I had to laugh today when Jake and I went for a walk to the local pulperia to buy some milk. As we were walking down the street, the neighbors black lab was in her front yard. Now we always enjoy our walk when that dog is out because her owner sits on the front steps and throws a tennis ball up the road for the black lab to chase. Now this may seem like nothing overly exciting but what is going on in other houses on that street is what makes it so interesting. As she throws the ball up the street....and as her dog chases after it happily.....there are several other dogs on that street who are confined to their yards, locked up behind gates, keeping a vigilant eye on the happenings in their neighborhood.
So the ball is thrown up the street....the black lab chases it and.....all the other dogs stick their heads out through their gates and whine and bark as the black lab 'plays ball' in the street. It is soooooo funny to see these dogs with their heads shoved as far through the bars of their gates as possible watching every move the black lab makes! Of course the black lab always makes sure that once she has the ball she goes up on the sidewalks so she can pass by the other dogs locked behind their gates showing off her trophy...the newly caught ball...as she does!
Now Jake and I continue on our way and get some milk and then head back home; traveling back up the same street where the dog is still playing ball. Now I am feeling sorry for this one german shephard who is getting old and does not like to be tormented by the young ball chasing lab, so as we pass his gate...his head still stuck through the bars...I decide to say something sweet to the dog. As we get up to his house I say, "Hey puppy...how are you? You want to come out and play ball?" At which point the dog looks at me, tilts his head to the side and I swear...frowns at me. The look on the dogs face was priceless and I can actually hear the gears in the dogs brain turning as he depserately wants to say to me..."No entiendo, Senora!"
Then it hits me...that's right...the dog speaks Spanish! I couldn't help but laugh as I walked down the street and back to our apartment. I put the milk away when we get home and grab my Spanish book. Next time I pass that dog I will say..... "Hola perrito ... ¿cómo estás? ¿Quieres salir a jugar a la pelota? "
And then maybe....just maybe....I will get a wag of the tail instead of the tilt of the head!
Monday, November 29, 2010
Teach in China....Anyone?
Hello!! As most of you know, we are preparing for our move to China and I thought..."Why not post some information about the school I will be working for in China in case someone else would be interested in working in China?"...so...here you go!
First Leap is looking for many excellent teachers for Chinese young kids in Beijing and Other cities in China!
Posted By: First Leap
Date: Friday, 24 September 2010, at 9:50 a.m.
Who we are:
First Leap training School was found in 2009. We mainly focus on English training for 3-8 yrs old kids English by learning many different subjects such as music, art, global leadership, drama, logical thinking, book reading, virtual PE, science, world culture, etc. We provide advanced teaching facilities such as computer, projector, smart whiteboard and good teaching materials especially for non-native kids.
If you are really serious in teaching, I am sure, here is a good choice. We have about 20 foreign teachers at present and have around 10 school branches so far in Beijing as well as other big cities in China such as Nanjing, Changzhou, hefei, Chongqing, etc. There will be more vacancies coming soon. We also provide around 10 days training with salary paid before teaching in First Leap. You can find more information from our website as well www.firstleap.cn/en
We need you have the following qualification:
Native English speakers;
BA degree and above(preferably in relation to education and language);
Holders of a TESOL or TEFL or CELTA qualification;
Love kids and enjoy teaching young kids; Teaching experience preferred;
Arrival time: Nov 2010
What we offer is not the payment but much more you will like.
Students Age: 3 to 8 years old
Airfare: round airfare will be paid if fulfill one year contract
Training: 10 days professional training with salary paid before you work
Legal documents: visa provided
Workload: within 28 teaching hours per week
Work hours: Afternoon and evening classes from Wednesday to Friday; Whole day teaching on Saturday and Sunday.
Please send your resume, scanned passport, personal photo, teaching certificate, education degree and reference to us. We would like to set up the interview for you asap and tell you what payment we can offer according to your experience and qualification.
