Teaching English in Costa Rica...the saga continues!

I apologize ahead of time for being so behind on posts...there are a lot of things going on in my life, most of which I don't have the words to blog about right now. I hope you all can forgive me. Pictures and posts will be updated in the next couple days, I promise! If you want to catch up with my life in pictures, check out my Facebook page...most of the pictures are posted.

This blog will focus mostly on the saga of teaching English in Costa Rica. As I mentioned in previous posts, after I returned to Costa Rica in September 2013, I started teaching English at Politecnico Internacional, a language institute in San José and the northern province, Heredia. I was working part time (about 15 hours a week) until the end of December 2013, at which point, my boss told me there weren't any classes to teach yet, but to keep checking my email while I was back in the States. I figured everything would be fine and I would at least have a couple classes to teach and whatever I wasn't teaching, I could make up with online classes...well easier said than done there. I ended up emailing them a week before I returned to San José, and they responded by saying there still were no classes for me to teach.

I felt defeated, but not completely hopeless. There were still online classes, and I worked my butt off, teaching over 100 hours in January and February (hence the lack of blog posts). I also haven't been traveling as much, which I will probably end up regretting once I'm back in the States, but at the same time, I have to make money somehow. Living here is expensive, but I thank BridgeTEFL for telling me about this online job. It has made life so much easier and less hectic. I'm able to work from home and I have more time to exercise, run errands, and take a few days off if I want to travel. What doesn't kill us, makes us stronger, right?

I made the decision a few months back to return to Flagstaff in April, no matter what my job situation was like. I'm glad I made that decision, and I vowed to not return to CR to work unless I'm sure it's a reliable job with consistent hours. I'm going to miss the country but it's a part of me, and I know I'll come back to visit. It's going to be hard leaving my roommate, Jenny. She's let me live with her for the last year and we've grown close. I'm going to miss talking to her about everything.

I will be teaching a beginner Spanish class when I get home, starting April 21st. The amazing staff at The Literacy Center reached out to me and wanted me to teach the class. I'm hoping to get a lot of friends to take the class and make relationships with learners that I haven't done before. I feel ready for this new experience!!