Tia Lisa

I had my last day of classes today. After 6 weeks of working at the colegio and residencia, I have gained incredible respect for people that do this for a lifetime.

My days consisted of Kindergarten class, Art class occasionally, and english class. However, the majority of my time was spent with the 5 year-olds in K. I should really stress that I don´t love kids, at least as a total genre. Certain kids, yes- i want to take them home with me because they are fantastic...but 20 hyper snotty crying kids isn´t necessarily my ideal job.

With that said- every day provided me constant entertainment. For my last and final day with the rugrats, we managed a pretty dece bloody nose, 20 dirty kisses from every kid as I said goodbye- (and some of them go for the lips when you reach in for the kiss...i realllllly don´t like dirty mouths near mine, especially when I see what these kids put INTO their mouths during recreation... eeew) and our new kid, who I´ve nicknamed ¨the pincher¨managed to make just about every single kid cry at one point from pinching them throughout the morning. Whew. I´m exhausted just thinking about it-.
I did have several little boys in my class who are also in our residencia- our transient foster home that the Y runs, and which I also work at during the afternoons. THESE 4 boys are my pride and joy of the day...i love them. In fact, I would take all 4 back with me to NY and adopt them all if it was possible- although, Bruno cries all the time and doesn´t listen to anything you say to him, and Eduardo beats everyone up- Regardless, Angel is the cutest thing I´ve ever seen, and they all are in need of someone to love them- So, saying goodbye to them was actually much harder than I expected.

This afternoon after school was over, I headed over to our OTHER residencia, for girls age 11-14. These girls are kinda bad-ass, but also very sweet at the same time. Two of the girls in particular I´ve taken a real liking to and developed a great relationship with them-- this was also more difficult than i expected saying goodbye.

BUT- I am now done working at the school and foster home, although still helping out with activities taking place in the Y. Wednesday I leave for Easter Island for 8 days... more to come on that upon my return.

My story of the week: I have this infactuation with one of the guys who teaches classes at the gym here at the Y- I´ve been seeing him since I arrived in january, andalways am somewhat googly-eyed when we pass. We manage the usual hellos, and how are you conversation, but never anything more (probably because I´m trying to close my gaping mouth everytime he walks by...) ANYHOO...I´m in the gym the other day and he comes up to me and asks my name... we start chatting and he asks me how long ive been doing different exercises, etc.

--now let me mention before this that I have tendencies of not fully understanding everything when I am talking to someone new- because I´m adjusting to their accent and rate of speach. My friends and other people who I am familiar listening to isn´t difficult, but new voices trouble me sometimes...
So, as I´m listening I´m concentrating super hard on what hes telling me- because I usually can get the main concept, but miss out on the supporting details.. WELL, i was concentrating so hard on the details, that 5 minutes after we finished conversation of what he was asking me to do...i realized I had no idea WHAT it was I was supposed to do!

Heres what I got.... after asking me how long I work out for he said they are doing something that they need people for, and wanted me to do it. I said I´m only here for 3 more weeks, and he said its not a problem... its just a oneday thing. I asked how much it was- he said free. He told me to come in tuesday to the office during the afternoon, no specific time and.... thats what I got.

I feel like George when Steinbrenner tells him ¨It´s just like the song george...Downtown...¨ and now I´m on this search trying to find the meaning of all this. I COULD have asked, but the problem is I sometimes need a few minutes to grasp things, and by the time i realized I missed the main point, it was too late and I felt stupid asking. However, now my friend are all laughing at me because its even stupider that I have no idea what I´m supposed to do tomorrow. Ah, the life of a stupid gringa being overwhelmed by good looking spanish speaking chilean guys. :-)