happy thanksgiving!

this year marks quite an occasion... this was the first thanksgiving in my whoooole life that i wasn't home with my family to celebrate.  it was a little bit weird/sad, but i had a good weekend regardless.  i am pretty jealous of my friends back home who all have off from and work and get to hang out together.  i miss them.  i also am not home for adrien's birthday (which was this past friday)... boo.  happy birthday, love!

anyways, this weekend a group of 14 of us went out to minna, nigeria which was about 3 hours away driving.  we left early thursday morning and hit a few obstacles along the way in which one car's serpentine belt (?) didn't make it out alive so we had to squish from our pack of four cars to three, but we did make it to minna without too many other hitches.  we stayed at the old presidential villa which was beautiful...

the place had a huge kitchen, nice swimming pool, tennis courts, snooker & ping pong tables, several bedrooms and animals hanging out on the grounds everywhere (peacocks, bunnies, deer/antelope looking things that we were quite sure of, a dikdik which is an african animal of some sort and the pronunciation of that animals name is debatable...)  the place was pretty removed from the main roads which meant there wasn't much to do in minna (in terms of touristy type things) which was really nice actually.  we had a nice break away from the city where we just hung out.  lots of swimming, playing, talking, drinking, eating.  we split into groups to take care of meals since there was nobody cooking for us / no restaurants.  the night i cooked with my roommates, we made chicken pot pie, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, and lemon bars.  yum :)  leif also made stuffing but it got left in the car overnight so we didn't want to risk that... especially when you live in africa and "left in the car" equates baking, where as at home it would be more like keeping it cool.  oops.  we also had plenty of room to take walks & runs.  a couple of us took a 3 hour walk into the bush and went through several small villages where we met a lot of fulani and gwari people who were excited to interact with us.

overall it was a really great weekend away from the city.  missed my family back home, but thankful to have a second family in abuja to spend it with.  i am VERY ready to come home to see friends and family and indulge in all the things that makes life in the states so easy.  three weeks to go... will be trying to distract myself with projects until the day comes to fly home!  :)

i'm really bad at updating this :)

so nearly a month later.... sorry :)  how are things going?  things are going...

school: this past week i had two formal observations in one week.  not something i'm used to (to have two so close to one another), but they both went well as far as i can tell.  tried to do pretty regular lessons, nothing over the top.  in our quick post sessions my principal didn't really have anything negative to say and said the lessons were fun and i should be happy with how i did.  we will see how the more in-depth post-observation goes which will probably happen sometime next week.

teaching 3rd grade has been pretty great so far, but i don't think i am going to teach it forever.  i really miss my middle schoolers and being able to throw my sarcasm at them all the time.  dealing with "he doesn't want to be my friend" and "he said the s-word (i am thinking a curse word, while they are thinking 'stupid')" is really exhausting for me.  it's so trivial to me in the scheme of life, but so real for them at that age and while i can usually work the situation out temporarily, it just keeps coming back.  AHHHHHHHHH just be nice to each other, please.

luckily the next two weeks at school will be pretty easy.  we go to school this monday, but then have tuesday and wednesday off for the muslim eid holiday.  then we have thursday and a half day friday to do curriculum work.  the week after we have three days on, and then two off for thanksgiving.  not too shabby...

outside school: things seem to go through a period of having lots to do and not lots to do which i guess is fine and i'm getting used to it.  to fill some of our time and cure the our-walls-are-so-sterile-and-not-welcoming feeling, my roommate and i started painting a mural in our living room which took about a week, working a few hours each night afterschool / on the weekend.  we found a bunch of images we liked online, projected them onto the wall, traced each piece that we liked to compile it, and then started painting.  for not being huge artsy people, we are pretty satisfied with how it turned out... looks better in pictures so you can't see all our imperfections.  we always tell people to not get too close :)

our mural.  we made those pillows too! :)

safety here has been on my mind lately, and i won't share too many details here to spare my mother's well being, but it's always a reality check when you hear about some of the things that happen here and sometimes to people you know.  my roommate and i did get a bit freaked out the other night so i will share that part because from the outside it's probably silly sounding and amusing how ridiculous we are.  our compound-mates had filled us in that there were armed guards walking around our compound and we later discovered that someone either from the school or compound had requested additional security for whatever reason (i have felt pretty safe within our gates up until then).  anyways, i took out the garbage when it was dark, and kept looking over my shoulder because i was afraid they might shoot me by accident.  anyways, so we are in our living room now and watching a somewhat serious portion of a show, and our air conditioner starts making all these sounds and i honestly thought like a rat or mouse or lizard or some type of creature was going to come flying out of there at us.  well it died down but then it started happening again.  and then a few minutes later we hear BOOM.... BOOM.... kinda sounded almost like gun shots maybe and THEN.. two seconds later our power went out.  in retrospect we were probably just really on edge, but we were freaking out.  haha.  ugh.

anyways, on to less ridiculous things. today we are going to this art & craft bazaar at the school which is typically a big hit among the expats/teachers i hear.  maybe i will find some good christmas presents to give when i'm back home.  also for thanksgiving weekend, a group of us will be traveling to minna, a few hours away to stay at an old presidential villa.  it is supposedly pretty decent and will be a nice way to get away from the city and just enjoy the outdoors.  i'm excited for it!

home: i miss home and just how convenient life is in the states.  already in such a short time i've experienced life in a whole different light which which has been really great, but i do miss target, shoprite, costco, and not having to go through a 15-minute sanitizing process before eating my fruits/veggies.  i'll be home the 21st of december and am really excited for it.  i've tried to keep myself from creating a countdown just yet, but i am eagerly awaiting the end of this semester so i can see all of you and go back to the spoiled life.

ok that is all.  i will try to update again before a month passes.  :)