No Thanks! No Time!

(The title is for you, Cales!)

The past two months have been busy, busy, busy and have flown by! The week after starting school again after Christmas break my Master's classes began. Framingham State College has some sort of international program, I am not sure if it is only for masters of teaching or if they offer other fields of study, but it is a pretty cool program. The professors that have come have taught courses all over the world. It is kinda nice too to have people from Massachusetts come, some of them have accents and it is enjoyable to listen to.

So I started one class last summer, classes were offered in Jan and Feb and then two again in June once classes got out. I didnt do the classes in Jan and Feb last year because I was too stressed out with the day to day pressures of school in general. Now I wish I had at least taken one course. The program takes two years (9 courses). So I will finish next summer. And since I decided to stay another year, I though I should take advantage of this opportunity. Well actually it was one of the reasons I decided to stay another year too. The master's is technically in International Education, which I am not sure will hold up in public schools in the States, but it will at least look good, maybe help with private schools in the States and definitely be great if I come back to teach in Managua again, or anywhere else. The school that hosted the Teacher's Conference I went to in the Dominican Republic in October was really, really nice. Maybe I will become an International teacher and just teach my way around all the places I want to visit in the world!

The first course was Technology in the Classroom, which was an awesome class and I learned lots of new ways to integrate technology in the classroom and learned how to make little movies, which was the best part of the class. There was also a nice atmosphere and classmates were supportive and class was fun and went by quickly. Classes are held from 4-7 M-F and 8-5 Saturdays for two weeks. During the first week of class I was on a cleanse diet. I had seen a lot about them on talk shows around New Years time, saying that people should do them at least once a year and they sounded pretty great. Plus, just the week before I suffered through 2 days of food poisoning from some tacos I bought on the street. Not fun! So I thought it would be a good time to clean out my system and what a perfect place to do it where there is endless fresh fruit and veggies for cheap! But, this diet requires a lot of prep. When you eat only raw fruits and vegetables, you are basically eating constantly, and so each night I was up late chopping and preparing tupperwares full of papaya, pineapple, melon, carrots, celery, etc. The diet was nice, I didnt notice some of the promised effects like brighter, whiter eyes, or luminous skin. But I did feel good every day.

After that class ended we had a one week break to catch our breath and then the next class started with the same schedule. The next class was Special Ed in the Regular Ed classroom. The class was interesting, and I learned a lot, but the class over all just had a really bad feeling to it. We started off class with a debate over inclusion of a downs syndrome student in a regular classroom. It was a great way to learn about the pros and cons of this issue, that is a hot topic, but some people seemed to take the debate personally and had strong feelings about it and there just seemed to be this lingering animosity for the remaining two weeks. The professor wasnt very dynamic and the class seemed to drag on each night.

Also during this time Ivan and I started Salsa Casino classes, which we have been wanting to take since I moved here. Ivan of course has a natural feel for dancing salsa, and I had lessons a few years earlier in Leon, but I dance rigidly, 1, 2, 3, forward, backward, side, side. So our salsa styles werent quite compatible, but it is something we both enjoy doing, so we thought taking a class together would be great! Classes are Tues and Thurs from 730 to 9. So after my masters classes ended at 7, I would go meet Ivan and usually have to change in the car so we could be on time for classes. After class, we would eat a late dinner and I would have to stay up late doing homework or writing a paper.

On top of all of this I found out that I need to apply for the Master Program, duh, seems pretty obvious, but, big surprise, the school never told me and I had asked them about it and they said I just need to take the classes. Well that isnt the case, as I found out from some others in the class. I was supposed to matriculate before taking my third course, but this was impossible as the application needs to be mailed to the school, it cannot be sent digitally. I got an extension until the end of Feb, and luckily Ivan's Uncle was visiting from Miami and so after I ran around and got all the letters of rec I needed and wrote an essay, etc, etc, I sent the package home with Ivan's Uncle, who will mail it along for me.

So now classes are over (YAY!), Ivan and I still have salsa classes, which are nice to be able to go to with more energy. I am playing a bit of correcting catch up and enjoying those extra hours I have each day.