Here are my latest pictures from the DR. The first two links are from my family's visit for two weeks over Christmas. The third link is to pictures from the past few months at school. Hope you enjoy them. If this makes anyone else want to come visit me, let me know! Haha! Hope all is well back home. Miss you all!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2009343&l=d0956&id=88400178
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2009344&l=0a778&id=88400178
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2009263&l=4c5d6&id=88400178
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Will you PLEASE put down your hair so I can teach!
Interesting Quotes from the first two weeks back:
“Miss Scislow! You look... very clean!”
“Miss Scislow, you look like you are about 22 or maybe 23.” “Why do you think that?” “Because you look like a girl!”
“Miss Scislow, you look good. Your clothes always match!”
“Miss Scislow, can I call you Kaitlyn?”
Wendy (a fellow teacher): "Kristen, you know what Camilo (one of the ninth grade boys) asked me? He said 'Who do you think is prettier, my girlfriend or Miss Scislow? Because I'm thinking about breaking up with my girlfriend!'"
It’s been an interesting week and a half getting back in the swing of school. My schedule switched around a little. I have ninth grade for two classes now: math and chemistry. It’s really a challenge to have eight classes a week with them because they’ve been pretty bad since coming back from break. Hopefully they get back into the swing of school quick! I still have tenth grade for geometry. Then, in eleventh grade I’m teaching algebra 2 still and chemistry. And since I picked up a class with ninth grade, I dropped one in twelfth grade, so I only have them for pre-calculus. I’m also teaching an SAT prep class for about half the eleventh and twelfth graders during elective time (so it’s one 2 hour block a week). If you have any suggestions at all as to how to do that, I’m all ears!
It’s kind of nice to start getting back into a routine again, but at the same time, it’s hard to have to work all the time again! It’s a lot of correcting to deal with now that I have four math classes! At least with the older kids (aka: NOT ninth grade!), I can correct in class with them. In ninth grade it just kind of turns into a free for all, and they really can’t handle it. So, I’ve got to re-figure out how to balance all my time so I get planning and correcting done at school instead of having to bring it home, but hopefully getting back into the swing of things won’t be too bad!
I think I’ve started a Twilight craze at St. David School. The high schoolers are all borrowing my Twilight books. Haha! And then they all want to go see the movie. I got invited to go to it with Oasting and Yang-Gi this weekend. They’ve already seen it and thought it was probably one of their favorite movies. Oasting told me he wanted to be a vampire. Haha! Anyways, I just think it’s funny that my boys seem as much into it at the girls! That’s all for now! Hope everything is well back at home!
“Miss Scislow! You look... very clean!”
“Miss Scislow, you look like you are about 22 or maybe 23.” “Why do you think that?” “Because you look like a girl!”
“Miss Scislow, you look good. Your clothes always match!”
“Miss Scislow, can I call you Kaitlyn?”
Wendy (a fellow teacher): "Kristen, you know what Camilo (one of the ninth grade boys) asked me? He said 'Who do you think is prettier, my girlfriend or Miss Scislow? Because I'm thinking about breaking up with my girlfriend!'"
It’s been an interesting week and a half getting back in the swing of school. My schedule switched around a little. I have ninth grade for two classes now: math and chemistry. It’s really a challenge to have eight classes a week with them because they’ve been pretty bad since coming back from break. Hopefully they get back into the swing of school quick! I still have tenth grade for geometry. Then, in eleventh grade I’m teaching algebra 2 still and chemistry. And since I picked up a class with ninth grade, I dropped one in twelfth grade, so I only have them for pre-calculus. I’m also teaching an SAT prep class for about half the eleventh and twelfth graders during elective time (so it’s one 2 hour block a week). If you have any suggestions at all as to how to do that, I’m all ears!
It’s kind of nice to start getting back into a routine again, but at the same time, it’s hard to have to work all the time again! It’s a lot of correcting to deal with now that I have four math classes! At least with the older kids (aka: NOT ninth grade!), I can correct in class with them. In ninth grade it just kind of turns into a free for all, and they really can’t handle it. So, I’ve got to re-figure out how to balance all my time so I get planning and correcting done at school instead of having to bring it home, but hopefully getting back into the swing of things won’t be too bad!
I think I’ve started a Twilight craze at St. David School. The high schoolers are all borrowing my Twilight books. Haha! And then they all want to go see the movie. I got invited to go to it with Oasting and Yang-Gi this weekend. They’ve already seen it and thought it was probably one of their favorite movies. Oasting told me he wanted to be a vampire. Haha! Anyways, I just think it’s funny that my boys seem as much into it at the girls! That’s all for now! Hope everything is well back at home!
Sunday, January 11, 2009
"Is that a prison?" "No, Dad, that's a school." =)
I hope everyone had a blessed Christmas and New Year’s. I know I had a great time. My family flew in on December 23rd, and Wendy (one of my teacher friends) and her husband Milvio brought me to the airport to meet them. That night, we went out to a great little Dominican restaurant that one of my kids recommended, so my family got to try locrio con guandules (rice cooked with meat and spices, one of my favorite things here!), chicken, beef, tostones (which are fried plantains, a relative of the banana, and which the closest taste comparison is French fries), and yucca (which was baked and served with butter and tasted sort of like a mashed potato). We were all stuffed by the end of the dinner, and I think they were a little shocked by the bill! It was 600 pesos which is the equivalent of about $18 American. For six people to eat out, that’s pretty impressive! And the food was all delicious!
