“I Will Survive”

This week in my 11^th grade English classes we were learning about the simple past tense. I wanted to make it a little more interesting than just taking notes and doing practice exercises so I started looking online for some ideas. I came across ideas to use songs to help teach grammar topics—and of course for the simple past tense it said to use the Gloria Gaynor song, I will survive. I absolutely love that song and already had it on my iPod so I thought hey why not try it! I had no idea if I would be making a huge mistake or if the class would get out of control but I wanted to try.

I have now played it with all four of my 11^th grade classes and they loved it. Most of them even heard the past tense verbs that she said in the song. Other students just wanted to dance but that was okay too. It was funny to hear them later in the day walking around singing “I will survive”…it made me smile. One of my students requested Nicki Minaj for the next class. That is not likely to happen but they can hope!

My APCD, Assistant Peace Corps Director, came to visit my site this week and he was so kind—he brought us chocolate and ice cream! I didn’t even remember the last time I had ice cream so it was a very nice surprise. I haven’t been eating the healthiest of dinners….last night consisted of cinnamon roll oatmeal (from America!) and ice cream. 

This weekend my roommate and I are traveling to Gurue for a St. Patrick’s day party with other PCVs. I’m really excited to get together with other Moz 19ers and eat good food! I’m also happy to have a long weekend away :) 

Last week marked 3 months in Nacuxa. Some days it doesn’t seem like it’s been that long and other days it feels like it’s been much longer! I do feel pretty proud of myself for getting through these first 3 months at site. They say it is the hardest time for PCVs since you’re trying to get integrated into site, teach in Portuguese, make new friends and are still improving your language skills.

When I look at the big picture of being here for 2 years I start to get very overwhelmed…it feels like an impossible task for me to be away from my family and friends for that long. To give you some perspective I have never traveled out of the country or away from home without my family. The longest I had ever been away from home was during college….which still was probably only a month since we had lots of breaks. I’ll admit I was that kid at summer camp that would cry because I missed my mom and being away from home. It just so happened that the camp was in Omaha (my hometown), my sister was also in the camp sleeping a floor above me and yet I still made my mom and Sittee (grandma) come to see me twice during a 5-day overnight camp. Yes I can look back now and realize how lame that sounds…what can I say I was/am one weird girl.

I’ve been gone now almost 6 months and I’m pretty proud of myself that I have yet to call my mom and make her come take me home like I used to when I was a kid. Some days are hard but I have to keep reminding myself to take it day-by-day. When I look at the big picture of being away from home for 453 days before visiting at Christmas (yes I counted—don’t judge) it does make me a little sad. But when I take it a day or week at a time it seems to go faster than when I think in terms of two years.

So I’ve been taking it a day at a time and trying to think of fun things for my students to do in class. I don’t think I’ll be playing them Nicki Minaj anytime soon but I’ll try to make it interesting for them. Happy early St. Patrick’s day! I’ll be celebrating a bit early this weekend but I’ll be wearing green!

P.S. Don’t worry mom I won’t make you come and bring me ice cream and eat lunch with me like I made you do at camp. No matter how much I’d like that I think the flight would be a little pricey for a lunch date. :)