6 Days Away from Warmth

First of all let me recap what's happened in my life since I last wrote on my blog - 2 3weeks ago...[this is a reposting of my earlier entry due to formatting errors that certain readers thought needed to be addressed]. So I'm sorry if you've already read this once.

During the week of the 14-20th there were many things happening: including a staff coffee house, a Christmas program and a staff luncheon. Things were mighty busy between teaching, making cookies, helping organize 23 kids to sing at the Christmas program and least of all packing to come back to the states!

Photos of the week (December 14-20th)
My class outside of our door...we won the most original/educational door award. For the whole month of December we studied Christmas traditions around the world. Everyday I place that country's flag on our globe along with the traditional greeting of "Merry Christmas" in that country's native language. In all we covered 20 countries ranging from the D.R. to Japan to Russia.

Other door winners were 1st, 3rd, and 5th. Although every class received an award courtesy of Miss Staats and 9th grade.

Here are my 3rd graders along with Miss Hahn's 3rd graders singing at the Christmas program. The 3rd grade sang a version of the "Twelve Days of Christmas". Despite the rain and not having a piano at the last minute they did a great job of following Miss Hahn's direction.

And the last picture of the week is just a friendly reminder of where I live [note: if you do not like rodents please scroll down and skip this picture :)]{Behind the rock there is a rat...}

Enough about that week, on Saturday the 20th I headed home to what felt like the frigid arctic North Pole, but sure enough it was just Chicago. My journey began in Santiago and then took me to Puerto Rico via a small plane {see image below}. After landing in Puerto Rico I was instantly overwhelmed by all the English! I have been so used to hearing Spanish for so long that hearing and understanding everything was super overwhelming. Which thanks to veteran teachers at JCS I was already expecting. After a brief stint at the San Juan airport it was time to time to board the plane that would deliver me to the brutal cold that awaited me. At that time Chicago was experiencing subzero temperatures....brrr. So I went from a beautiful sunny morning morning with a temperature of about 75 to -5 in 7 hours. Not so much fun. Also upon landing at O'Hare I was again struck with an overwhelming of English. I think I was in tears from my gate all the way to baggage. But I made it home safely. :)

The following days were spent bundled up in layers and layers of clothing while my body readjusted to the cold weather it was experiencing. Thankfully of Friday it rained and melted away all the snow! :) I was happy to have 50 degree weather even if if was accompanied by rain.

Back to Christmas; I truly had a WHITE Christmas(before Friday we had about 10 inches of snow on the ground...even more than MN!) Christmas was a nice laid back day which included a new backpack which I wore around my house (yes, I know that's silly...but I was super excited)!

Friday involved me spending way too much money on my children and my room at school; however, I'm excited to bring back reading rugs for my children. Now they won't have to sit on our cold concrete floor anymore. Thank you IKEA for having affordable floor coverings!

While home I was also able to see old friends while I was home which is always great! I am blessed to have amazing friends here that can pick up friendship after being apart for 4 months. :)

Being away from home for so long has made me realize what I miss while I'm there and how privileged students are here. People at church and my parents had lots of questions about what I missed and what I wish I had there. Here are just a few things of each:
Things I miss:

• nice soft toliet paper (enough said)
• good quality chocolate - there's nothing quite like a Reese's or Butterfinger when you need a chocolate fix
• water pressure - we get our water through a tinaco tub/barrel on top of our landlord's roof so the water we receive is whatever can fit through our pipes at the speed of gravity
• having a microwave - we reheat everything on the stove and somethings just don't reheat well that way
• having a car to get from point A to point B - to go to town you normally have to clear your schedule and plan on doing just that and not much else
• insulation and American windows - having a concrete house without windows that shut 100% makes life very noisy - we can hear everything in our house and the goings of our neighbors as well
• a functional copier: our school doesn't have a reliable photo copier or printer so resources for my kids are sometimes nonexistent
• quality books for my classroom library which currently holds books with copyrights from the 1960s!!!
• borders and lettering for my bulletin boards

Things I like about the DR:

• I love the warm weather :)
• watching the sunrise over the mountains from our roof
• having my own classroom where I'm not trying to prove to anyone but myself that I can teach
• the students at JCS
  
• my co-workers
• my housemates
• my morning play sessions with Nola
• the small joy of communicating with the 1st and 2nd graders in my broken broken Spanish
• learning new Spanish
• getting mail twice a month
  
• watching God provide whatever I have needed thus far...despite my wanting much more as a selfish human

I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who has prayed and/or given financially. Both types of "gifts" are appreciated. Initially I had a goal of raising $6000 to supplement the stipend I am being given from JCS. Today about $2500 has come in. Would you join me in praying for the additional monies to come in for my monthly support as well as my classroom needs? Currently I am supplying 97% of my classroom needs -- books, rugs, prizes, resource materials, etc. If you feel led to give please see the right side bar for details.

My plans for my next 5 days at home take me to Wheaton [New Year's Eve with some dear TU El. Ed. friends], Fort Wayne [New Year's Day and part of Friday with my dear 1L friends], perhaps a visit to Taylor with Natalie, and the home and maybe even a drive to Harvard to meet up a fellow JCS teacher. And then on Sunday the 4th driving back to O'Hare and boarding a plane that will retrace my whole trip back to the warmth and sun of the DR.

