As I walked through campus today...

I walked through campus today and made a comparison between CMIS and all the other schools where I've worked...and I realized I haven't done that in awhile. I read on-line that making chronic comparisons is part of acculturation and it's early in the process, we're almost 6 months in and I think I've finally moved to the next phase. Since my classroom is at the farthest end of campus, I make one trip a day to the main building to sign in and check my mailbox, during my trip today I took note of how many backpacks are left unattended outside the classrooms while the kids are in class. No one bothers these bags and I've never heard a teacher or student report that their stuff has gone missing. "It's so amazing", I thought, this is something that would NEVER happen in Chicago. Then my mind gets rolling...all my students leave their shoes in the shoe cabinet outside my classroom before class. Some kids are barefoot, and some wear socks, the entire time I'm teaching I'm not wearing shoes and I rarely wear socks here. No one EVER makes nasty comments about the condition of your socks or your feet and no shoes ever go missing. Again, this would not fly in Chicago.

Then, I realized that I haven't blogged in awhile...I think I'm getting so used to things here that I think I don't have anything to report!

But really...I do.

So I'm gonna go ahead and say it, I love it here.

I love our house, which feels more & more like our home. We have a compost up in the yard now and I'm excited to see how it progresses. We have outdoor seating space on our front porch, complete with a hammock. We have candles & good things to eat! This weekend we made Nutella dipped frozen bananas! Yum!

I love the weather during this season! The sun is shining 99% of the time and at night when the sun goes down, it gets cool. We can sleep with our windows open (or closed when it's gets a little too chilly.)

I love my job. The children are a delightful pleasure to teach. They're respectful, they're curious, they're incredibly diverse, they're innocent...

To celebrate my birthday this weekend we're going 3 hours north to a small town called Pai. I hear that the joke about Pai is how many turns you make on the winding mountain road to get there. Here's an interesting travel blog which claims there's 762 bends, we won't be taking the scooter, we'll be riding in a van! I'm excited to see yet another small corner of this beautiful country.

We've decided to take a "media fast" while we're there. No computers...no iphone, no facebook...so I'll see you on the flip side with more stories to share.