Today was my first day going out on my own and using public transportation. Here are a few things that I learned: never expect the bus driver to stop at a clearly signaled bus stop, make sure you tell him because he may not stop until the next stop in an entirely different town; never expect the closest bus stop to where you are to be the right bus stop, you will end up waiting for no reason when you were supposed to be waiting at another bus stop half a mile down the road; always expect to wait at least 20-30 minutes or more, buses are rarely ever on time or sometimes even run early; always, always, always ask the bus driver where the bus is going, if not you will end up 3 towns away from where you need to be; never expect the bus to pick you up at the bus stop across from the one that it dropped you off at, chances are that the right bus stop (like I said before) is half a mile up the road; always expect to have to walk a lot, no matter that you are riding the bus, they never drop you off or pick you up exactly where they should or where you want them to. I’m pretty sure that sums up my first day of public transportation.
Okay, maybe I made it sound a little worse than it really was, but seriously, I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it home! The reason I went on this little adventure was to get to the mall. This isn’t really important, but all of the shoes I have are either every day, bum shoes or nightlife, extreme heels. Neither of those really works when it comes to being a teacher, or lots of other things I suppose. Anyway, so I got some flats and some boots. I also finally got me a cell phone for here. I can have friends now! Haha. Going to the mall was a horrible idea though, besides getting the things that I needed, I wanted to buy every single thing that I saw. Let’s just say that I won’t be going there for a very long time.
Yesterdaayyyy. What did I do yesterday? Oh! Right. Well, I didn’t have work yesterday, but I went in to talk to some teachers so I could start planning the English portion of their classes. I ended up only talking to one of the five teachers I had to talk to. Oh well. BUT, I did get to talk to the PE teacher, Alejandro. “Oh, like the Lady Gaga song! Haha.” “Yea…” “Hm. You probably get that a lot don’t you?” “Haha. Yea.” Woooowww… Way to SCREW UP, Angie! Hahaha. Meh, whatever. It couldn’t have been too bad because we ended up talking for about an hour until school was out and made some plans.
I almost forgot to include a somewhat important experience. Ana, the teacher I’m living with, has 3 kids. Maria, the oldest daughter that is away studying in London, Nora, the 16 year old daughter that goes to the school that her mom and I teach at, and then there’s Pablo, her 6 year old son who I actually learned a little bit from. He was away at his father’s house the first couple of days I was here, so I didn’t get to meet him until Sunday night. I’m not much of a kid person, but for some reason kids usually like to stick around me. I was expecting this whole meeting session to be a piece of cake, but I was definitely wrong.
I was watching a movie on my lap top when he got home, so I didn’t hear him come in. By the time I realized he was home, his mom had stepped out for a little. Pablo, Nora and I were sitting in the TV room. The kid wouldn’t even LOOK at me. He acted like I wasn’t even there. He would talk to Nora, who wasn’t even paying attention because she was online, and not even glance at me. Nora even asked him if he had said hi to me and he was just like “No, so what?” I was kind of taken back by it because that’s definitely rude and in the US
The next day, Monday, started out the same; I didn’t try talking to him at all. I would just laugh at things that his mom and sister said. At lunch, which is around 2/3, they were all telling stories and explaining things to me, Pablo would chip in every now and then. He actually looked at me, omg! Well that was a first step. I started going back and forth with his mom and sister, I forget what we were talking about, and we were just telling each other things. Then Pablo started telling us things too, and he would actually look at me and say things to me. Oh man, this was step 2! We’re on a roll. I still didn’t pay too much attention to him. At this point I started thinking, maybe he just needed to see me interact more with his mom and sister to feel comfortable enough to start talking to me himself. Anyway, we ate fish that day, so when we were cleaning up the topic of fishing came up. Pablo has 2 fishing poles that he doesn’t even know how to use. I told him and his mom that I go fishing with my dad and that I could help teach him. This was the ultimate bonding moment between me and Pablo. He instantly took my hand and led me straight to the fishing poles. From then on it was game over. He talked to me all about his fishing poles, later on he was playing with his friend outside and wanted me to play but I just helped him out a little instead, scared him a couple of times even though he refuses to admit to it, and then him, his mom and I went for a walk by the beach until we got to the port and fed some bread to the fish. I think that day was an all-time record for me for the longest amount of time spent with a kid other than a cousin of mine. Not gonna lie, it was more fun than I thought it’d be J
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| Pablo and his mom kicking bread into the water for the fish |
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| The port |
Well, I’m sure that was boring for many of you, but for some reason it was kind of a big deal to me. I’m not really used to dealing with kids, so it was a process. Tomorrow is my first day of co-teaching and I’m going to look at this apartment that I will hopefully be moving into this weekend. Everything’s coming together, slowly but surely J Goodnight.
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