My dear students...

At some point this week, as my table was piled high and I was grading an endless number of tests while sipping a black tea in my favorite air conditioned cafe, I realized something; I like Ricky Martin much more than I should admit. I couldn`t focus on the tests, nor the essays, nor the fact that I am coming home next week; all I could think of as I listened against my will to the latest Ricky Martin song was his excellent dancing high energy concerts, and I felt myself wanting to get up and shout for joy. Ok, I admitted it, don`t judge me!

However, finally I finished all the troublesome grading, I delivered the results to my students and now all that is left is the graduation party and one more test for my saturday class. There is a graduation party at a chinese restaurant where we will eat pollo a la cantonesa (it sounds very fancy in spanish, no?), dress up, take too many forced-smile pictures that will be published in the newspaper, and just generally have a good time. ALL of my students will be there, I`m talking like 40 people, and as I am the teacher, I imagine it will be an exciting night for me.

What I love about my students, and I think mexicans in general, if you don`t mind me generalizing, is that people are not in too much of a hurry to just sit around and chat. My students usually stay after class on regular days for an hour and sit on a bench and just chat, and no one mentions that they are possibly `wasting` time. I think that`s the difference for me, is I can sit around and chat too, but a part of me feels guilty about it. Also, people do not seem to have any trouble striking up a conversation, and I have still not met anyone in this country who has a serious problem with being shy. Not to say they don`t exist, just that I haven`t met a really shy mexican. Really! It`s a phenomenon, really.

So, I`m sitting here a bit sad at my computer because classes are over, another chapter of my life closed, Edwin called to say he is not coming home till Saturday, and my friend Lidia called to tell me she can no longer go out tonight to a disco. Yes, a disco, and I was pretty psyched about going.

My students are such angels, the ones who I went to the zoo with. Marilda, one student, gave me a really cool necklace. As a whole class they gave me a picture signed with their names and little messages, and Bree`s pen pal, Luis, my favorite student ever, my first student ever, and the one in the zoo picture, told me `Dear Teacher, You are the best teacher I have ever had. I love you so much. I will keep you in my heart.` The whole class lined up and gave me hugs. :) sigh...

Awww....I will miss them.

However, I`m coming to the EEUU (united states) in 6 days!

This week I made hummus for edwin`s family and bought pita bread at wal-mart; his mom is really into it, and I`m making falafel tomorrow.

In other news, I found a place to volunteer, but I`m not sure how it will be. I went to visit today, and the people are a bit....hmmm...strange...its difficult to explain, and I don`t put trust in first impressions. Like there is an american girl there who would only talk to me in spanish, and she told me she forgot english living in tuxtla for four years (although she lived her whole life speaking english)...I thought that was a bit weird. But they are kind people and have all sorts of cool things like murals and these really incredible paper mache puppets. Anyway, its called vientos culturales, and if you can read the spanish, here is the website.

http://www.vientosculturales.org/nav.html

I`m going to be doing translation work to communicate with the Europeans that fund the organization, because I can`t work in the art workshops since they only occur in the afternoons, just like my classes. More to come later...