Kinder Bueno

To my surprise yesterday turned out to be quite the interesting day. It started out normal with every intention of being super productive: laundry, pay the phone bill, grade my math tests, grade other papers etc... the list stopped at paying the phone bill. I spent my morning in town with Kelsey talking and spending some time with her running errands for last minutes Christmas gifts etc... I now have all my gifts bought I will just need to wrap them when I come home.

Then when I returned home I had 4 missed calls on my cell phone and a phone that kept ringing. So no less than 5 minutes after I walked in the door I walked back out the door to head to Santiago. I don't know if I've every done anything quite so spontaneous since ever...since I didn't haven't ask my parents if I could go. I just left. If you know me you also know that I'm not really one for just leaving and going places without any agenda. So off I went with Natalie, Karyn, and Christy down the mountian (Christy did an EXCELLENT job driving).

Our adventure began at McDonalds...yes, McD's. My first American fast food in 4 months. I greatly enjoyed my chicken nuggets w/ BBQ sauce. Then it was off to La Serena for some over stimulization of consumerisum to help us get ready for the US in 6 days. While there I managed to buy a mug for myself since our house has 1 good mug and 2 travel mugs. I also purchased UNO for my kiddos (our class copy got stolen)...they should be very happy on Monday. I also purchased the most wonderful candy bar of all the Kinder Bueno...the Italians know how to make a "melt in your mouth hazelnut/chocolate delicous goodness candy bar".

After La Serena there was a Nutella filled churro experience, que bueno [again with the hazelnut and chocolate]. Then we quested to Jumbo/the Mall. Jumbo = Wal-mart sort of; I will need to go back at some other point because we didn't not have a super long time. The ulitmate reason of going to the mall was the movie theater. We went to watch the new James Bond film...we were 4 of 12 in the whole theater it was awesome.

And then finally we went and enjoyed wonderful sushi at this adorable sushi restuarant hidden on a side street. It was amazing...I get to have the left overs for lunch today.

And back we came. Right now that pile of grade is taunting me with being incomplete so I must retire and finish the pile.

6 days and 12 hours!

happy moments in a day

as usual cloudy gray moments pop up during a routine day at school; today was no exception, but there are the moments that make you incredibly happy to be a teacher.

1) reading: we do reading at JCS in small groups for grades (1-3) using leveled readers. I teach level B as of this week. I used to teach aa the 3rd lowest ability group and loved my kids. most of my kids were first and second graders with poor reading background so while they worked hard they still were struggling. i formed some good relationships with those students and miss them so much.

i did have two 3rd graders in that group as well; since they are older they advanced to level B with me (actually i chose level B because I wanted to stay with them). Joshua and Cristofer have made great progress and I wanted to continue supporting them and building their self-esteem. I am thankful to have them in my group yet again.

A) anyways, the point of this whole story is today at break I went to go say hi to my favorite little girl from my first reading group Lisleydi. Lisleydi is one of the happiest and joyfilled kids I've ever worked with; she always brings a smile to my face. and whenever you ask her how she is the answer is always "happy". today was no exception. I asked her how she liked her new teacher for reading and she said ok. then she said can i tell you something in spanish? [normally if they have something very important to say they want to say it in their own language...] so i said "i'll do my best to understand." Mrs. Williams es agradable, pero quiero estar en su clase otra vez Miss Jantzen. ¿Por favor? {Mrs. Williams is nice, but I want to be in your class again Miss Jantzen. Please?} I just about started crying...I was like hooray I'm actually making an impact on somebody's life while they may not even be in my class, somebody appreciates my teaching.

B)I also love hearing from other teachers that their kids come back to class happy after reading. Sometimes I feel like my reading lessons are a flop, but evidentally my activities are fun. I feel that they are occasionally tedious/repetitive, but then again learning to read is just that. I love it when kids rush up at lunch and say "I'm excited for reading tomorrow, are you going to read the Pigeon book to us?" "Can you read to us now?" I love that they are eager to learn.


2)walking to town
I love walking into town. I love seeing students outside of school and watching them process seeing their teachers outside of school. What they don't live at school? I remember that whole transtion of factual understanding in first and second grade.

I love running into people from the school and stopping to say hi and chat.

I secretly love carrying bags of groceries by myself in front of all the moto drivers and not taking a moto. It's fun to see how people react to a white girl carrying groceries up a hill and not really caring.

3) I love that it's December 4th and I'm wearing shorts and t-shirt.

3.5) I love that I have a half day tomorrow!!!!

4) I love that in 16 days at 7:30pm I'll be landing at O'Hare.

5) I love that in 27 days I'll be in Wheaton with El. Ed. friends

6) I love that in 28 days I'll be in Fort Wayne with my amazing 1L friends.

and in 31 days I'll be right back here in Jarabacoa...a lot of stuff can be crammed in a glorious 1 month span.

God is good and gracious and has provided me with enough grace and patience to survive the first 4 months of life abroad.