clubmed to the rescue???
you heard it here folks i am applying to go back to clubmed. after much deliberation about the subject jorge and i are applying to go to columbus isle in the bahamas. this club, a much more upscale version of turks, has scuba (3 boats a day) and a much more chill vibe, not the party that we don't need. we are hoping to go to save money so that we can come to canada after our season together. this is the one place that doesn't care about citizenships. and for us that has been the biggest problem. so i'm hoping to come back to canada in time for amanda bertrand's wedding on the 15th and then boot it back down to columbus (if we're accepted) here's to hoping this all pans out.
right now, i'm finding less and less stuff to do during the day. a city with no library/museum/artgalleries/cultural centres of any kind creates a bit of a cooped feeling for myself. the highlight of my day is getting a popsicle and reading in the park, its 1pm and i've already finished that goal. maybe i'll go to yet another beach to kill another couple hours. i know it may sound wonderful to live in a beautiful place but my life has been a beach for a year and we can only take oh so much beauty. i went to queen's and i'm an OWSI, i need more for my mind and body.
love to all.
k
my first official resignation....
my apologies for the tardy entry but my last week has actually been maybe the most stressful yet. last weekend i arrived back from honduras wide eyed and full of enthusiasm. after having not one, but three different people, on three different occasions, stand me up, my enthusiasm dwindled. i found myself on sunday night madly making lesson plans from my head of what i assumed i should be teaching 22 8 year olds for 6 hours with one break. may i remind everyone that i have never done this before. i kept hearing "don't be worried, there is no reason, we're very relaxed here". bullcrap. anyways i went to work and the kids were alternating between days, one day the grade threes were great and the next it was the gradefours, never on the same day. i was slowly losing control and composure. i started to realize, after reminding myself with my "what worked, and what didn't" pro and con list, that translating for the kids really helped them. i also had a couple of the parents come to tell me how gifted their children were and how i didn't need to help them along. again, bullcrap. these children are smart but there was no comprehension of most fundamental words or constructions. not counting the numerous learning disabilities i encountered, that were being unjustly overlooked, i also had no prior knowledge of the level these children were at, i mean they were in grade 4 but that meant beans in terms of a cohesive learning curve. my teacher's guides were coming tomorrow ie. the mexican calling card. but the icing on the cake was when i was telling the teachers these issues they told me, look, this is mexico, we just don't have the same organization or communication you have in canada. i was out after that.
however, i did realize that i am a good teacher and i do take pleasure in children who are open to learning. i also appreciated how well my spanish improved after only a week, i can now get angry in spanish as well i can explain to three teachers why i have to resign from my post. i'm really improving.
so now i'm onto my next task, to use my skills to try to finally find something i like, i'm thinking diving again, i've already put in a couple of job inquiries. i also may tutor out of the house, 16 and older, kids that really want to learn and that i can use my resources on a more equal level. i know i can't get ahead of myself but i really need to be doing something because i'm not the housewife type.
we're over a hump which is good and i'm feeling more like myself without all the stress. if any one has ideas about my tutoring fee that'd be fantastic. oh and i might teach yoga. so many crazy talents. maybe i'll look into massage therapy.....love to all.
that's instructor kate to you......
so i did it. after two of the longest days ever, i finished with literally a squeel and a little dance marking the end of my presentation and the beginning of a career de buceo. i shook gary's hand (examiner gary) and relished in my mid to high 90s marks for a moment before getting him to sign my 100th dive which i coincidentally made as my exam dive. on that dive i must say, while performing my skills (if a mistake is made in the open water portion, there are no make ups) i was bitten by a crab-like crustacean, a fact of which i had to hide although it sent pains up and down my leg for the remainder of the dive.
i also must note that i was put in the "spanish group" because my course directors told gary that i spoke perfect spanish. luckily i got by and even picked up some terminology which will help me if i get into diving here in mexico.
we celebrated as a team, dining on italian and wine, and after a night of dancing and drinks which seemed very foreign to our bodies due to the prohibition we had put ourselves on, i made it home to bed.
unfortunately, and not surprisingly i missed my 620am boat and had to catch the 200 which got me into san pedro sula (aka most dangerous city in honduras) after nightfall, not something i was looking forward to. since my flight was early in the morning, i decided to fend for myself at the well guarded airport where i set up shop for the evening. i had a few panic attacks, with shady cab drivers and a confusion as to when my flight left as well an unconfirmed connection in mexico, but i made it home safe and sound.
its good to have my things unpacked and now i get to take a breath and start making lesson plans for my 8 and 9 year olds for monday morning. i don't stop do i? i think i will definitely miss doing my diving everyday, but i'll never lose that experience and i'll be able to pick it up again. as my mom has reminded me of my plan to work art contracts in the nice months in canada and do contract work in the south doing diving in the highseasons in the winter months. not a bad idea.
ps. come to mexico for certification, you'll be in good hands.
love,
k
finished the mock, onto the real deal.....
