So, what's a typical workday look like?

Well, the weekdays are pretty standard in terms of overall schedule.  My routine goes as follows:


5:50 am  - wake up
6:05 am  - actually get out of bed
6:30 am  - breakfast upstairs in the dining hall with Liz & Em
7:00 am  - go to class
7:15 am  - students finally start arriving for 7am class
8:00 am  - class break..."take five"
8:15 am  - students finally return from their "five" minute break
9:00 am  - class ends
9:00 am  - 11:30 am - free time complete with snack
11:30 am - 12:30 pm - cook and eat lunch
12:30 pm - 5:30 pm - free time complete with...another snack
5:30 pm - 6:30 pm - cook and eat dinner
6:30 pm - go to class
6:45 pm - students finally start arriving for 6:30pm class
7:30 pm - "take five" break
7:45 pm - resume class after students finally return
8:30 pm - end class
8:30 pm - 10:00 - free time...without snack
10:00 - bedtime


"Free time" can consist of many things.  Work related activities include lesson planning, writing quizzes, creating worksheets, grading papers, writing guides for the students, tutoring students, meetings with the teachers, printing things, finding an office open with a functioning printer, walking to town to make copies, standing in line to make copies.


It can also be errands for myself such as grocery shopping which requires going to at least three different stores because you have a different store for everything.  (Walmart and CVS do not exist in mi pais, amigos!)  It can also be duties like organizing my room (I've never had to scrub or mop it) or washing my laundry by hand (which I've finally got my system worked out - we'll discuss later).


Free time fun, of course, is more enjoyable although somedays this doesn't actually exist...such as this week which is finals.  In my free time, I walk through the National Park, go on photography excursions, get chocolate covered bananas, hang out with mis amigas, catch up on blog/book/email/news reading, journal, nap, etc.  Recent fun activities over the last week have been a Pancake/Mimosa brunch with the girls (a tiny bottle of syrup runs $4-6 here and a bottle of "cheap" champagne is $10 so this was pretty extravagant for us), a movie night using the school's projector to broadcast a "127 Hours" on my wall, a walk to La Loberia (one of the local beaches) for snorkeling and hiking, sunbathing on Playa Mann (my front yard).


It's hard to tackle what a TYPICAL day entails, but more or less it is the above activities shuffled into some random order.  I always feel engaged but not overly exhausted.  Even the days when I work for 10-12 hours (like most of the past two weeks), I always have the ocean sparkling outside to remind me that there's fun to be had and at the end of the day...the waves will lazily roll in no matter what I am doing, where I am doing it, or when it gets done.