Japi Tichers Dey Brayan

Today, Peruvians celebrate Día de Profesores, so naturally Santa Maria held a mass in the morning to help commemorate the occasion. The teachers received a half day last Friday and a free lunch in a very nice restaurant overlooking the ocean. (really, I don't think the students should benefit from teacher's day by getting a half day, but whatever, half days are just as fun for the teachers). We also received a small diploma from the senior class in appreciation for all of our work.

After Mass I walked into my classroom and found this phrase - Japi Tichers Dey Brayan - on my whiteboard.

If you pronounce the phrase using your best Spanish skills you will say, Happy Teacher's Day Brian. Obviously, it was a joke, possibly funnier to Spanish speaking people... but, if you laughed then great. More importantly, someone also wrote on my board, "I love Brian's class." and just like teenagers do, another student erased the 'c' and the 'l' in the word, class. Luckily, I could still see the remnants of the c and l on the board so the initial shock soon subsided when I looked more closely at the sentence. We all got a good laugh from it.

In other news:
- I'll be returning home in 3 weeks! 2 week vacation before I have to come back to South America.

- Happy Fourth of July!

- My voice cracked today in class, twice. The students erupted in laughter after they heard it, but, I played it cool, took a drink of water, and said, "Puberty is a bitch, what can I say?"

- Last Saturday I received several phone calls on my Nextel cell phone from teachers at Santa Maria. They were calling me to tell me Happy Birthday, but, there was one problem - it wasn't my birthday. Apparently, there was a misprint in the Teacher's birthday list!

- For the first time ever, I watched a movie only in Spanish... no subtitles - it was UP, by Pixar. Good movie. Then last night I went to see Ice Age 3... all in Spanish. I understood most of it, but there were some times that I had to turn to Lucia and say, "¿Qué?". It is something I am proud of ... that I can sit through a whole movie in another language and understand almost all of it. And yes, I'm sticking to the animated movies for now, anything more complicated would confuse me.

- Good luck to all my friends that are going to Guatemala this month. I really miss that place and am saddened that I couldn't go this year. I highly recommend going... what an incredible experience.

- More updates coming soon! I love all of you.

-Brian James