Goodbye for now, Mexico

School is finally over for 2008. Jenna and I will fly out tomorrow afternoon to MN, hopefully no bad weather interferences.... It still doesn't seem like I will be going home, nor that it has been 4 months! I don't know where the time went! I am excited that I get to see family and friends, traveling around would have also been fun, but a completely different fun. And after Thanksgiving when I Skype chatted with the whole fam, I am ready to see them all. Also hoping I get to see Sammy's new baby!!
My Christmas program is over now as well..... I was reminded I have to take it in stride that any 5 year old program would be mildly chaotic and not completely polished. My procrastinator habits maybe didn't help the fact but I think they did pretty well! I tried to talk as little as possible in front of the large crowd which included the usual - Maternal through Preprimaria classes (3-6 yr olds and their teachers/assistants) along with Jenna and her 4th grade class (which happens to be our Reading Buddies so they know my kids well) and Emily and her first grade class which was performing after us and helped with the decorating. We started off with reciting an acrostic poem about Christmas [this is the kind that says C is for.... H is for... R is for... and so on]. The morning of before school, I was still running around trying to get all the little details taken care of and one of my kids stops me as she walks in the gate. "Miss Breanna," she says, in her cute shy voice, pulling a folded paper out of her pocket [I had sent home the words to both our poem and our songs so they could practice with their parents], "T is for toys to play with" she said in a voice that was almost bold but certainly proud. Ahhh, I loved it, it was a perfect distraction I needed from being a little too stressed out about a program hardly any one would see and probably no one would remember. She made my day!
So anyway, the program began with the Poem, most too shy to speak loud enough for the sketchy microphone to pick up, but they each had a letter to hold along with a prop explaining their line. Next we dropped off those props to change for bells! Jingle bells, Jingle bells! Another change of props and we were all wearing Santa hats and singing and dancing our way through Santa Claus is Coming to Town! adorable if I do say so myself :) The show ended with a rowdy round of We Wish You a Merry Christmas, rowdy only because they know it so well they basically just shout it out and then we had everyone join in for an encore. Hopefully the audience enjoyed it well enough. One of the mothers in attendance told me after, and I quote, "It was good enough." I am hoping this was meant well, and maybe worded 'poorly' because English is not her first language, but either way, I guess she approved.. I think my kids had fun being on the stage and now it is over so all is well!
Today we didn't really have school.... we had to punch in at 830, the kids arrived at 9, and we got out at 1230. The schedule for the day was something like: time to finish parent christmas project, posada, auditorium for charoling, Piñatas, cake, home. Rough day. It was actually a hassle for the teachers simply because it was so lax. There were times we were told to get our kids ready for this activity and we would be in line ready only to wait ten minutes for it to begin... this means a lot of "get back in line, please" "dont hit him" "no kicking" etc. Overall though, it was a fun day. We colored the cutest picture of a little Mexican kid in front of a cactus decorated as a Christmas tree, they had a piñata for each grade, cakes galore, and then we were pretty much free to go. They took home their cute final projects we had painted for their parents, along with the stockings we had decorated with our Reading Buddies, yeah, we do more than read! I would add pics with this but I had forgotten my camera these last two days so I will have to wait and get the pics from the other teachers camera I used instead.
Thursday night we also had a Posada as a staff. It was the culmination of our Secret Santa gift giving as well as a big dinner-Merry Christmas celebration. My supervisor dressed up as Celia Cruz in order to lead the karaoke for the night, it was a pretty fun night. The night ended in a raffle that included prizes like a computer, an ipod touch, and other notsocheap items..... So it ended up being a pretty late night but luckily we had a late call time the next day :)
Well... now it is just one night before I set foot back in MN... back in cold, snowy MN. It was still upper 80s this week, just to let you know....

Christmas Time is Here

December is here! I can't believe its already been 3 months, it flew by so quickly. Two more weeks left of school and then we get over two weeks off for break! I'm pretty stoked about that! And the weekend of Thanksgiving I decided I wanted to come home instead so I bought myself a plane ticket to MN!!! I think it is better this way because Jenna and I would have been basically the only people here so that would have been a bit lonely and my mom ditched out on me :) and it will probably save me money this way in the end instead of paying for all the travel, food, and hotels throughout that time. Plus I get to see many of my wonderful family and friends :D I think we need a break from Torreon too, school is getting me down lately.
I think it is mostly due to the fact that I am a little more stressed than usual. My class is in charge of the Christmas program for the kindergarten area, so I have to plan and practice and teach all that stuff on top of normal things. Plus this is of course a very 'crafty' time in kindergarten so there are those things to plan and execute as well. Hopefully all goes well, wish me luck. Teaching English language learners christmas songs can be funny. I like when i stop singing the words and I just listen to what they think they are supposed to be saying... not quite right but its cute! Does it really matter?! I hope not!
I should take a picture of our Christmas door... and tomorrow Jennas 4th graders are going to help us make stockings out of foamy paper! Its a fun time, I should be enjoying myself right?!
Anyway, Heck Yes to homecoming! December 20-January 5, get ready Minnesota
[and by get ready, I mean get warmer and you dont have to snow so much... its 80º here still!]