Kicking off the year

So we're off and running for school year number 3. This year has come on quickly, it seems like the summer flew by. We started the school year on August 11 and we're already six weeks into it.
I'm teaching the same courses that I taught for the last two years. I still even have the same sweet schedule. I have all four class periods in the morning, when I have most of my energy. If you don't know, I am most def a morning person. I am way more productive between the hours of 6 am and 12 pm then I am afterwords. Then in the afternoon I have only one class. Love it.
So far this year has been going really well. I started to make note-taking sheets for every class to hand out to the students and it has really seemed to help. So far all the grades are up for the year and I can tell a difference in the students confidence in class. So that is awesome! Of course I can't take the credit for that, one of the things that I have been praying for all summer and this school year is for the Lord to use me to be a better teacher. So far, prayers have been answered.
So that's school.
This is my third year at NCA and my contract is up after this year. It seems like everyone I talk to asks me, "What are you going to do after this school year?" That's a great question. I don' t have any idea yet. I have a few ideas rolling around in my head, but nothing that I have been able to nail down and say, "That's it!" At the same time I don't want to keep my focus solely on something that is months away, I need to keep focused on what I am doing now. So I'll continue to pray that the Lord gives me direction for my life after this school year. So if you're praying with me, that would be something that you could pray about.
This year I am living with a Nicaraguan family. I did this for two reasons; first, I wanted to improve my spanish, and secondly I wanted to learn more about the Nicaraguan culture. Both have improved so far. I can tell my spanish is getting better all the time and I am most def learning more about the ins and outs of Nicaraguan culture. So this has been a blessing in my life.
Those are some general things.
What's been going on lately...well, last weekend was the Independence Celebration for Central America. Our school puts on a festival every year for indepedence day. Each grade in the high school has a period in Nicaraguan history that they are responsible to represent. They make huts and do plays/skits reenacting that time period in Nicaraguan history. The grade school kids come around and get to see all the different stations and judges come around and grade how each class has done. Afterwords there is a dancing portion to the day. Each grade does a traditional Nicaraguan dance and then the teachers do a typical Nicaraguan dance. Of course, all the students line up to see all their teachers try and do a traditional Nicaraguan dance. First of all, most of the teachers have little to no dance experience. Secondly, I'm pretty sure that none of us have any formal dance training so doing a choreographed dance together is just not going to happen right. So needless to say, we stunk up the joint but we stunk it up to roaring applause, so it was fun. Afterwords there is a feast of typical Nicaraguan food, so we just hang out for a while and eat some grub.
After the festival I went to San Juan del Sur for a few days, since we had a couple holidays. It was great to just get a chance to relax for a few days. I had been running pretty hard for the first six weeks of school. The break came at the perfect time. I most def needed a couple days off.
Nos vemos,
j