Contact: Helen
Foreign Teachers Department
email: recruitment@firstleap.cn
Cellphone: 0086-18910723006
Tel: +86-10-84492069-681
FIRST LEAP INSTITUTE
Address:Room 4302, 3rd Floor, Jingxin Plaza, Xiaoyun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China
First Leap is looking for many excellent teachers for Chinese young kids in Beijing and Other cities in China!
Posted By: First Leap
Date: Friday, 24 September 2010, at 9:50 a.m.
Who we are:
First Leap training School was found in 2009. We mainly focus on English training for 3-8 yrs old kids English by learning many different subjects such as music, art, global leadership, drama, logical thinking, book reading, virtual PE, science, world culture, etc. We provide advanced teaching facilities such as computer, projector, smart whiteboard and good teaching materials especially for non-native kids.
If you are really serious in teaching, I am sure, here is a good choice. We have about 20 foreign teachers at present and have around 10 school branches so far in Beijing as well as other big cities in China such as Nanjing, Changzhou, hefei, Chongqing, etc. There will be more vacancies coming soon. We also provide around 10 days training with salary paid before teaching in First Leap. You can find more information from our website as well www.firstleap.cn/en
We need you have the following qualification:
Native English speakers;
BA degree and above(preferably in relation to education and language);
Holders of a TESOL or TEFL or CELTA qualification;
Love kids and enjoy teaching young kids; Teaching experience preferred;
Arrival time: Nov 2010
What we offer is not the payment but much more you will like.
Students Age: 3 to 8 years old
Airfare: round airfare will be paid if fulfill one year contract
Training: 10 days professional training with salary paid before you work
Legal documents: visa provided
Workload: within 28 teaching hours per week
Work hours: Afternoon and evening classes from Wednesday to Friday; Whole day teaching on Saturday and Sunday.
Please send your resume, scanned passport, personal photo, teaching certificate, education degree and reference to us. We would like to set up the interview for you asap and tell you what payment we can offer according to your experience and qualification.
Contact: Helen
Foreign Teachers Department
email: recruitment@firstleap.cn
Cellphone: 0086-18910723006
Tel: +86-10-84492069-681
FIRST LEAP INSTITUTE
Address:Room 4302, 3rd Floor, Jingxin Plaza, Xiaoyun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Gobble Gobble Everywhere....But I Don't Have $52.00 To Spare!
So this is our first big holiday in Costa Rica and I have to confess....turkey is my favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal! The smell of the house filled with turkey and stuffing and potatoes and cookies......yum!!
I'm not one to plan for the Thanksgiving meal...always been a last minute girl with all the turkey arobics in the kitchen sink to loosen its frozen legs....so why change my MO for this year? Big Mistake! Because if I had been paying attention, I would not have had to throw together a makeshift Thanksgiving dinner of steak, roasted potatoes, corn, and cookies. (Cookies ALWAYS make it on the list!)
So 3 days before Thanksgiving....that is a record of preparation for me....and I am standing in the grocery store with Jacob looking for a turkey. We find chicken...we find steak...we find porkchops....we find hamburger.....no turkey! When we finally get to almost the end of the aisles....we find a freezer with turkeys...yay!!
I tell Jacob to open the freezer door and pull out the smallest turkey that is sitting by the door....there are only 3 of us after all....which he does and hands it to me. I realize the turkey is prestuffed as are the other 2 smaller turkeys. Looking back at the freezer I realize that the next smallest turkey would feed an army of 20 so I decide to take the prestuffed one.
As I am getting ready to put it in the cart....I see the price....$52.00!!!! You heard me right....$52.00!
Now I REALLY love turkey and did the math on how much it would cost us per meal...figuring in the sandwiches that follow the next couple of days (I REALLY LOVE THE LEFTOVER TURKEY SANDWICHES!!!) but even I cannot justify a $52.00 turkey. So back in the freezer it goes and we slump our way back to the meat section to pick out some steaks for dinner. What are you going to do?
Now all I have to do is convince Angie, Julie, and Tim that chicken with rice and beans is a totally cool Christmas meal!
Maybe those $52.00 turkeys will be on sale on Black Friday.....wouldn't that be nice??
