Thursday, August 12, 2010

Final Jeopardy

I finally got the Final Jeopardy right! Well, to be fair it was Teen Jeopardy, but still one step at a time right? The question was basically which Bible character refused the King of Israel's sword and stuff in a battle. It was David. Thank you Sunday School.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Happy Thoughts

As you all probably know, I’m pretty bad at keeping up a blog. Which means my dreams of making millions off a blog featuring crazy cat photos with equally crazy captions is out the window. Anyways, I need inspiration to write, or at least to write about things I don’t mind you and the general public reading. The Peace Corps office has a resource lounge, where you can usually find at least one volunteer wasting time and sitting around (but not talking about whether or not it’s going to rain or how hot it is, because that’s what we do in our sites). Also there are shelves of books for us to borrow and hopefully not getting them stolen on the bus (don’t worry we all make fun of the thief later because really no one but us wants a badly used copy of “War and Peace”). Part of our wasting time also consists of perusing this wide selection of books. I’ve gone through most of them, or at least the ones I’ve really been dying to read, so the self-help section was my last frontier. Here, I found a little book, “Happy Thoughts”. This book gives you 333 different scenarios that will make your day a little brighter. They range from everyday (iced tea on a hot day) to more extraordinary (winning 2 million in the state lottery). Not only does this provide me with great material for my blog (I mean, do you really want to hear how the kids in my classes hassled me until I let them play soccer again, or how I walked home in the rain again without an umbrella), it also gives me something do keep my spirits up because as much fun as the Peace Corps has been and continues to be, it still can be lonely and disappointing at times.

So here you go, the things that made me smile this week:

1. Catching a train just as it’s about to pull out: Well it was a bus. The bus from my town gets into the bigger town (San Isidro) around 8:20-30 a.m. If I want to go to San Jose, usually I can only make the 9:30 bus. Waiting around is fine, but it usually means you have to go to a restaurant and pay for a cup of coffee and pray their wireless is working, or walk around aimlessly trying not to get too sweaty. But this day was different. The bus pulled into the station at 8:15, I knew if I ran (well, run is an exaggeration, walk quickly with style is more accurate) I’d make it there at least by 8:23ish. Although, that wouldn’t guarantee there would be tickets left either. I just had to pray that I could make the 8:30 bus and that there would be a seat available for me. And as you can guess, I was in luck. Not only in luck for making the 8:30 bus, but in luck because I got a seat all to myself, something that wouldn’t have happened if I had bought a ticket ahead of time. I made it to San Jose before noon and actually had time to get to my hotel before running my errands which is pretty much unheard of any other time.

2. A hug when you really need one- So, I didn’t really need a hug, but it was still really sweet. I was playing an “English” game with my little kids. Basically, they are on teams, one team starts with the ball and has to try to make a goal, while the other team defends the goal. Each kid goes one at a time and if they make the goal the “goalie” has to say a vocabulary word (this week parts of the body), and if they don’t make a goal the “kicker” has to say a vocabulary word. We were playing and all of a sudden one of my newest students comes up to me, looks up and gives me a big hug. Something unexpected like that is really wonderful. What’s especially great is that you’ve already made a connection with a kid and hopefully you being there makes them feel just as great.

3. Playing with puppies- One of my neighbors and a lady that I’m close with, just got a new puppy. We were waiting for a meeting to start and she had said puppy with her. The dog was just so cute it’s hard not to smile. Deep inside I wanted a puppy too, because really it would be a great motivator to go out walking every day, and a way to put a smile on my face whenever I’m having a bad day. But then I thought of one word and decided the neighbors can have their dogs, I’ll just play with them: Fleas.


My favorite is getting the final Jeopardy question right, I'm still waiting.