat. imagine the worst stomach ache you've ever had and multiply that by 50 and that's about what it feels like. i don't even know what these suckers are doing inside my tummy but it huuuuurts. a staff member at my school gave me some homeopathic medicine to help with the amoebas but i'm thinking i will have to ask her for some more meds. these suckers are bad. i'm thinking NOW would be a good time for them to leave my tummy and find somewhere else to invade.

*please pray that these little creatures find somewhere else to go

and that my stomach heals.

last but not least i wanted to mention parent meetings. we've been having a lot more of these lately because parents know that it's getting closer to report card time. basically, the meetings all go the same. parents are concerned about their child's grades and basically they just want to hear us say that they are doing okay. (at our school, parents can request 'citas' or teachers can also request one with a parent. but pretty much, we have a slot of time open every wednesday that is open to parents conferences - if any parents request one). but today, we had an interesting parent cita. the mom was genuinely concerned about her child's attention span in class and at home and the fact that he seems very unmotivated to do anything to do with school (study, read, parties, field trips...it all bored him) but it was my first experience with a crying mother. i didn't know what to do. we just comforted her and told her that we would figure out the problem and see what it is that her son is lacking in motivation. maybe there are children in his class that are being bully-ish to him? maybe he doesn't understand and feels stupid? maybe he's bored? it's interesting - and i'm eager to find the source of his apathy towards school. this was definately something to add to the list of things teachers deal with - crying parents.

ok, that's about it!

i love you all! :)

-meggie