I'm not one to plan for the Thanksgiving meal...always been a last minute girl with all the turkey arobics in the kitchen sink to loosen its frozen legs....so why change my MO for this year? Big Mistake! Because if I had been paying attention, I would not have had to throw together a makeshift Thanksgiving dinner of steak, roasted potatoes, corn, and cookies. (Cookies ALWAYS make it on the list!)
So 3 days before Thanksgiving....that is a record of preparation for me....and I am standing in the grocery store with Jacob looking for a turkey. We find chicken...we find steak...we find porkchops....we find hamburger.....no turkey! When we finally get to almost the end of the aisles....we find a freezer with turkeys...yay!!
I tell Jacob to open the freezer door and pull out the smallest turkey that is sitting by the door....there are only 3 of us after all....which he does and hands it to me. I realize the turkey is prestuffed as are the other 2 smaller turkeys. Looking back at the freezer I realize that the next smallest turkey would feed an army of 20 so I decide to take the prestuffed one.
As I am getting ready to put it in the cart....I see the price....$52.00!!!! You heard me right....$52.00!
Now I REALLY love turkey and did the math on how much it would cost us per meal...figuring in the sandwiches that follow the next couple of days (I REALLY LOVE THE LEFTOVER TURKEY SANDWICHES!!!) but even I cannot justify a $52.00 turkey. So back in the freezer it goes and we slump our way back to the meat section to pick out some steaks for dinner. What are you going to do?
Now all I have to do is convince Angie, Julie, and Tim that chicken with rice and beans is a totally cool Christmas meal!
Maybe those $52.00 turkeys will be on sale on Black Friday.....wouldn't that be nice??
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Do You Know How To Use Your Cellphone?
After having lived in Costa Rica for almost 5 months, I am still trying to figure out how things work and why Costa Ricans look at some things the way they do. Case in point.....the unconscious man face down in a parking lot with a bicycle on top of him. I am going to guess from the confused looks on your faces that you have no idea what I am talking about so I will start from the beginning and explain......
Jake and I went to the grocery store today and saw that Harry Potter was actually at the movie theaters. We were pleasantly surprised because Twilight didn't come out in Costa Rica until 2 weeks after it did in the United States. Of course the theater by our house only shows movies in Spanish so we made the trip to the mall in Escazu to see it in English.
SIDE BAR: The movie was really good....can't wait for the 2nd part to come out next July!
Anyway....we were walking to the bus stop by the mall....even though there were no buses because it was after 11pm....to catch a taxi since the bus stop is right along the autopista (Interstate). As we are walking to the bus stop, we look through the gates and see a taxi driver and about 5 men just parked there. Then we look past the taxi and see someone face down, on the exit ramp of the parking garage, with his bicycle on top of him and he is not moving.
Jake and I go back to the gate we just passed and I go to the man while Jake runs looking for one of the security guards on motorcycles. It turns out that the men with the taxi driver are actually security guards for the mall and the man face down is actually a security guard himself.
Now this is where Jake's much improved Spanish would be handy but remember...he is looking for security. So I am at the mercy of my greatly improving but still not quite there Spanish to English translations.
I ask if anyone has called the police and they say no. So I offer my phone, which one of the guards takes, and they call the police. Of course 5 minutes later I am going to realized that at least 3 of them have phones on them.....not quite sure why no one thought to use them!
Now it is a waiting game....and the man is unconscious and not moving. It took the ambulance almost 20 minutes to get to us and the man was unconscious the whole time, plus however long he had been unconscious when we found him. The paramedics finally arrive. They roll the man over, stabilize his neck and then the man starts to move his legs....thank goodness!! Of course he never opened his eyes. At this point, our taxi arrives....which had been called for by one of the security guards....and we get in the taxi and go home.
The strangest part of the whole experience was the fact that the other security guards just stood around talking, waiting for the ambulance to arrive, while their co worker laid on the ground, unconscious, face down, not moving, and barely breathing.
The only explanation I have for this nonchallant attitude is the fact that they are desensitized to things like this because of the media. One of the very strange things we have learned since we moved here is that they don't sugar coat anything on television. When they had the terrible floods and mudslides a couple of weeks ago.....if they found a body in the mud.....you saw it pulled out on tv. They don't try to hide anything from you...if someone has been shot in the middle of the road....you are going to see it....blood and all!