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we just spent hanging out. For lunch of Christmas Eve, I tried my hand at Dominican cooking and made mangu, which is mashed plantains served with fried Dominican salami and fried onions. We had a turkey with mashed potatoes and gravy for dinner, opened presents, read the Christmas story in English and Spanish, and sang Christmas carols. On Christmas Day, we went to Phil and Kathy’s house. (They are the American missionaries.) We had a Christmas Bible study, sang carols, and had dinner with them. It was a very nice Christmas.
On Friday, I took my family in to see my school. Then we went to a museum called Centro Leon which is a Dominican anthropology and art museum. We got a guided tour in English which was nice for them, but my Spanish did help out a lot when the guide didn’t know how to translate things! That afternoon we went to the Monument, a big, huge monument really that was built by Trujillo, the dictator of the Dominican in about the 1950s and renamed after his assassination to honor the heroes that restored liberty to the Dominican. We also went shopping on Calle del Sol, which is a very crazy street full of little stores and vendors.
On Saturday, following another recommendation by my students, we went to a place called Veintisiete Charcos, which loosely translates to Twenty-seven Waterfalls. With guides, we hiked across a river, and up to the first 12 waterfalls. Sometimes, we had to swim across the river and then climb up the waterfall as it rushed down. Then, to come back down, we got to slide down some waterfalls, jump over others, and jump over some about 25 foot cliffs into the river. It was sooooo much fun! Our guides were really funny, and since we had a big enough group, it was just them and our family. It was an excellent day!
The next day, Sunday, we headed to Playa Cofresi for a week. We rented a house on the beach that came with maids who did all the cooking (delicious Dominican food!) and cleaning. It was so relaxing! We spent most of the days lounging around by our private pool, strolling down the beach or just relaxing and reading in the sand, and swimming in the water. The ocean here is pretty warm pretty much all the time. We had great weather the entire time! On New Years’ Eve, we went snorkeling, which was pretty cool and welcomed the new year watching fireworks over the ocean from the beach.
Coming back from the beach the next Sunday, our driver stopped at a tobacco plantation and we got to see some cigar rolling. That night, we ordered pizza and relaxed and everyone packed since they left the next day.
Tobacco Drying
Rolling Cigars
Family picture in the mountains in front of a tobacco plantation
It was hard to say goodbye to everyone after the amazing two weeks we had. I hope my family had as good of a time as I did here! Hope everyone had a great Christmas as well, and I wish you all a blessed new year!
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we just spent hanging out. For lunch of Christmas Eve, I tried my hand at Dominican cooking and made mangu, which is mashed plantains served with fried Dominican salami and fried onions. We had a turkey with mashed potatoes and gravy for dinner, opened presents, read the Christmas story in English and Spanish, and sang Christmas carols. On Christmas Day, we went to Phil and Kathy’s house. (They are the American missionaries.) We had a Christmas Bible study, sang carols, and had dinner with them. It was a very nice Christmas.
On Friday, I took my family in to see my school. Then we went to a museum called Centro Leon which is a Dominican anthropology and art museum. We got a guided tour in English which was nice for them, but my Spanish did help out a lot when the guide didn’t know how to translate things! That afternoon we went to the Monument, a big, huge monument really that was built by Trujillo, the dictator of the Dominican in about the 1950s and renamed after his assassination to honor the heroes that restored liberty to the Dominican. We also went shopping on Calle del Sol, which is a very crazy street full of little stores and vendors.
On Saturday, following another recommendation by my students, we went to a place called Veintisiete Charcos, which loosely translates to Twenty-seven Waterfalls. With guides, we hiked across a river, and up to the first 12 waterfalls. Sometimes, we had to swim across the river and then climb up the waterfall as it rushed down. Then, to come back down, we got to slide down some waterfalls, jump over others, and jump over some about 25 foot cliffs into the river. It was sooooo much fun! Our guides were really funny, and since we had a big enough group, it was just them and our family. It was an excellent day!
The next day, Sunday, we headed to Playa Cofresi for a week. We rented a house on the beach that came with maids who did all the cooking (delicious Dominican food!) and cleaning. It was so relaxing! We spent most of the days lounging around by our private pool, strolling down the beach or just relaxing and reading in the sand, and swimming in the water. The ocean here is pretty warm pretty much all the time. We had great weather the entire time! On New Years’ Eve, we went snorkeling, which was pretty cool and welcomed the new year watching fireworks over the ocean from the beach.
Coming back from the beach the next Sunday, our driver stopped at a tobacco plantation and we got to see some cigar rolling. That night, we ordered pizza and relaxed and everyone packed since they left the next day.
Tobacco Drying
Rolling Cigars
Family picture in the mountains in front of a tobacco plantation
It was hard to say goodbye to everyone after the amazing two weeks we had. I hope my family had as good of a time as I did here! Hope everyone had a great Christmas as well, and I wish you all a blessed new year!
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