Weekend

I love technology. It makes life so so much easier. Going without it makes you really appreciate how much easier life is with it.

Our washing machine is currently broken. As you may remember, our machine is separated into two compartments, neither one has a rinse cycle. The wash cycle is currently working, but the spin (dry) is not. Therefore, after washing all my clothes in the first compartment, I not only had to rinse each item by hand, but wring as much water out of it as well before hanging it on the line to dry. I'm tired. And I am looking forward to having an automatic, functioning washer and dryer again some day.

In other news, the Bank of America classes are starting on Tuesday. I will be teaching Wednesdays and Thursdays 12-3. I am currently feeling incredibly intimidated by this whole thing. I have only a vague idea of what I'm supposed to be teaching. As of right now I'm feeling like I'm in over my head. I'm sure it will be fine, it's just going to be an intense 6 weeks.

Thursday morning I taught, and then we went to Bank of America in the afternoon to meet with the managers there to talk to them and find out what they are expecting of us. Essentially they have "hired" a group of people to come work their call centers there, but their English isn't where it needs to be. Sooooo we are going to teach them for 27 hours a week for the next 6 weeks to get them from a B1 to a B2 level (the levels are according to the Common European Framework). I have only taught A1s and A2s, so this should be interesting.

Friday I went into work to help put together the books for the BoA class. I had originally intended to be there from 9am to maybe 2pm at the latest. I ended up staying until after 5. We weren't even done. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done for the class before it starts. Hopefully we can pull it together.
After work on Friday Sara, Kerensa and I went to this great little hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant in downtown Heredia. I'm pretty sure it's just a restaurant in someone's backyard. Regardless, it's owned/operated by a couple Italians, so it's delicious. And reasonably priced.
After dinner Kerensa and I came back to my apartment to watch a couple episodes of Flight of the Conchords (thank you cousins Molly and Jim) and drink a little Flor de Cana before going to bed before Saturday morning class.

Saturday after class I went to the gym and ran into Luis who works the front desk at the San Jose campus for the night classes. He's pretty great. It looks like I may have another friend to work out with sometimes at the gym.
After a good run/workout I went to the furniture store that's in front of my bus stop to find out what their schedule was on Sunday. Because they are closed on Sundays, I ended up buying a bed right then. The mattress I bought was on sale and since I paid in cash they delivered to my apartment (and therefore gave me a ride home) for free. It was definitely a good deal. Not to mention they were super nice and helpful and weren't trying to rip me off being Gringa and all.

Somehow I managed to resist the urge to take a nap in my brand new bed and met up with Kerensa to head downtown San Jose to see Sonambulo instead. Sonambulo is a local CR jam band, with members from all over the place. Kerensa tells me their lead singer is Cuban, I think. Regardless, there was a art/culture/music festival going on all week in SJO, and Sonambulo was part of their Saturday night line up in Parque Nacional. This may have been the best people watching experience that I have had since coming to CR. The crowd was full of Costa Rican hippies. Meaning, the dancing was half hippie, half Latino salsa/bachata/etc., depending on what the band was playing. Hilarious. It was like UVM in Costa Rica. Loved it.

Kerensa, her new boyfriend Martin and I headed back to Heredia when the concert wound down. The guy who sat down next to me on the bus wore a Sox hat. Made my heart happy. It was nice to see an MLB hat that not only wasn't the Yankees, but a Chicago team as well. By the time I got home, I was exhausted, and super excited to sleep in my new big comfy bed.

Dad comes to visit on Wednesday! It's kind of a big deal. I'm real excited.

Just in case you were wondering, I did teach my students what a "gold digger" is yesterday. We also had to discuss why you shouldn't call someone "easy," but "easy-going." Ahhh the finer points of the English language.