Hola!

0 Comments

Well, thumb as you can probably tell by the lapse in time since my last blog, pharm it’s been a crazy busy week! We all are getting into the routine of classes this week. It’s going very well! Alex and Maggie are really enjoying school. They’ve started soccer two days a week after school and they are having a blast! The first day or two they were a bit apprehensive about school, store but they have since made friends and have found their place in class. Alex is a little bit dismayed because school work is a little bit tougher here and there is a bit more homework, but he’s becoming quite the little study bug! This week he has read three books!

Corey and I officially began classes on Tuesday. We each have a phonetics class, a grammar class and a conversation class. We also will have a class called interaction that starts next week. It meets once a week where we create a dialogue. Throughout the week we have to speak to 10 people using our dialogue and report back the next week. We’re a little intimidated by this class! In phonetics class this week we’ve been learning the alphabet. You’d think that knowing Spanish this would be a breeze for me, but there are a couple of letters that they say differently here, so I have to catch myself. For example, the letter “ll” in Mexico has more of a Y sound “ay-yay,” but here they use more of a J sound “ay-jay.” It’s a small difference, but I get corrected when I pronounce words with a “ll” or a “y” in it. I’ll have a Tican accent by the time I leave here!

Grammar is just that, learning all the rules of the language and applying them. My teacher is great. She’s very nice and makes it all fun. Today, for example, we are learning about commands and since I was the only girl in class I got to hand out commands to the guys as we went step by step through the process of putting together a hamburger. That was fun. 🙂

Conversation class is two hours long. In that class we spend part of the time studying verb forms, much like in grammar class. The other part is spent talking. Today we had to take a magazine and describe many aspects of it. Tomorrow we have to do a presentation on our city or state. I’m really enjoying my classes. I’ll have to have Corey get on here and do an update of his own. He’s a little overwhelmed with homework.

So our week has really just been trying to get in the groove of classes. I’ve been trying to read through the material the students used last trimester so I can make sure I’m up on what they’ve covered so far, so I’ve done a lot of reading this week. I’ve still had a couple days that by 8pm I am ready to crash. It seems to go back and forth every other night. Tonight I’m doing all right and it’s almost 9pm! hahaha

This afternoon Mrs. Nancy Dickerson, who is one of the school directors, had the ladies over for a Secret Sisterhood gathering. The guys all make fun of it and call it the Ya-Ya Sisterhood or the Traveling Pants Sisterhood, but it sounds like it will be great in just giving support to one another. We’ll have outings and gatherings twice a month and the whole “secret” part comes into play because next week we’ll be given the information of another lady here (all students from school). Every week you’ll be given their prayer requests and you’re supposed to leave a small treat for your secret sister from time to time. I realize this all sounds a bit cheesy, but if you’ve known me well you’ll know this is right up my alley!! I love this kind of cheesiness!

Well, it’s time to get the kids into bed, but I will work harder on writing more! Please email me or post a comment in the comments section if you have questions about life here. There are so many new things to share I’m not sure what to tell without babbling on for hours and hours! Thanks to everyone for your prayers, calls, emails and all – especially to the kids. Alex and Maggie are really enjoying emailing with everyone.

Hasta Luego,
Tona

Categories: