FINALLY!!!!

PEANUT BUTTER M&MS HAVE BEEN FOUND IN CHILE!!!!!!!!

I cannot credit this to myself, but rather Heinz and Ben, who while perusing through the Jumbo here in Copiapo yesterday stumbled across the beloved peanut butter M&Ms, which along with Reeses (or any candy with chocolate and peanut butter together), have thusfar been absent across the country. Joy and Heinz shared a few of these delicious morsels with me, and I realized it had been more than a month since I had eaten any sort of peanut butter.

Afterwards I went to buy at least some peanut butter (the store with the pb m&ms isn´t within walking distance) which, though it is here, is VERY expensive. A normal/small sized jar is actually between $7-8 ...so I won´t be eating it too much. But it was great to know I won´t have to go 3.5 more months without peanut butter m&ms. That being said, they too are also quite pricey here, so if anyone was sending down a care package those are a welcome addition.

The past week has been busy but good. Teaching is still crazy but I feel like the kids are beginning to learn a little bit. Tuesdays are by far the worst day (with the worst-behaved students), but Wed - Fri. are pretty great days. I forgot to add last time some more interesting questions I get from my students:

1. Have you met The Jonas Brothers/Miley Cyrys/Michael Phelps (just got asked about him on Friday) ? I want to lie and say yes but usually let them down easily and say while I know OF them, or like James Blake have actually been within 10 feet of him, I have not actually met them, nor are we close friends.

2. What time is it right now in the US? Some of you may also not know the time difference. It´s actually quite easy, because right now EST in the US is the exact same as Chile.

3. (my favorite) Do you have any kids? (one student even asked how MANY kids I have). I always laugh, and remind them that I´m currently 21, right out of college. But honestly, there are a LOT more people here who have kids at a younger age, so it´s really not a ridiculous question on their part. Still makes me laugh :-)

This past weekend was a lot of fun. On Friday night was another crazy and awesome school event - the Anniversary DINNER for all of the teachers and adminstration at the school. I don´t know if I mentioned it before, but during the past 3 weeks I had been rehearsing a dance to the song ¨One¨ from A Chorus Line with about 10 of the other teachers. We probably spent 12 hours getting ready for this, including planning the elaborate costumes, creating and practicing choreography. It was a lot of fun (although learning the choreography was a little difficult because all the ladies would talk very fast and I couldn´t understand anything until I watched them do it) and we performed it at the beginning of the anniversary dinner. The dinner itself was lovely. At the beginning we had cocktails and appetizers and lit candles for the anniversary. Then we ate a delicious sit-down meal and there was a DJ...who did Karaoke for the music. Like he sang all of the songs, which was a little weird to me at first but he was very talented so it was great. AND after the meal most of us profesoras got up and danced for a good hour or 2 which was also fun. One of the best parts was that I actually RECOGNIZED a few of the songs, which means I´m beginning to know the popular chilean songs! This week in school I actually gave out blank CDs to various students and asked them to burn me some of their favorite/the popular music here since I don´t have ANY on my computer :-). The dinner went from 8pm til midnight and then afterwards about 8 of us went out to the brand new casino here in Copiapo. It was beautiful, although as it ended up I only had enough money with me to get in ($5 to enter the casino). 1 of the profs gave me 1 mil to play with, so I got to play about 20 rounds on the slots.

Saturday I made another trip out to Caldera to see Joy, Heinz, and Ben. This time I got there early enough to have lunch with Joy´s family which was a lot of fun. Her host parents are so sweet and they have three young kids in the house, so it´s pretty crazy. Afterwards the four of us went out to Bahia Inglesa to see the beautiful beach there and hung out for a little while. I had my jaiva con queso empanada for dinner again back in Caldera and got back to Copiapo by 9.

The day after I ran up Cerro de la Cruz last week I got a little lecture from my co-teacher who told me, because it was pretty isolated, was too dangerous to do alone because there are pandillas (sp?)..aka gangs that hang out on the hill. I told her that I hadn´t seen anyone and that while I´d be careful when I go alone, I´m probably not going to stop going. It´s too beautiful at the top, too convenient, and my favorite place here in the city.

That being said, this past weekend on Sunday I got to hike up Cerro de la Cruz again with Terryl and Donte to watch the sunset. Though the guys enjoyed the hike slightly less than I did, the sunset over the mountains was pretty beautiful, and an experience that will happen several more times.

One of the biggest obstacles I´ve been facing recently is learning to turn on the Calefont (water heater) in the house. It doesn´t seem like it should be that complicated...you light a match inside this box, turn on the gas valve, pull out this little handle and turn it to the left. But I still have yet to successfully do it on my own. It has been my goal to conquer since I arrived and hopefully will happen soon.

I´m still living in constant fear of the killer spiders that live here in Copiapo. I think I saw my first of the super deadly ones last week, just strolling along the sidewalk as I was doing my post-run stretches. (obviously it was dead within seconds of my sighting). The second happened the same day, but this time was inside. I was pulling my pajama pants out of my closet to put on, and this HUGE tigre spider was just chilling on top. I screamed and through the pants to the floor. Now, the tigre spiders are actually good (apparently). They eat the little deadly ones. I´m only half sorry to say, the tigre spider that happened upon my pants was also dead within seconds of my sighting. They are just too big to let live in my room...especially if I want to sleep in peace.

This weekend looks to be slightly less eventful than the past several, but that´s okay...from Sept 12th until the 21st we have VACATION!!! (spring break, if you will). More on that later, but it starts in 9 days. Which is awesome.

I don´t think I´ve mentioned it yet in the blog, but one of the fun things I´m trying to do in every class is to teach a little American slang at the beginning. So far the kids have learned:

1. What´s up? - Not much. What´s up with you?
2. I gotta go. - See ya later. - Catch ya later.
3. Cool. Awesome.

I have a list going but let me know if you have any ideas for some cool/somewhat easy slang to teach.

Lastly, today in the 5th/6th grade Academia, I got really excited. I should explain first, that on Wednesdays I get to lead the 5th/6th grade English Academia (english club..aka kids who all want to learn english and chose it as their extra curric), and on Fridays the 7th/8th grade English Academia. Each one is supposed to start preparing a song or poem for the English festival happening here in Copiapo at the end of October. And today, after a lot of pretty competitive brainstorming, argument, and voting, the 5th/6th graders (quintos and sextos) have chosen to learn and perform "Breaking Free" from High School Musical. Not gonna lie, I´m pretty ecstatic.

Well that´s all for now. If you´ve got facebook check out all the new pictures I put up the last few days....I´m trying to get them up on the blog too but don´t know if that can happen anytime soon.

And please keep in touch!!! Email, skype, whatever works. Miss you all!

- Steph -