i love

my students. they are just simply awesome.  i've taught these kids a lot the past months... they are crazy, and they bring out the crazy in me. they are in advanced 4 now... not much more to go! next month someone else gets the joy of hanging out with them learning English for an hour and a half. im a little jealous. but... i will get new students to tell you stories about :)

they posed

so did they, carlos likes to be cheesy

martin definitely posed. hes happier than he looks, i promise.

advanced 4 quote of the day:

context: students are searching for meanings in both english and spanish.. racing even though i told them it wasnt a race.. students looking in the one dictionary.. and asking me questions left and right about meanings.. the asking me to repeat the word in spanish for MY practice in pronunciation. haha

martin: Julie!! arrg...

me: are you speaking pirate right now?

everyone: hahahahahah

martin: wait.. what? no.. arrrg

me: seriously, you arent speaking english or spanish right now martin

 a-r-g aka pirate language

everyone: random laughter.. random pirate noises

martin: a...r...g...u...e.... arrrrggggue

everyone: hahahahahahahahaha

advanced 7:15 pm... i will miss you.

esperar en ti

breakfast

i have been more in the mood for breakfast lately...

actually, almost every morning is an orange juice morning. but lately i have been visiting the sandwich lady too. nearly every morning i walk about a block away from SALI where i find the familiar face of a woman that knows my orange juice order... so when she sees me coming  she pulls out a bolsita (little bag) and starts measuring out some fresh squeezed orange juice. this lady must have some hardcore arm muscles for as many juices she squeezes each day.  one day i shook up our relationship a little bit... and what? drank the juice there. i always get my juice to go.. and take it back to SALI to drink. but its more common for someone to stand there with her and drink down the vitamin C before they head off to their next stop. that day i decided that i would reach for a little conversation. i thought today is the day... today im in. ... well our conversation didnt go very far... she was more interested in just selling me juice and moving on with her day... but theres hope, i see hope in her smiles each day :) 

next the breakfast sandwich lady. this i would say is best described as breakfast, fast food style. 

again about a block, but from where i live, theres a lady each morning with different kinds of sandwiches.. filled with avocado.. egg.. sweet potato... tortilla (like an omelette) ... for 50 centimos i can get a filling start on my day. i like to imagine that her smile when she sees me is more over the fact that i always order the same thing... and not the fact that i am the only female getting a sandwich from her... yeah... 

chicken salad...

...is best made with 6 ever so skeptical advanced 4 students. 

i wish you could have heard the groans coming from each of them when they saw the combination of chicken... nuts... mayo ... and what? piña??? actually, it quite remarkedly resembled the tone in their voices when i assign them homework. today they are slaving away at a reading exam.. i can just see the determination in their faces to finish and begin their weekend. this class is finishing our regular cycle of english classes this month. next month they will begin the rotation of TOEFL classes. four months of preparation for an exam that if passed will officially declare them as fluent English speakers. they are almost finished! im excited for them... its always so fun to see students working and studying and see them in class day after day...cycle after cycle (hopefully) ...to start friendships with them and watch the ways they grow not only in their English but also in life in general. 

i thought it necessary to include this second picture.. just because it really looks like leilan is about to stick her fork into the unsuspecting martin. hehe
and by the way.. mom... thanks for the recipe :) jiji

it works out better when you have a recipe. ...and also... they completely scarfed down the chicken salad. guess the mayo pineapple chicken combo wasnt such a bad idea after all. 

feliz dia de mama

Crea en mi un corazon

limpio, oh Dios,

Y un espiritu recto en mi

No me eches de tu presencia, Senor

Ni quites tu Espiritu de mi.

Vuelveme el gozo de tu salvacion

Y un espiritu recto en mi

Y un espiritu recto en mi

Salmo 51:10-12

Maybe one sign that my Spanish is improving is that i am starting to get songs in spanish stuck in my head...and not just the music... the words! im going to take it as a sign of improvement. we sang this song yesterday morning in church. and it has been in my head since.  one of the perks of helping out the choir, is that i have the opportunity to go back and look at the words of a song if its been stuck in my head :)

yesterday was a fun day... not only was it mother's day.. (happy mothers day mommas!) but it was also the anniversary of the Larco church. so for those two occasions we had some specials after the usual service. it was fun to see the kids get up and sing and dance? or follow along to choreographed music. i think my favorite part those was little fernando.. i have no idea what he said... the cells in my brain were to busy enjoying watching him eat the microphone to try to translate his spanish in my head. he was adorable. another reason i should seriously consider buying a fanny pack specifically for keeping my camera on my person at all times. you just never know when you are going to want your camera! 

also... you know that you are no longer a vegetarian when... you are not only eating the chicken when people around you happen to order it, or its the only thing available.. but you crave for one week then continue to prepare your own dish centered around chicken. its true. ive been craving my moms chicken salad... like all week. which is funny considering how many years it must be since i have actually tasted it. just goes to show how long good things stick with you. mom, your chicken salad left suck an impression on me that the taste stuck with me for more than 7 years :) so last night i tried to duplicate it. without recipe mind you. it was okay... i probably left out some key ingredient. not the same... probably due to many factors. i havent eaten it in years, im basing the recipe off my memory which we all know sucks, and im in a different country where the ingredients are different. i think the mayo may have changed it.. the mayonnaise here is made with lime. which if the case, would be the first time for me that the mayo here didnt improve things. it was just the mixture of lime mayo and pineapple though i think.  Happy Mother's Day mom, your notreallyavegetariananymore daughter was thinking of you and your chicken salad on mothers day :) i love you!

seeing friends...

makes me miss some of the other ones.

there is a group here in Peru for a couple of weeks from Anderson, my town! My university at least. It is the group that I came to Peru with in 2007, when I first fell in love with the country. 

Its really great to see a few faces that I know, especially John, our RUF minister. Just like any other RUF member at Anderson, I spent a great deal of time with John, he knows me prettty well. :) Its really great to have them here!

Seeing the group and familiar faces... made me miss a few other faces that I haven't seen in a while....

Lezlee... hehe

Chilo!! 

...and Noe :)

pizzas and diplomas

pizza!!!! every tuesday night the papa john's and the pizza hut here run specials for delivery customers... if you buy one pizza you can have a second for one sol.. a sol is our currency, about three of them more or less make up a dollar. 

many of my students are quite familiar with the world of pizza... but Bania had actually never experienced pizza before! I had her in my class.... sometime last year maybe November, when i first learned this and we spent too much time since then trying to figure out a time to get her to try out the food that we are so used to. in case you lost count... that was november... this is may. finally we found a time to spend together eating pizza. and, well shes a fan. so much so that in class today during a magazine activity she was drawn to the pizza section. 

it was a lot of fun, ordering in pizza, making peanut butter cookies, popping popcorn and just in general watching the interaction and personalities of my students outside the classroom.  here's a picture of the majority of us. 

Also.. at the end of April.. we had a graduation!!! I am very excited to share this news with you. Since coming to SALI in August, this class, although it changed so much with additions and subtractions along the way, has been very special to me. I was their teacher off and on, but more often than not, since I came to Peru. Often times they were my sanity at the end of a day. Our class began at 7:15 and ended at 8:45. For a while, the class that I had right before them... tested my limits to say the least, and this class was always there to remind me how to have fun during class. They studied very hard, each of them, and are now ready to take the TOEFL exam. That exam gives them credibility for knowing the English language, for visas or universities in the US or wherever their new skill takes them.