I breathe a long sigh of relief on this wonderful Friday afternoon! It’s been a long week, cialis but I am rejoicing here at the end of it! Let me start with the parrots. It’s common in every place we’ve lived to hear birds singing and here in Costa Rica almost constantly we hear different variations of birds making their music. It’s not unusual to look out the window and see birds lining the roof of the school or playing in the trees, cure but a few days ago the song of the birds was different and when we looked out the window, treat lined across the top of our school was a long line of beautiful green parrots. It was amazing. We stopped class and just watched them for a while. Our teacher told us that they are usually in the mountains this time of year, but when you see one you know it’s going to rain. Apparently they get confused and come back when they think it’s rainy season. Sure enough, later that afternoon we had quite a rain! Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me, but hopefully they’ll be back again and I’ll share their beauty with you!
I’ve written before about the ECO we have to do at the end of each trimester. Mine was this past Monday and Corey’s on Tuesday. It’s supposed to be a nonchalant interview with a professor you don’t normally have and you’re supposed to just chit chat while they assess your ability. Is sounds simple enough, HOWEVER, they are recording you and all the previous students are so stressed out about it you can’t help but be nervous! We won’t have the results for a few weeks, but I don’t think I did the best I could have. My nerves kicked in and I was speaking very fast but paying little attention to my grammar. We had to act out a scenario and mine was that I had a grease stain on my jacket and I had an important interview in an hour. I was at the dry cleaners and had to ask them for help. I thought, “Not too bad, I can work my way through this one…” but what I hadn’t been told was that they would contradict everything you say so that you have to argue your way through the situation. For example, I told the “dry cleaner” I needed the one hour service and, wouldn’t you know it, they only do two hour service! It was fun, a bit stressful, but in the end I was just incredibly relieved to have it over with!
So here we are on Friday. We have one week of classes to go, but this week that’s coming up we are off for Semana Santa. It’s supposed to be a holy week, but from what I can gather from most of the Ticos I’ve talked to it’s been turned into a week where everyone migrates to the beach. We will be sticking around San Jose and doing a few short bus excursions to a few places close to town.
For my final class today in Phonetics I had to recite by memory 12 versus from the Bible in Spanish. Actually, it was more than 12 because some were two or three verse sections and one of them was the entire chapter of Psalms 121. My brain is a little fried as I sit and type, but I am so grateful for this break that we will be enjoying this next week! I can’t wait to tell you about the adventures we’re about to have!
~Tona