ESL Class

We are almost at the end of the 2nd week of the 3 week ESL class; all I can say is- WOW! To be in a classroom as a student again is amazing and hard!  It is full of amazing discovery and surprises.  Discovery of what people see in me, Shelley,  a teacher.  I also am surprised that I am enjoying myself, but I am not enjoying the  classwork and homework; the learning of material is so foreign to me.

The 3 of us discussing classwork.

Dan is really loving it and it is amazing to watch him in his element! He is a very gifted and talented teacher.  We had to do our first lesson plan 2 days ago, and for Dan it was no sweat!!!.... got it done... Myself, a very different story... lets just say if mamma ain't happy (or stress) everyone knows it!  I had to apologize the next day for my ickiness!  It was not pretty-but out of that, I got some tremendous feedback. I taught my first class! YIKES! and was successful!  The teacher said that it looked like a very natural class and that I did a good job! My stress level immediately went down and my confidence grew by leaps and bounds.

The camaraderie between myself, Dan and my Dad has been so great! It is so fun to be learning the same thing and exchange ideas and talk about syntax and methodology!  Who knew that these words even existed! LOL...

Tomorrow we head over to the public school to get ourselves familiar with the school and meet some students, and then I teach my second class.....

I am learning so much about myself, about our family and how much fun we have together, and how we are interacting with Nana and Papa for an extended period of time.

On an entirely different note... we have been in Boquete an entire month and here are some of our discoveries... some good and some well... I will let you decide:

1. Eggs and milk are not refrigerated here
2. The jumbo sizes we find so readily in the states are not found here(unless you go to David and shop at Pricesmart-which is just like Sams Club.)
4. They don't use reusable water bottles or reusable coffee cups here.
5. Hot peppers don't exist.. most peppers here are sweet (poor Dan)
6. Grocery shopping is a scavenger hunt most times, our biggest grocery store here has 4 aisles
7. You can buy most produce and fish off the back of a truck, and it is good!
8.  A lot of produce is organic without the organic price... bought 2 heads of organic lettuce for a buck, a buck for a pineapple, and 12 banana's for a dollar.  Overall we have eaten very well here, and have lost weight!
9. Our gym membership is 25 bucks for a month! Woohoo!!!!! Hopefully when the class is over, we can workout again.