Settling in to my new place

It's been almost a week of living with Cecilia and Herbert, but goodness it feels like it's been months (in a good way)!  I've settled in pretty well so far and, although it took me three days to do it, I am completely unpacked and ready to spend the next 5-6 months here!

Here are some photos of my new room and view:

My own little desk space

My (HUGE) closet!

MY OWN BATHROOM!

Some decorations I put up

More decorations

The view from my window

The view from the window in the hall

I was able to put up not only the photos and pictures I had up before, but thanks in large part to my Uncle Paul and Aunt Jackie (and their gift of sticky tak!) I was able to hang up my paintings as well--thank you so much you guys!

Now, I should tell you that the upstairs of the house is essentially just a hallway with 5 bedrooms coming off it; Cecilia and Herbert typically host a number of students at a time, but right now, I'm the only one.  So, one of the first things I did while unpacking was go around to all the other rooms and take their hangers out of their closets.  They weren't using them! If I ever DO get a house mate, I'll probably share some of my unused ones with her (I assume it would be a "her" because I'm not sure they would invite a guy to live with them while they already have a girl).  Anyway, I'll just have to cross that bridge when I get to it ;)

And I suppose I never did give good follow up, I DID make it home safe and sound the other day, and every day since.  Tomorrow, however, brings new journeys that I'm a little bit nervous about.  Tomorrow I get to spend my first day, kind of an interview day, I suppose, working with one of the other LAM/UWM missionary's kids.  She adopted her two boys a while ago, and is now homeschooling them (I think they're in middle school or early high school).  Through a somewhat random question from a third party, I got asked if I'd be interested in helping her out with the homeschooling, and it seemed like an interesting opportunity, so I said yes.  Tomorrow I have to get up and out early to catch a bus (I've never taken before) to go to her house (which I've never been to before) to meet her and her kids and to...do something.  I'm not entirely sure what I'll be doing exactly, but I guess I'll find out tomorrow!

In other news, I found out this past week that I'll be teaching an English class.  I was a bit shocked when I was told--I hadn't intended on teaching a class, but they figured I'd say yes and started planning on it. Apparently I'll have a co-teacher who is a student at a University now.  Now that I think about it, I'm not sure if the student is Costa Rican or American.  It sounded like it'd be another student who is studying abroad, but when Laura talked about it earlier (as a possibility for me to choose, I thought--not as a going-to-happen kind of thing) she said they usually pair a Costa Rican student studying English with an American so the Costa Rican can fill the need for proper grammar and the American can, you know, teach the language.  Of course, I don't think she realizes what I stickler I am for proper grammar, but I welcome any help I can get.  

I have never really taught anything before, and yet here I am accepting an invitation to help home-school kids, and now being in charge of teaching English as a second language. Hmm, is God trying to tell me something?  As of now I'm saying "I hope not!" But who knows, maybe this is a way to start up another passion in me.  I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

So to recap: the move went smoothly, and I'm liking my new living arrangements, I can get to work and back without problems, I'm pretty scared about taking the bus tomorrow (there are so many things that could go wrong just GETTING there, and then I have a whole day of doing...something. NOTE: This is an easy-target prayer request!), I'm going to be teaching English at Rahab, and I think that's about it.  Also, I feel like I've been updating a lot the past week or so, or maybe it just feels that way because there hasn't been much action going on since I got back and so I feel like I'm updating on nothing--or at least very little.

Anyway, I think that's about it for now, I'm sure by next week there will be almost too many things to update on, but for now I'm signing off.

Peace and Blessings,

Kiki