Here is the sloth that lives at the La Paz Waterfall park. He's so peaceful.

So it's been a while since I have posted. Time sure does fly. Next Thursday is the end of first quarter already and I have been here in Costa Rica for a little over 2 months. I have started Spanish lessons and have seen some improvement on my comprehension, but of course speaking is a whole other thing. It's only once a week for an hour, but it's better than having nothing at all.
On Sept. 15th parts of Latin America celebrated their independence and it was a lot of fun. The kids do a big celebration in the different grade levels. The high school seniors had a dance performance for the rest of the high school where they wore traditional dress and dances traditional dances. We had local Tico fair. Tico is the word people use for native Costa Ricans. Very yummy stuff. I think my favorite is pinto gallo, which is more of a breakfast food even though its rice and beans. Very yummy.
The school also put on a school picnic on Sept. 22. This was fun. There was a petting zoo, a staff v. student soccer game, and the different high school grade levels and elective groups hosted tables selling food to raise money. What's really great is that the kids do everything. Most are motivated and take care of everything without ever needing the teacher's help. This is very awesome and made the transition as an advisor for a group very easy.
I walk to and from school pretty much everyday. It's about 1/2 hr up hill, but it's a nice way to wake up. The weather in the morning is amazing. Sunny, breezy, very comfortable and the views are great. I look up at mountain tops and sometimes there is fog laying over the tops of them. Very serene.
Some women I teach with and myself took a trip to Manuel Antonio, which is a beautiful national park and beach last weekend. It felt like paradise. I saw sloths, monkeys, iguanas all in their natural habitat. The sloths are very cool.  We rented a car and I got to drive for the first time in 2 months. Very liberating! It would be awesome to get a car here, but driving around San Jose is a little aggressive and the roads are not tended well, so flat tires are very common. It's probably better to keep walking everyday.
The weekend before that I went to a local volcano, Poas, and then to the La Paz, a rainforest and waterfall park. They also had lots of animals there, although they were in cages. Birds, monkeys, big cats. One monkey even reached out of the cage to hold hands with some of us.
In all, the people here are very friendly and patient when you try to talk with them and very helpful.

So here it is about 7 weeks in Costa Rica and I have a ton of pictured to put up. The last several days have been lots of celebrations for Costa Rica independence which was officially on Saturday. Everyone gets dressed in red, white and blue and they dance and sing and eat. Not so different from anything else that might go on elsewhere. School has been good. I think I am starting to get some type of rhythm with the 7 day rotating schedule and how I can print my resources and using the internet and printing my resources, as well as walking a 1/2 hr to school everyday.  I am also adjusting the 12 hrs of sunlight, basically it's 6-6 and that's it. I just wanted to curl up and go to bed at 6:30, but I am adjusting to that too. We went to a Salsa club where I learned how to Salsa, although not gracefully. I kept stepping on my partner's feet and bumping into the people next to me. It was a lot of fun though and I would totally do it again. I should probably take some real lessons, but learning from a nice man on the dancefloor doesn't hurt either.
It rains everyday, but not all day. The norm seems to be that things are pretty quiet in the morning, the sun usually comes out and it's quite comfortable. At about 12 or so the clouds come in and it gets humid and then it could rain anywhere from 1-10 pm. Don't get caught without your umbrella.

An Earthquake of seizemic proprtions

So today I experienced my first real earthquake and of course Carol King popped into my head.  Actually, it was definitely as scary as it might seem. It was a 7.9 on the Pacific coastline, which is 90 miles away from San Jose, but it was definitely felt here. Having lived through the earthquake of Washington DC last summer, I thought I had an understanding of what it felt like, but I was sooo wrong. This one lasted a lot longer and it was much stronger, but the worst part was feeling like I did not know really what to do in that situation. I thought about standing in the doorway, but was unsure if that was right so I froze and then ran, which is not what one should do. Now I know to get under the desk and wait out the shaking and once that stops, get up and get out of the building. My physical reaction was shaky knees and stomach which continued long after the quake stopped. I definitely did not have control over how I reacted. Everyone had to gather outside and we had to wait for the security to check all the buildings and make sure they were ok to be back in. Good thing it wasn't raining on top of it. And then the day went on as scheduled.

http://www.ticotimes.net/Current-Edition/News-Briefs/Magnitude-7.6-earthquake-rattles-Costa-Rica_Wednesday-September-05-2012 

This is a picture of the  whip scorpion I found in my shower over a week ago. Josiah, this one's for you!

http://www.costaricajourneys.com/tailless-whip-scorpion/

You probably have to cut and paste this link.

 This is the gate that leads to the high school and elementary school

This is a view of some of the mountains that surround the area. This is what you see when you walk out of the gates from all three schools.

This is the mist that rolls in in the morning and covers the mountain view.

Taken from the HS parking lot.

So I can't believe I have been here almost 2 weeks already. The rainy season has started and it has been raining pretty much every day at around three for the past week. The mornings are great. Comfortable and sunny. There's a beautiful mist on the surrounding mountains and I get to take a walk to work everyday, or I take a taxi or the bus if I am feeling lazy. The full staff at Country Day School came together last Monday, August 6th and everyone has been really great. I have been trying to get prepared all week for the kids who are coming in on Monday. That's right, school starts on Monday, Aug. 13th.  I have been trying to get my classroom set and then decided on Thursday to change my room to a different room that was open, so then my cleaning process had to start all over again.
I will be teaching AP World History and AP US History. Talk about nuts! I will also be teaching three regular US History classes. Oh yeah and I have a student teacher for two of those classes. I only have 52 students on my entire teaching list and we are on an A-G day rotation so I will only be teaching 3-4 classes a day. It makes planning a little confusing and a little mroe difficuly, but this will also keep it very interesting. My classes are an hour long and there are elective classes programmed for every day. I am also the advisor for the National Honors Society.

It is definitely an adjustment to living here. I found a huge spider thing in my tub which I luckily saw before I actually stepped in to shower. It looked like the little alien thing that sticks itself to the guys face in "Alien" but slightly smaller and it moved rediculously fast. I think this is where Riddley Scott got the idea for the alien from. He went on vacation in Costa Rica. The sun rises and sets at 6, no matter what and most of the life in Escazu takes place during the day. There's a fruit and veggie market that takes place on Saturdays and you pay much better prices for food than at a grocery store. Because everything is imported it is expensive. The electrical plugs are American plugs so you do not need a converter, at least in the city. I am not sure about really remote places though.

There is a Hari Krishna group living in the complex that my apartment is in and two nights ago they were up all night chanting and dancing for Krishna birthday. They are very friendly and welcoming and it was neat to see the hindu religion being practiced as I only teach about it, but never really experienced it.

The priciniple of the high school and the director of the entire school will be taking a bunch of us on a hiking trip tomorrow, Sunday, for the morning. I am very much looking forward to that and seeing some sights other than Escazu and San Jose. The new teachers were taken on a walking tour of San Jose and saw some interesting things, but San Jose as a whole is not the prettiest city in the world. There is a lot of smog because the cars and trucks and buses all spew fumes, but the views of the mountains and all the interesting plant life help you ignore that feature of life here.

I'd love to hear from you!