Honduras

I am worried about my Honduran blogger friends... is everyone ok??

It's worth a shot

Dear readers, if any of you have legal contacts in El Salvador please email me privately ASAP. I have some important questions to ask. Thank you.

One of these days...

One of these days, we'll get it right.
We'll get it together
Together
And find strength and peace
In our years
Of sacrifice
And faith.
And together we'll prove the world wrong
And laugh in the face of this seemingly insurmountable difficulty.

We will survive this
Although today it may not seem so.
Although today we cry and scream
And tear our hair out
Because of the pain
Because of the fear
Because somehow, for some reason, it is always a terrible surprise
When we take our three... four... five steps back.
A surprise that steals your breath
And leaves you asking
Why, why, why?
Why now?
Why us?
Why this?

Craziness!

So, after all of that chaos, I ended up having something called Fifth Disease, a harmless (yet uncomfortable) childhood illness which I probably got from subbing. I'd never even heard of it before! I wasn't really sure that it was really what I had until La Hija came down with it the week before her birthday. The rash looked so horrible on her, but it really didn't seem to bother her. It was odd though, because she didn't get the rash until a week after she'd had the fever, while my fever broke and the next day I had the rash. Both of us got over the rash pretty quickly.

Mi Amor got a new job welding on a boat. He is at sea for long periods of time (we're talking months here) so it is extremely hard not talking to him frequently. I've been tossing around the idea of going to El Salvador again sooner rather than later because I am having such a hard time adjusting, but it's something we need to have a talk about. There's so much I'd need to consider.

I've been subbing a lot lately but that work is going to dry up soon so I've been applying for new jobs daily. I'm keeping the faith that something will come along... things always work out.

We had a Chuck E. Cheese b-day party for La Hija and she loved it. It's so amazing to me that she's 3 already. How time flies.

An update

Where to begin... I've been trying to sort out some health issues as of late. I've been catching every little bug around, it seems, and it'd started to become worrisome. I went to the doctor and got a few tests done, and everything looks good. We're attributing it to stress and depression and starting treatment for that.

Monday I ended up in the ER because I'd been running a fever over 103 degrees, my head was killing me and my body was so sore it hurt to move. After a gamut of blood tests, a CAT scan, and a spinal tap, they decided whatever I have is viral and isn't going to kill me, so I've just got to wait it out. I'm still running a fever, but I can keep it down by piggy-backing acetaminophen and ibuprofen. The only real problems at this point are keeping up with the meds to keep away the fever/pain, the cold sweat that comes along with breaking the fever, and the fact that I can't work... again.

I have to take my MI teacher certification test this Saturday. It's just the basic skills test so it shouldn't be a big deal.

Time to get some more rest.

Holding up and holding on

Well, a lot has happened in the past few weeks. First I got sick. Really, really sick. Sicker than sick. More sick than I'd been in I don't know how long. We are still unsure if it was food poisoning or the flu, since my mom ended up sick 5 days later (a bit long for a flu transfer, don't you think?) and La Hija never got sick at all. The day after the night of the worst of it, I had to go to a meeting so I could begin subbing. That was a treat. Nothing like being nauseated during a 2 hour meeting with an auditorium full of people!! It was worth it though, since I finally got everything in order and began subbing last week! I also had my, first classroom observation experience, which was really interesting. It was much more exhausting than I'd imagined. Basically, it was like sitting in a lecture for 5 hours, because I was having to analyze and take notes the entire time.

I taught kindergarten yesterday and am actually physically sore! Whodathunkit??

I had one student who was most likely autistic, but it was never verified to me. We had a hard time at first because he couldn't deal with any sort of change in routine and was really acting out with me and the other students. I tried to talk with him and was incredibly patient when he needed to say things over and over again or when he got frustrated because he couldn't do something. Honestly, it reminded me of my daughter's "I wanna do it myself!" toddler behavior, but it was taking place in a 6 year old. I spent a lot of time defusing issues between him and the other children. It was rough.

At the end of class (this was AM kindergarten), he refused to do his work and was sitting in a chair away from the other students looking very mopey. I asked him what was wrong, and he said, "I am just sad because I'm gonna miss you. You were very kind to me and most people are mean. I want you to go home with me!" and he started crying. I ran up to me and gave me this huge bear hug (he was strong!!) and cried and kept telling me how sad he was and asking when I could come back.

It was an emotional day.

In other news, business went really went over election weekend. Mi Amor tells me that our family is thrilled at the FMLN victory. Mi Amor was of the opinion that he didn't care as long as he made some money that weekend!

Much on my mind

School is taking up a lot of my time these days. I forgot how much they can pack on the work and, of course, I'm a perfectionist, so assignments take me forever.

We drove down to Indiana this week for an interview at school. Evidently, I have some masochistic students and I am one of the nominees for adjunct instructor of the year. Between the prep work (an essay) I had to do for that, school work, and two days of driving, I was more than exhausted by the end of the week. I am going to try to get some sleep tonight. My stress level is a bit too high at present.

La Hija has been so testy lately. She gets angry and yells, "I miss my Daddy!!"

On one level, I know that she is pushing buttons because she does the same thing with just about everyone (Nuh-nuh, Papa, her aunts and uncles, grandma, grandpa... just about anyone who is not present. Heck, she will even tell me that she misses her mommy--and then she catches herself and laughs), but I also know there is truth to that.

I had hoped we could go back by May, but my aunt is getting married this summer and I need to be there, so it's looking like August now. I can't afford to be flying back and forth, pretending it doesn't cost ridiculous amounts of money.

I miss Mi Amor as well. We talk almost daily, but I miss his hugs. I miss kidding with him and laughing and seeing his smile. I miss watching him with his daughter. I miss helping him with the business.

Speaking of that, things are getting better, very slowly. He is making about half of what he needs to be making in order to support us. He says the economy is even worse there right now--which is something I can't even imagine. It doesn't surprise me though--they are dollarized. Their economy hinges on ours.

I have been thinking so much about starting up a business, but I have no idea how to begin learning about such things. I will need to learn about creating a business plan and all of those basics, and then I would need to figure out how to finance such a venture--even though it would take far less money to pull it off in El Salvador than it would elsewhere.

I'll put it on the list of things to do while I'm here.