I´m going to pretend that I make different posts for organization purposes, and not because I keep forgeting to say stuff.

a typical day at school.

--the early weeks--
for the first 1.5 hours, I generally just had a conversation with mi maestro, se llama Marvin. then there´s a half-hour break, and another two hours of class before lunch. I generally drink tea constantly untill lunch, when I switch to agua, if it´s hot out. after the break and after lunch is actual lesson time. Marvin picks a tense from ¨la biblia de español¨, and we´ll do excercizes with that. I started with past tenses, went on to progressives, perfects, and now I´m working wth commands. however, the verb tenses and excercizes are generally just a catalyst for conversation about whatever topic we happen to come across.

--the recent weeks--
I´ve gotten to know the other teachers pretty well, through poker and being friends with their students. I cen tell and understand jokes in spanish, and I´ve started making witty comments off stuff other people say, which I think is awesome. I think I´m approaching information overload, because we´ve been playing more games (pictionary, scrabble, basta (like scatergories) and such) and not concentrating on actual lesson-style learning. for instance, this afternoon, paul and I, along with our teachers, went off to Eric (the son of santiago, who runs the school office)´s room, listened to music, played poker and told dirty jokes, sort of during class time.

one I feel it´s appropriate to share is...

Hay un avion, volando a guatemala, con un italiano, un norteamericano, y un mexicano. Arriba del mar caribe, el motor empiece a fallar. El piloto dice ¨necesitamos dejar mucho peso, si tiene algo que no necesita, por favor dejelo del avion.¨ El italiano tiene un pizza grande, y dice ¨Yo tengo muchas en mi pais, no necesito¨, y lanza la pizza pel avion.
El norteamericano piensa, y toma el mexicano, diciendo ¨Yo tengo muchos en mi país¨ y lanza el mexicano del avion.

if you can´t read spanish, go find someone who can. it´s funny.

anyhoo that´s what my days are like now. I´m signed up for three more days of school next week, in the morning, and then thursday we´re climbing acatenango, which is a really big volcano overlooking Antugia. it´s not active, but it´s wicked close to Fuego, which is active, and blows off a plume of smoke every week or so. then friday we leave for Tikal, and after that, I´m not sure. volunteer work in Antigua at the local hospital, or in Flores, with jungle animals, up by Tikal.

-Sam