Still Alive and Kicking!

I know, I know, it's been about a million years since my last post (a little sorry about that actually, I just discovered that a post I had written a while back hadn't actually gotten posted...whoops, but that's about normal when it comes to me and computers.) In addition to that, not long after Christmas, my laptop got sick, threw a fit for a few weeks, then went into a coma, taking all my documents and pictures with it. Occasionally I like to turn it on just to dash my hopes of it getting beyond the "temporary" glowing blank screen.  It never does. Sadness.

Anyway...a broken computer has yet to stop me, or a malfunctioning replacement tablet (again, what IS IT with me and computers????).  I finally used my brain and realized that I could sign in on another computer and make a post. Hurrah!  I am rambling...

So, since the last post life has continued. My students are still just as loud as ever (basically given up on that front), but they have grown up so much! I love thinking back over the year and comparing where they were at the beginning of the year to now. If only because it's really cool to realize that they came in not reading at all, and now most of them are already reading on a basic first grade level (if only it weren't for those darn sight words, but they are an extra challenge for ESL kids). They love reading and writing, and they're enthusiasm is exciting to mold and challenge!

Basically, they are more than making up for the stress of being a first year teacher, and making being a second year teacher a great deal of fun, even if it is still often stressful.  I can't wait to be a third year teacher!

Christmas in England:

I haven't put many pictures from Christmas up on facebook (due to the aformentioned dead laptop), but I will put what pictures I had already uploaded on just to give you a taste of what an "English Christmas" is like when you go with a real, live English person who also happens to be an awesome friend. Basically, it's a really great experience.

The food:  

-English people eat a lot of the same foods Americans eat, which I know, is quite a shock, but they also have some traditionally "Englishy" foods which are fun to try, mostly because they aren't super weird and it doesn't involve eating bugs. 

Baked beans:

The British love their baked beans.  They aren't quite the same as American baked beans, and more importantly, they are eaten a lot more.  Breakfast, lunch, dinner, any time is time for baked beans! ...and peas.  If you want to move to England, learn to like baked beans and peas.  :)

Baked beans on toast

Christmas dinner:

In a word: Yummy!

I had parsnips, pigs in a blanket (wrapped in bacon, not bread), carrots, and Yorkshire pudding (the white bread looking thing (pudding doesn't mean the same thing in England as in America). Also, Christmas pudding (kind of like dark fruit cake with all raisins, drizzled in brandy, and set on fire). 

And to top it all off, you get to pull a Christmas cracker! Which was very fun, and had a toy and paper crown it it, and generally made me feel like I was in a book.  :)

Then we watched the Christmas broadcast from the Queen.  

It was much more fun than watching the State of the Union address from the president. 

Also, a lot shorter.

Fun things to do in England at Christmas:

1. Go see a pantomime!

Which isn't actually pantomimed.  Actually it's a really fun play where the cast interacts with the audience and generally does a lot of singing and telling jokes. And you are supposed to eat ice cream during the intermission.  Even though it's about ten degrees outside.  Don't ask me why. 

2. Walk down the longest pedestrian pier in the world at South End.   

If you manage not to get blown off, and you've thawed out at the end in the cafe with hot chocolate, ride the train back.

3. Go watch a bell-ringer's practice! 

Oh, wait, you don't have a super-cool best friend who also happens to be a bell-ringer and has a bell-ringer for a dad?  Sigh...too bad.

Well, if you did, it would be a really unique experience!  Jacqui's dad took us to a practice in a church that was basically older than America. He showed me where the bells hang and how they worked (you can't be in the actual room with them while they ring or you'd go deaf), and then part of the way through the practice the leader let me help ring a bell! (probably one of the coolest parts of the whole trip). Jacqui actually knows how to ring bells when they are doing "rounds" (where each bell is rung in a circle by size, then they change order for a while until they are back into the original order).

4. See some rain! It is England after all!

It rained so much the days before Christmas that the park flooded. But Christmas day was gorgeous! And cold. Really cold.  The way Christmas ought to be.

5. See some old buildings. 

As in, really really "older than the pilgrims" old. England is full of them, so it really isn't hard.  Jacqui and I went walking through the countryside to a little town where we had a "cream tea" in a proper little tea room (Pride and Prejudice, anyone?) and she showed me some of the really old houses, and how to tell if they were actually old or not.  Apparently, if the house looks like the drawing of a five year old, it's probably the real deal. This is caused by the old timbers of the house warping over the years. Also, if it has random window shaped areas of plaster, that's because there was a law that taxed houses by the window, so people solve the problem by getting rid of the windows!

5. See a castle.  

Even better, catch a train to Wales and see a castle! 

These are pictures of the castle in Cardiff that my dad and I visited. You walk down a street in the town thinking "la-dee-da, I wonder how far it is to the castle?"  Then it basically appears in the middle of downtown.  It was a little hard to wrap my mind around.  The castle was owned as a vacation home by a very rich man for a long while, so inside the castle is spectacularly decorated with gold leaf and murals and fancy furniture...very impressive.

6. Go to London! 

There are so many places to go and see! A lot of the big museums are free (like the National Gallery where you get to see paintings by Monet and Van Gogh and all the other painters you learned about in school, and the museum whose name I can't remember where you get to see the Rosetta Stone!)

Definitely ride the busses in London.  The tube is fun, but the busses are cheaper and allow for so much more sightseeing!  

London is full of surprises, like this handy dandy pidgeon toilet!

Not to mention Platform 9 and 3/4 in King's Cross Station where you can get a fun picture! (which is actually in a wall, being as J.K. Rowling was thinking of the wrong train station when she wrote about it, but it's still cool).

Which leads me to...

7. The Harry Potter Studios! Definitely worth the trip! Especially if you are the kind of person who actually watches those "making of" videos on DVD's for fun, not because you are just too lazy to get off the couch. Ahem....

You get to visit the actual studios and see the actual props and stages used when they made the movies. You also get to see the costumes, prothesises, and animitronics that they used, like Buckbeak and Hagrid's head!

The Great Hall

The Chessmen

A wizard's duel!

                   

             

Yeah, we're nerds...get over it!

So basically, Paraguay is great and I had a great Christmas. School gets out mid-June for winter break and then the new school year starts the last week of July. I am planning on coming back to the States at Christmas, and I can't wait to see everybody! I am immensely grateful for facebook, and I really appreciate everybody who has sent me messages, it keeps me feeling not quite so far away. And you know, if anybody has the urge to visit South America, Paraguay is a good place to visit! ;)