And the Excitement Continues!

     Last Saturday I had the opportunity to visit one of the 6 Bioluminescent bays that glow all year round! Puerto Rico has 3 of the 6: one in Ponce, one in Vieques (one of the little islands that belongs to PR), and one in Fajardo. Luckily for us, the brightest Bioluminescent bay of the 6 is in Fajardo; which is the one we went to! Ashley and I went with Mrs. Turkovich and had an amazing time! Unfortunately we didn't take a camera because we were kayaking to this lagoon so if we flipped over, that would have been the end of our cameras and it was in the evening so a waterproof camera wouldn't have worked because they have no flash. It was amazing though. When you "disturb" the water with your hand or your paddle, there's a glow that follows the movement of your hand or paddle. It was really neat to see the effect of the water glowing.

     On Sunday, I ran my first 5K. I was really proud of myself for 1) completing the course and 2) for allowing myself to have the opportunity of experiencing such an event. I've always considered myself an athletic person, but I haven't been on a team for a while now, that I kind of forgot what it felt like on "game day." Having the adrenaline rush all over my body right before the gun went off, was a feeling I didn't realize how much I missed. After having the gun go off I started pushing through 1,000+ people to get myself in my running rhythm. Three minutes into the race, I began to incline for the next 1.5K. As I kept going, my muscles began to tighten, I started sweating, breathing a little hard and with the wonderful 94 degree weather we had that day, I started to get really really HOT! But i kept going pumping my arms and legs, controlling my breathing, and looking ahead. At one point I though about how nice it would be to stop for a couple of seconds, but every runner knows that once you stop, it is a lot harder to get started again. So I kept running telling myself that I've had harder practices and that it was all a mental game. The last 1K was a straight away so there were no hills or dips to run. I completed my race in 29 minutes and 30 seconds!  I was so happy when I received my pretty medal because I hadn't earned one in a while. All the hard work and practice paid off.

My first day as an Art Teacher!

     On a different note, I've already started substituting for Mrs. Paizy and have started their final project: Scrap booking!  Since the students only have about 15 class days left, I didn't really want to just give them substitutional work for three weeks so I designed a final project for them. They are going to create a scrapbook about school. The scrapbook is about 10-12 pages and each page has a different theme. I'm excited to work on this project with them, and I know they are excited too! Mrs. Paizy is still in the classroom with me but I'm the one doing all the talking and teaching. She gives me great advice and little pointers every now and then. I'm really excited that I was given the opportunity to work with the Intermediate students because now I can say that I pretty much worked "all over" the school.

     I've got 7 weeks left, and each one is getting better than the last.