As I'm riding back to my house, all I could think of was how differently Jake and I responded to the scene compared to the other security guards and it made me wonder if we were looking at two different scenes because I don't think they saw what I saw!
Jake and I went to the grocery store today and saw that Harry Potter was actually at the movie theaters. We were pleasantly surprised because Twilight didn't come out in Costa Rica until 2 weeks after it did in the United States. Of course the theater by our house only shows movies in Spanish so we made the trip to the mall in Escazu to see it in English.
SIDE BAR: The movie was really good....can't wait for the 2nd part to come out next July!
Anyway....we were walking to the bus stop by the mall....even though there were no buses because it was after 11pm....to catch a taxi since the bus stop is right along the autopista (Interstate). As we are walking to the bus stop, we look through the gates and see a taxi driver and about 5 men just parked there. Then we look past the taxi and see someone face down, on the exit ramp of the parking garage, with his bicycle on top of him and he is not moving.
Jake and I go back to the gate we just passed and I go to the man while Jake runs looking for one of the security guards on motorcycles. It turns out that the men with the taxi driver are actually security guards for the mall and the man face down is actually a security guard himself.
Now this is where Jake's much improved Spanish would be handy but remember...he is looking for security. So I am at the mercy of my greatly improving but still not quite there Spanish to English translations.
I ask if anyone has called the police and they say no. So I offer my phone, which one of the guards takes, and they call the police. Of course 5 minutes later I am going to realized that at least 3 of them have phones on them.....not quite sure why no one thought to use them!
Now it is a waiting game....and the man is unconscious and not moving. It took the ambulance almost 20 minutes to get to us and the man was unconscious the whole time, plus however long he had been unconscious when we found him. The paramedics finally arrive. They roll the man over, stabilize his neck and then the man starts to move his legs....thank goodness!! Of course he never opened his eyes. At this point, our taxi arrives....which had been called for by one of the security guards....and we get in the taxi and go home.
The strangest part of the whole experience was the fact that the other security guards just stood around talking, waiting for the ambulance to arrive, while their co worker laid on the ground, unconscious, face down, not moving, and barely breathing.
The only explanation I have for this nonchallant attitude is the fact that they are desensitized to things like this because of the media. One of the very strange things we have learned since we moved here is that they don't sugar coat anything on television. When they had the terrible floods and mudslides a couple of weeks ago.....if they found a body in the mud.....you saw it pulled out on tv. They don't try to hide anything from you...if someone has been shot in the middle of the road....you are going to see it....blood and all!
As I'm riding back to my house, all I could think of was how differently Jake and I responded to the scene compared to the other security guards and it made me wonder if we were looking at two different scenes because I don't think they saw what I saw!
Friday, November 19, 2010
I Need My Chinese Visa Please!
Well, we went to the Chinese Embassy today to pick up our Visa's so we can fly to China the end of December, and I have to say....the girl seemed much nicer this time!
We only had to make 4 trips to the Embassy to complete the process, but I noticed that each time we went...she got a little less friendly.
Now maybe it was because she is living in Costa Rica, working in a Chinese Embassy and must speak both Chinese and Spanish to do so. And maybe it is a little annoying to have to actually know English too, in order to deal with those Crazy Americans who apparently CAN'T DECIDE where they want to live! But it is her job after all....:-)
I am happy to report that the Visa's were ready, and it only took us about 3 minutes to pick them up....and she was very friendly when she saw us this last time and actually greeted us with a smile and a cheery 'hello'!
Of course I can't help but think....was she really excited because she knew it would be the last time she ever saw us???
We only had to make 4 trips to the Embassy to complete the process, but I noticed that each time we went...she got a little less friendly.
Now maybe it was because she is living in Costa Rica, working in a Chinese Embassy and must speak both Chinese and Spanish to do so. And maybe it is a little annoying to have to actually know English too, in order to deal with those Crazy Americans who apparently CAN'T DECIDE where they want to live! But it is her job after all....:-)
I am happy to report that the Visa's were ready, and it only took us about 3 minutes to pick them up....and she was very friendly when she saw us this last time and actually greeted us with a smile and a cheery 'hello'!
