How Quickly time flies when you are trying to make the English Present continuous fun...

It's true, this week has gone by quickly. I find myself already sitting at the SALI office late in the afternoon Tuesday, wondering how I will finish everything that I need to finish before tomorrow. The life of an ESL teacher in Peru is apparently a busy one. However, do not be fooled, it is incredible.

I am continuously learning lessons about the mercies of God while going through a little prunage (the act of pruning). But it's all good in this hood.

I'm still settling in I suppose. As usual, I find it easiest to express my feelings through an analogia (that's an analogy for all you English speaking cats out there):

Do you remember that game "Perfection" from Milton Bradley? No? Well here's the jingle (don't forget it's sung to the tune of Pop goes the weasel):

Put the pieces into the slots
Make the right connection
Just be quick, You're racing the clock
POP! Goes perfection.

Essentially the game is this: You have a game board with different shaped slots in it and you have a whole mess of pieces that have been thrown on top of the board. Your job is to put all the pieces into the right slots.
I currently feel that with coming to Peru, or really going into any new situation, the pieces of my life were all of a sudden thrown into the game and I must put them back in order (read: put my life in order) I am currently putting the pieces into place. But there is no clock in my game. All I have to do is put the pieces in. And I am working on that right now.

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In other news, I am also having a blast teaching. I enjoy teaching my students with the use of fun activities and exciting games. So, naturally, we played what is quite possibly the most fun game I have made up yet. What game, you ask?

Gringo Bingo.

That's right. Gringo Bingo. We were studying future tense (I am going to, you are going to, etc.). The object of the game is simple. Each student gets one Gringo Bingo gameboard with various activities listed in each square. Such activities include "Go to a Movie, Spend time with friends, Travel to Lima" and other exciting life events. Downstairs in the lobby were some strategically placed gringos (p.s. this isn't an offensive term, it's just any white foreigner, tourist or otherwise) and students had to use the correct future tense question format to interview the gringos. If the answer was yes, the students could mark their square. The winner was the first person to get five squares in a row and to shout GRINGO BINGO! Flores won. We will undoubtedly be playing gringo bingo in the future. Patent Pending.

That's about it for now. This was a long post, but I made it colorful so that you would remain engaged with all these words.

Oh and one final order of business. Please feel free to check out two Youtube videos at the following links:

Click here to see a video of my friends playing traditional Peruvian folklorica music.

Click here to see how gringos stay entertained between classes.