back to the daily routine after a life-changing trip (martes, 21 septiembre)

Yesterday morning I´d arrived in Arequipa, from which I took a 5 hour bus ride to Tacna. In Tacna I found a vegetarian restaurant where I had really good vegetable soup and a main course of soy protein, beans, carrots, and potatoes, all for about $1 US dollar! Back at the bus station I found a colectivo to take me back to Arica. Getting through customs was really easy. However, once in Arica, all the bus tickets were sold out, so I took a colectivo back to Iquique, but it was really cheap so I´m not complaining. It was about 9pm when I got back to Iquique.

Today I was supposed to be teaching my own classes and I was excited about this. I´d come up with some interesting lesson plans and created some materials to use in my class. However, upon arriving at school, one of the other teachers informed me that today I´d be observing all day instead of teaching, mainly because the principal forgot to send home notes to the students´parents informing them that their children were going to have a new English teacher from now on. They said that on Thursday I will be teaching my own classes. Part of me is really frustrated with the disorganization in this program, and how little time I´ve actually spent teaching my own classes in comparison to going to meetings and shadowing other teachers. For me, observing other people´s classes is completely boring and pointless. I´ve already spent lots of time observing other teachers here, and I understand what I´m supposed to be doing. I wish that things in the program were a bit different, and that I was actually teaching every time I came to school.

Besides that, lunch was good and I talked in Spanish to a few of the other teachers about vacations and where we went, what we did, and places we want to go. Then after lunch was back to the boringness of observing other teachers. The whole time while in their classes I kept thinking about different ideas of how I would teach the class or activities I could do with the students.

After school I worked with the choir. We are learning a new song, but it is in French (Cristián picked it out). One of the guys who works in the school can speak French, so he came to explain the pronunciation. I helped the altos learn the correct pitches. Some of them are not very good about holding their part, but they are definitely improving. Singing the alto part can be hard sometimes, but I think the song will sound good once we practice it more.

Anyway...now I need to study some Spanish and then go to bed. More later...

written by  Sara Florecita on September 21, 2010 from Iquique, Chile
from the travel blog: año de dos inviernos (Chile 2010)
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