so over the past two days i have recieved good responses to my mock IE that i have finished. i had my open water demo which proved to be difficult in demonstrating surface skills in choppy water (soon to be a lot choppier as we get the backlash from hurricane dean, supposedly on monday). but my rescue skills and decents went off without a hitch scoring a 4.6 out of 5 and my theory exams did not drop below 90% in all areas with a few 100%s, i was happy and exhausted. after recieving an average of 98% today as a sum up, i feel prepared and ready for the last step, the IE. i'm going to be sorry to go because i've enjoyed diving so much, but utila is not the place where i want to begin my career because of the fact there is not much aquatic life and the island is not exactly a place where i can see myself being culturally or intellectually fufilled. it has been a rewarding experience and i'm glad to say that i think the IE will not be a problem. soon i will be making my way back to mexico to begin lesson planning for my grade 4s. luckily, this has been a learning experience in the art of teaching as well and i will take back a lot of my techniques and apply them to teaching english.
two days of rest and relaxation, i will dive four times to make my 100th dive the one of the IE, how momentus. i hope to explore and take some pictures since after the IE i will be boarding a boat hours after to make my way back to san pedro to catch a plane back to my mexican home the following day.
whirlwind, but pretty usual for my life.
off to take a well deserved nap.
in a week i'll be exam-ing....
so my other micro teaching example, on valves went very well as well as my no mask breathing, i averaged about a 4.6 out of five and i practiced any other skills with which i had troubles. the good thing is, i keep thinking one day at a time, but keep a little eye on what's coming so that i'm prepared. i finally had some time to myself made dinner and had a great convo with my mom, using up two phone cards, but feeling the reconnection to canada a great relief which promoted a great night's sleep. yesterday i had similar success. after being the translator for the group as we went to go get our medical forms signed by the spanish doctor, i was put into the spanish group (and felt wonderful about my comprehension of the briefings as well as instructions, i think i may have impressed myself more than the boys) and we went out to do our open water skills. luckily my knot knowledge proved strong and i completed both my bowline and my sheetbend proficiently, dad you'd be proud. i also performed my skills very well, my one problem was that i didn't catch a problem, not because of my own negligence but because my "student" couldn't perform the problem correctly. otherwise, i would have had perfect. pretty great for a days work. we packed up and headed home where i used my marlin from the night before to make a yummy stirfry and settled into a night of endulgence of television watching and knot practice.
today is a rare day where no presentations are performed and we are simply sponges absorbing the content for our three presentations tomorrow. one of my classmates who has recently dropped out of the program, due to a little case of malaria, is preparing a dinner for a couple of us. don't worry, i know how malaria is transmitted and i'm keeping the bugspray flowing. also dengay, another sickness transmitted through mosquitos, is rampid on the island, the bone cracking sickness they call it. luckily, my time in mexico has built me a strong immunity and so far so good, not a lot of bugs like me and i'm just needing to hold on one week without succumbing to some unfortunate illness. it is enough to create paranoia, but i prefer to think of myself as one who has been through enough in the past month and a half that it would just be cruel and unusual punishment for anything else to happen to me during this stressful time.
wish me luck. love to all.
feeling more and more like an instructor.....
so yesterday we went over teaching practices and today we put them into practice. i stood in front of my peers and taught them the fundamental principles of buoyancy and the weight of water. i felt really comfortable with the presentation, i love presenting topics using aids like whiteboards or pieces of equipment, plus, physics is meant to be taught in a classroom so it was a great topic to jump in with. i was cool calm and comfortable and got the best mark in the class. after lunch my confidence was taken down a notch when i performed my demonstration in confined water, the CESA. anyone that knows scuba and a controlled emergency swimming ascent can think of how annoying and time consuming they are to do not only to teach. we are given surprise problems to catch but instead of being given two i was given three, one more than the rest, also i had the hardest skill. my director said because i was doing so well he needed to trip me up so i keep pushing myself and don't loose motivation but regardless, no one likes a "1". next time it won't happen again, i guess that's the point. tomorrow we go through it again, now with different skills to teach and demonstrate but i am just taking it one day at a time.
grocery shopping with my 5 dollars and then practice practice practice.
hope to hear from you guys soon.
a need for speed.....
so yesterday we started the IDC, we were retested on five of our divemaster exams and i passed all with flying colours, upping my confidence (since the tests are considered one of the hardest parts) and reminding me that i can do this. after a homecooked meal and a late night visit from the recently certified DM's, i got to sleep after a pep-talk from a much calmer recent grad of the idc program who told me just to take it one day at a time, seems to be a popular idea.
today was a bit more stressful. in the morning we went through ways in which to teach and then after a brief break where i practiced spanish with the group i'd been put into, we went over our 18 skills. i performed them all very well but need to work on my speed, i seem to run through them very quickly and need to remember to do them slow and steady so as to teach rather than show.
tonight i prepare some notes for my presentations, go over my skills and visualize mistakes and then get some sleep. tomorrow i may attempt the night dive but i'm kind of liking this apartment business and just chillin'out and doing my work.
thanks to my dutch housemate i have the use of freeinternet for a couple days before she moves out so i'll try to update as much as possible.
love to all,
k
