Day 47 - Saturday Afternoon

Saturday Afternoon

After I got home from doing basically nothing Saturday morning, I sat down for a nice lunch of leftover chicken and a fresh sonso bought from Teconté.  Sonso is a very Bolivian dish.  I don’t know if it has made its way to other countries or is Latin American, but I only know it from Bolivia.

Picture from Waykunachef

Sonso is a mixture of pureed yucca with a country cheese.  It can be baked in the oven or wrapped around a stick and cooked over an open fire.  It is one of those amazingly simple, but delicious, dishes that once you discover it you crave it.  In researching it, I found out that people have written love songs to it.  Yes, it is that good.

I had a lot to do around the house, and a lot of lesson plans to complete.  I decided the best way was to mix it up.  Do a little of one then more of the other.  That way I wouldn’t get tired and decide to take an all afternoon nap. 

Before I left for my rounds this morning I put my jeans on to wash.  Like I said in my last blog, today is windy.  The winds that come after a surazo are not gentle spring breezes, but strong enough to blow a picture off the wall or the sheets off the bed.  I’m not kidding.  Both have happened at my house.  With these fierce winds, I knew I could hang my jeans in the window and they’d be dry in a few hours.  I hung them up to dry at noon.  Now at 3:30 they are dry.  That won’t happen once the rainy season begins. 

I spent about an hour working out a few things I could do in all three of my classes, 9^th, 10^th, and 12^th grades of literature.  I will probably do the first day of each class pretty much the same.  I have both a poem I want to introduce, “The Road Not Taken,” by Robert Frost, and an essay about themselves.  The essay is so I can get to know them a bit better.

I finally shut my windows around 4:00 because I felt like I was in a wind tunnel and everything was blowing.  It is around 90 degrees outside and most of the week should be around 90 also.  Yes, it is winter, but I am in the tropics.

I spent most of the rest of the afternoon making lesson plans for my 10^th grade class.  We will begin the year reading Fahrenheit 451.  The class is speech and composition, so I need to include both in any unit I will be teaching.  I also worked on Shakespeare.  At the SCCLC, we teach Shakespeare every year from grades 7 to 12.  Since this is my first year at the school, there will be a few things I will teach to all of my classes.  I get to teach Romeo and Juliet to grade 9 and Hamlet to grade 12.  Without a doubt, these are my two favorite Shakespeare plays.

During the afternoon, I talked to my friend and former student, Josh, who is creating my book cover.  The progress looks awesome.  I can’t wait to see my finished work.

I ended my day making some pasta for dinner with leftover chicken.

I hope your Saturday was great.