Day 23 & 24

It seems that with each new week I feel like I am starting over.  I am coming off of a very busy weekend where I have been surrounded by newly made friends for the whole weekend.  These friends had been in a different language school than I and I decided to move over to their school for the new week only to have them decide to leave in order to go celebrate the New Year at Lake Atitlan.  So here I am at my new school and staying at the connected hostel for the week.  The biggest plus is that my teacher is fantastic!  However, I am not walking into the family feeling I initially felt being here and am spending the majority of my free time on my own.

Also, I am now responsible for my meals.  However, missing out on breakfast is fine by me so Monday morning I woke in just enough time to start with my teacher at 8am.  After class, Fiona, one of the other students shared the soup she had made with me, and I didn't even end up leaving the school/hostel until 6pm or so in order to eat dinner.  It was a nice little respite from the bustling outside world and I was able to do laundry and catch up with some people via Skype and Viber.

Tuesday was also good with my teacher.  He is good about finding out the things I talk about so he can build up my vocabulary surrounding those topics.  It's interesting to get the different perspectives of the teachers.  For instance, my first teacher in Antigua thought that the government stepping in and saying that physical discipline of your children is illegal was creating more rebellious adolescents with more problems.  However, this teacher had more of the perspective that the government should do more and that physical discipline is unnecessary.  It is also interesting having a male perspective as opposed to my last teachers who talked a lot about the machismo attitude of the country that creates lazy males in the country.  However, this male teacher appears to be the opposite of what they talked about and appears to be hard working and loves his job.

After class I walked to the giant cemetery and walked around.  Usually I love cemeteries!  This one was definitely interesting but after some time walking in it, I really just wanted to get out.  I have never before felt such a strong feeling of death and decay in a cemetery before.  Perhaps I am just outgrowing my interest in them or the fact that there was so much trash and lack of care in this one that kind of just made me cringe.

Afterwards, I found the cafe that had been recommended when I initially came to Xela.  It was neatly decorated with a kind of museum type feeling to it.  I ran into the mother/daughter pair from my last school and sat with them while studying and eating a salad for my lunch before heading back to the hostel to have my weekly Skype bookclub chat.  During this call, I realized that perhaps I have not cooked or done grocery shopping for myself since leaving my apartment in Chicago back in May.  At the call's conclusion I headed to the grocery store and used the hostel kitchen to make myself some dinner.  Seems as though the homestay option is a better price after the amount of money I spent at the store, but it's also nice to be on my own terms for a change.