Of course I can't help but think....was she really excited because she knew it would be the last time she ever saw us???
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Where Have You Been?
Okay...maybe that should say where have I been but you get the gist of it! A lot of things have happened since I last wrote something on this blog....where should I start??????
Let's see.....Jake auditioned for a part in a play and got it and somehow or the other I ended up with a part in the play too! I played the mother, Madame LaEspanye and Jacob played the Bank teller, LeBon, who is accused of killing me and my daughter. The play was "Murders at the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allen Poe and it played over Halloween weekend. It actually turned out to be a lot of fun!!
Let's see, what else???? Oh yeah, a man from England targeted us as a scam possibility but was unaware who he was dealing with. We spotted the scam quickly and tipped off the Fraud Department in England about the situation. I had a lot of information to give them including email addresses, regular addresses, and phone numbers that actually worked...I know this because I called the man and talked to him in person; hopefully they are able to do something about him. If a man named Dr. Kaito contacts you about an English teaching job in England for his Japanese family....contact the fraud department!
Then what.....Oh the big news! I have been offered, and accepted, a job teaching English to children between the ages of 3 and 10 in a language school in.....China! You heard me right....China! We will be flying to Beijing on the 30th of December where I will go through between 1 and 3 weeks of training on the schools program before our family is sent to the Anhui Province (pronounced on-wee), west of Shanghai, to the town of Hefei(pronounced hef-aye). We are provided with free furnished housing, and the school will do the paperwork for our residency, since you are required to apply for residency, by the Chinese government, if you plan on being there a while. This will prevent any need for Visa extensions and will allow us to travel freely around the country.
As I was writing this I realized that we will be leaving Costa Rica on December 30th exactly 6 months from when we arrived....how weird is that? We left the USA for Costa Rica on June 30th....strange. We will be in China for at least a year, the length of my contract, and possibly longer if we like it and my contract is extended.
So if any of my friends are wanting a guided tour of the Great Wall of China....give us a little time and we will be ready for your visit!
In a nut shell that caught you up on our lives so......what's new with you??
Let's see.....Jake auditioned for a part in a play and got it and somehow or the other I ended up with a part in the play too! I played the mother, Madame LaEspanye and Jacob played the Bank teller, LeBon, who is accused of killing me and my daughter. The play was "Murders at the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allen Poe and it played over Halloween weekend. It actually turned out to be a lot of fun!!
Let's see, what else???? Oh yeah, a man from England targeted us as a scam possibility but was unaware who he was dealing with. We spotted the scam quickly and tipped off the Fraud Department in England about the situation. I had a lot of information to give them including email addresses, regular addresses, and phone numbers that actually worked...I know this because I called the man and talked to him in person; hopefully they are able to do something about him. If a man named Dr. Kaito contacts you about an English teaching job in England for his Japanese family....contact the fraud department!
Then what.....Oh the big news! I have been offered, and accepted, a job teaching English to children between the ages of 3 and 10 in a language school in.....China! You heard me right....China! We will be flying to Beijing on the 30th of December where I will go through between 1 and 3 weeks of training on the schools program before our family is sent to the Anhui Province (pronounced on-wee), west of Shanghai, to the town of Hefei(pronounced hef-aye). We are provided with free furnished housing, and the school will do the paperwork for our residency, since you are required to apply for residency, by the Chinese government, if you plan on being there a while. This will prevent any need for Visa extensions and will allow us to travel freely around the country.
As I was writing this I realized that we will be leaving Costa Rica on December 30th exactly 6 months from when we arrived....how weird is that? We left the USA for Costa Rica on June 30th....strange. We will be in China for at least a year, the length of my contract, and possibly longer if we like it and my contract is extended.
So if any of my friends are wanting a guided tour of the Great Wall of China....give us a little time and we will be ready for your visit!
In a nut shell that caught you up on our lives so......what's new with you??
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