One week ago I had a week off from school. Now I have Thursday and Friday off! WOO! The holiday is April 11, but they're giving us Friday as well. Because hell, who wants to come back on Friday?

Since my SO has dropped the bomb that he plans on leaving to the USA by the end of the year, he's also getting Thurs and Fri off! Which is freaking UNHEARD of. Seriously. This guy never gets days off when the rest of the plant does.

So we're heading to Puerto Viejo which is on the Caribbean side of the country. Costa Rica is the size of West Virginia (for those who know the size of WV...) and my SO has never been to the Caribbean side before! This can simply not stand.

I'm excited because I haven't been since I studied abroad way back .. oh my gosh, 4.5 years ago! Holy crap, it doesn't seem that long. Anyways. The Caribbean side has a very Caribbean feel. (duh) Lots of people speak patois (basically a combo of Spanish/English/French, sort of like creole or so), everything is cooked with coconut, no one wears shoes and everyone smokes pot. The water is clear and the forest goes right up the the beach. It's beautiful.

But I'm actually a little worried. See, crime has been rising in Limon (the province). Most of the time, crime is petty- getting your stuff jacked when you leave it alone while you go into the water at the beach. But evidently in the past year, criminals have held people hostage within hotels and stolen all their stuff. People's hotel rooms are broken into (sometimes while the people are inside!) and everything is taken. Gangs are starting to form. Etc. Every tico (Costa Rican) I've told about our trip tells me "oh, you better be careful, it's so dangerous!" A lot of it is prejudice because Limon has a lot of black people and ticos think all black people are criminals. But at least part of it is truth. So for the first time in a long time, I'm actually a little nervous. The reason being is that with home[hotel] invasions, taking the normal precautions don't help. Of course I won't carry $100 with me while walking around, but if they bust in my room then they're taking everything. I'm sure it'll be okay and we'll have a blast, but I am a little worried all the same. There's not a single tico I know who hasn't been robbed, and I'm wondering if it'll be my turn this weekend.

I also get worried that if someone does try to rob us my SO will get all machoman and try to defend me/us and then get hurt. If someone tries to rob us, I'd prefer to lose all our shit than for one of us to get hurt. My SO likes to fight and use to fight MMA so he knows how to. But you don't win against a knife or gun.

My SO was talking about taking his sister's car to Puerto Viejo because his car doesn't have AC. Which isn't totally awful, but the driver's side window also doesn't go down. Which makes it fairly unbearable to be in for longer than 20 minutes. Seriously, I drive home and am covered in sweat because there's no air circulation in the car. We need to sell the car when we leave so why not get AC put in now so we can at least enjoy it? And buy a new goddam radio. The radio we have only gets reception for two channels. Poorly. And when you're in a car without a radio, without AC and with the windows up on a car trip, you (okay I) get hella grumpy hella quick. And there's just no need for that

So yeah, hoping for my SO's sister's car. If she needs a ride she can take her fiance's Maserati!

Today I had my friend, a psychologist, come in and talk to some of my kids (7th, 8th, 9th graders) about sex. I wasn't allowed in the room, but she told me it went really well. I also got her paid, a lot! $180 for two 80 min classes. Not too shabby! Anyways, I like her because she knows a lot and tells them stuff that they wouldn't hear otherwise. Like how women sometimes take years to learn to orgasm. I didn't know that when I started having sex! I thought I was so weird that I couldn't orgasm and I faked it all the time. I mean, in the movies it looked so easy, right? I remember telling my first boyfriend that I had orgasmed five times in one session. When I finally did it during sex I was so damn proud of myself. I mean seriously, why aren't we told these sorts of things? There was nothing wrong with me, I was just juvenile and learning.

Aaaaanyways.

I use the word anyways too much.

Anyways.

Today in my 9th biology class one of the kids asked me the name of a specific protein and I told them "I don't know the name" and this one kid says "WHAT! Something you don't know?" I love that children think I'm a genius. That's partially why I'm a teacher, it's a huge ego booster. I'm really not that smart, I'm quite average. But when I'm around adolescents, I'm WAY smarter. jaja

Anyways, that's it for now. Gotta go pick up the SO and go to the store to buy some snacks for the trip tomorrow! Have to decide whether we want to bring my laptop or not. If we bring it, I'm definitely backing up the information on my external hard drive beforehand. Just in case

Have a great weekend!!