Another Week Down

It's a Boy!:
So, upon leaving the school earlier this week, my team leader had a surprise game for us to play.  As we rounded the corner, we ran smack-dab into a Superman piñata.  With each hit, out poured yummy Starburst candies, and eventually, a balloon.  This was not just any ordinary balloon.  (Coli can never quite be straight-forward with us.)  It was, in fact, a little blue balloon that said, "It's a Boy!"  Umm...who's pregnant?!  After we realized a piñata is probably not how she would tell us she's pregnant, we switched gears.  It turns out, we have a new teammate, and it's a boy! 

This could be very good for our team, given that we've been a team of 8 girls and 1 boy since partway through Catalina.  (Two of our male team members got voted off the island about half way through.)  So now, our token guy, Chris, has a buddy.  His name?  Kristopher.  Thankfully he goes by his full name.  We met him that night at dinner, but have yet to work with him.  He's waiting on his paperwork and fingerprints to go through before he's allowed at the school.  But we're all excited!  He was previously on an FMT team (Fire Management Team), but decided that the work wasn't for him.  All of the FMT team members just had their final fire drill test, and I guess he just decided it wasn't what he wanted to do. 

Introductions:
So, tonight we get to introduce him to the first grade teacher that I mentioned in my last post.  That's right, she's having the team over again for another dinner.  The crock-pot has been going all day, and she's dug up some old board games from when her boys were young.  It's not quite the wild night everyone was imagining for a Friday, but how can you turn down such a sweet lady?!

This is actually quite convenient, considering the food hall is being evacuated tonight.  Bug bombing again.  They also just re-bombed my building.  Scabies is persistent!

Life After Americorps:
My teammate, Lindsay, has fallen in love.  With a city.  With San Francisco to be exact.  She has fallen in love so much that she has already checked into apartments to rent in August, possible grad schools, jobs, and roommates.  Roommates...  I am one of those possible roommates.  My original plan for the year following Americorps was to teach abroad after spending about a month or so back home.  She is determined to delay that by about 9-12 months, though.  She has already found me some potential math tutoring jobs, education positions, and an affordable 2 bedroom apartment.  Hmm...  Haha.  We'll see how this goes.  Life changes so fast!

My Guitar:
This is a subject that I maybe don't want to get myself started on.  This is what happened:

About 2 weeks ago, my guitar dropped from the cubby that I keep it on. 

I frantically searched it over but found no cracks. 

The bug bombing happened, after which the rooms need to be ventilated.  Thus, the air temperature changes.

Wood expands and contracts.

Guitars crack open.

If you don't know me well, then you might not know how much this would upset me.  The night I saw the damage, and it's not minor, I looked up 3 guitar repair shops in town.  Upon calling them the next day at lunch, I realized how incredibly expensive fixing a guitar can be.  I can get a free price quote, and I will before I leave the convenience of having a project in Sacramento, but I can't do it yet.  I put my guitar in the closet so I wouldn't have to look at it.  Sometimes ignorance is bliss. 

On a lighter note, the teachers at the elementary school stepped right in to help.  They wrote out directions and drew maps to the nearest guitar shops, and one even offered to lend me her son's (since he doesn't play it much anymore) to hold me over.  I didn't take up their offers, but I was tempted to.  It's still playable and sounds ok right now, but I'm afraid to aggravate the wood futher. 

Last Night's Team Meeting:
At our team meeting last night, we all agreed that this project is going by SOOO much faster than our first one.  It's amazing how much more pleasant the days are, and we as team mates are, when we have a warm bed to come home to at night... complete with carpet and electricity.  Also, the days go by much faster when working with children, as opposed to hacking down weeds on the side of a mountain.  The majority of the team is a bit hesitant to find out what our next project is going to be.  We're afraid of another Catalina.  We all thought we'd be ready to leave the city by the time this spike is over...  Granted, we have a month left, but I really don't see us itching to leave the fun and comforts we have here when the time finally comes. 

I'm not sure if it's the project, or where I'm at personally, but I realized last night that Americorps is starting to mean something to me.  It's more than just a way to serve and travel.  Although I'm sure I haven't seen the depth of it, I can tell that I'm getting close to my team.  I'm also growing as a person, although my stubborn pride doesn't always want to admit it.  College and student-teaching did a lot for me as an individual, more than Americorps has done so far, but I can't completely disregard what has happened while I've been out here.  First of all, I've never not been able to get home easily.  Does that make sense?  When at college, I was only an hour's drive from home.  And when I was in Peru, I was never more than a month away from flying back to WI.  I'm realizing that this trip is definitely valuable to me as a stepping stone to some of my future teaching abroad plans. 

Oh, future plans...