Self confidence is the most attractive quality a person can have. how can anyone see how awesome you are if you cannot™t see it yourself?

Uknown

Ok everybody,  I have to say it, I'm freaking awesome!!!!   Just finished the TEFL program.  I am not sure where or when I will ever use it, though I am planning on using it for sure.  I just can't believe that this program that I sarted clear back in November, whimped out, freaked out and dropped, I came back and finished it.  What a wonderful feeling of accomplishment! 

This experience has changed my life by totally changing my perspective.  It has changed how I feel about myself, how I look and feel about the world around me and what is truly important in life.  I have been blown away at the quality of the program, the people involved in it, administration through teachers.  And I have especially been blown away at the kids, yea they are kids, that came through the program with me.  They accepted me as a peer from the word go.  Even though I joined them two weeks into their program and  even though I am old enough to be some of their grandmas. (only one :)   Even David, who is 25, feels he has lived his life to the fullest, doesnt care if he dies today because he doesn't want to end up in a nursing home.  Ha ha.  I have made life long friends who I plan to keep in touch with no matter what.  I am learning another language, another culture, another life.  I will never be the same person because of this experience.  What is that saying, once your mind has been stretched, it will never fit back to where it was before.  Mine has been stretched in many, many ways.  All for the good!

Here is a picture of my last TEFL practical teaching class.  With Andrey, Karen and Yanixia.  Karen lives at home with her family.  She is still young.  Andrey is taking classes at the University to become an architect.  Yanixia is married with the cutest little one year old baby.  They were wonderful students.  I couldn't have been luckier than to be broken in by them.

 

And really, you have no idea how hard it is to post these blogs with these Spanish/English hybrid keyboards.  To get the @ sign, you have to sype 64 while holding down the Alt button.  Crazy!  So forgive any typos or weird characters because you never know what you are going to get.

 

Yesterday Caitlan and I went downtown San Jose to the artisan market.  It was very cool and they had some intersting stuff.  However, a true artisan market it was not, for the most part.  There were a few vendors who had handmade stuff but the majority of the products, while made in Costa Rica, were mass manufactured.  I did buy a cute bracelet and a little verde backpack.  I also bought a few other gifts.  

 

We had lunch at a great local restaraunt that I would highly reccomment.  It was called Nuestra Tierra.  Our Land.  Traditional tico food.  We had awesome octopus and shrimp civice and a platter which is shown below.  It had fried plantain, black beans, fried yucca, a pork dish (can't remember what it is called) chips, tortilla, corn on the cob (wierd) and the best pico de gallo  I have ever had.  All for $32.00, not each, total.  We had already eaten our fill when the picture was taken.

 

 

Right across from the restaraunt was the Costa Rica National Museum.  I will save touring it for another day but Caitlan told me it is pretty cool.  It used to be an old fort.  You can see huge bullet holes in the side of the castle like turret.

Took the bus back to Maximo and hung out awhile, then headed home.

 

 

 

Todays inspirational quote.

 

Our lives are the only meaningful expression of what we believe and in Whom we believe. And the only real wealth, for any of us, lies in our faith.
Gordon B. Hinckley

 

I have become wealthy finally.  Not in money but in my faith, my compassion and much more wealthy in my understanding of myself and the world.  I pray everyday that my life can become more and more an experssion of what I believe.  Others can choose to accept, believe, doubt, hunger, gripe, be thankful, whatever.  I am just happy that I have found more of my authentic self and am able to express that, however it is taken.  I will never again be under the yoke of someone elses, expectations, judgement, beliefs or values.

 

So happy to be me.  I'm freaking AWESOME!!!!!!

 

On my tour the other day I saw this White-nosed Caoti.  Took a cute little video of him.  Poor baby had to scratch those fleas.  They are a relative to our North American racoon.