Finished!

I had a marathon day of classes and English conversation groups but I’m finished! My classes today were acceptable, not fantastic, but acceptable. I had to make a bunch of changes in my information to try to manage the student in my afternoon class who thinks he knows everything and won’t stop talking. So, I had less time to practice the information. The morning class was a little rough, but surprisingly the afternoon class went better. The problematic student dominated the first part of the class taught by my co-teacher, but I think he gave up on trying to talk to me, so things went a lot better. I still have a long ways to go to be really good at Spanish. I need a significant amount of time in a Spanish speaking country, but that’s not possible right now.

I had several people, even some students, come up to me today to tell me how much they enjoyed my AI presentation. It’s a topic that everyone is interested in right now. TEC gave me a nice gift for coming and a very nice thank you letter.

This evening, I helped with two English conversation groups. People are really enthusiastic about having a native speaker to talk to. In one of my sessions, I had a 12 year old boy who was pretty good! His mom was helping him in the background. He’s really into robotics so we had a good conversation about that.

I leave for San Jose around noon tomorrow and I fly back to St. Louis on Saturday. Tomorrow is Mother’s Day here, which is a national holiday, so schools and a lot of workplaces are closed. I’ll probably be the only one on campus, so just as well that I’m leaving.

Overall, it has been a good trip, not an easy trip, but a good trip. As much as I love it here, it will be nice to be back in my house in a more comfortable living space.