First world problems?

For the past year, I have lived in a country that is plagued by poverty and infamous for having the world's highest murder rate.  I can anticipate a child's begging for my meal scraps when I go into town to eat, and I've been sharply awoken by the sound of gunshots on multiple occasions.  I have lived next door to the untouchable drug lord and heard about the murders of the lawyers and police officers who stood up against the wrongdoing.  Because I grew up in an idyllic, family-friendly Chicago suburb, it is easy to look around myself and polarize the United States with the developing world.  On a more cynical day, I may even criticize Americans for their blissful unawareness of those outside their world.  Social awareness has become chic, lately, and I have occasionally found myself falling in with the socially aware bandwagon who touts their privy to the world's condition through "first world problems" memes and tweets.

The past few days have rocked me, though.  I got home from school on Friday and heard about Sandy Hook.  My heart broke as I read all of the articles I could find, listened to the police statements to the press, and watched the President wipe away tears and pause to compose himself as he addressed the nation.  I then watched the barrage of facebook comments ensue, somehow turning this tragedy into a war.

Humanity is so far from perfection, regardless of the country in which you live or the worldview that you use to explain it all.  We are all hurting.  We are all broken.  We are all imperfect.  Yes, of course there are different levels and severities of suffering, but it is something that we all deal with.  Do not look at these things with the defeatest attitude that, "Well this is shit, so screw it."  We need to use tragedies like this as a reminder to love people in whatever way we can.  Help who we can.  Make change where we can.  No, we're not going to stop all the bad things from happening, but for God's sake, don't just resign yourself to its inevitibility, and please don't aggrevate the tragedy with pointless, ill-thought facebook tirades that accomplish nothing.  DO something.  Even if it is just in your immediate circle of influence, it matters.

But, what do I know?  I'm just a 20 something with a laptop.

Vacation Adventures

You never know exactly what you're agreeing to in Honduras.  In case none of my previous blog posts convinced you of this, perhaps this one will.

We had the last two Mondays off of school because of a couple of random holidays, so the other teachers and I took two weekend vacations.  Last weekend, we went to Tela, a little Caribbean beach town, and stayed at a beachside resort.  In October, the resort offers a deal to people with accounts at Banco Atlantida, the bank that the ALCS teachers use.  If you buy one night, you get the next night free.  With four of us sharing a room, that came out to be $20 a night for each of us.  The resort was beautiful!  It had a huge pool with a water slide and a poolside bar, several restaurant options, and a beachfront.  We spent 2 days swimming in the ocean or pool, soaking in the sunshine, and just relaxing.  It was exactly the break we all needed after making it through the first couple of months of the school year.

This past weekend, we decided to go to Lake Yojoa, a large lake in the middle of Honduras.  The first day we got there, we hung around the hotel and checked out the lake a little bit, and then we headed to D&D Brewery for dinner.  This place is owned by an American guy, so it offers some American style food and drinks (which, when you've been living off of Honduran food for this long, is a big deal).  We were all worn out from the traveling, so we got back to the hotel after dinner and went straight to bed.  The early bedtime was a wise choice, considering the following day's activities.  Some of the teachers from La Union had gone to the lake a few weeks earlier and toured a waterfall.  It sounded like a lot of fun, so we looked the place up in our guidebooks and and headed there on Sunday.  Now, the guidebook warned that it was a slippery, treacherous hike and people had literally fallen to their death there.  We figured that we'd be fine, though, as long as we paid for a tour guide instead of just stupidly going out on our own.  I was naively picturing some sort of artificially carved out tunnel complete with non-skid flooring and handrails.  Now, here was the flaw in my logic: we're not in the U.S.  We're in Honduras, a country where safety standards are scarce, and people are responsible for their own safety rather than an adventure tour company being liable.  We had all packed our things in one backpack, but they told us that they didn't recommend our bringing a backpack with because we would probably be wet at least up to our chests or shoulders.  I mistakenly thought they meant that we'd be wet from splashing water, not from being immersed in water, but I'm getting ahead of myself.  We left our backpack in the office without signing any sort of waiver and headed over to the waterfall with the Rafael, the tour guide.  As Rafael began leading us up a narrow, muddy trail with a steep drop to the side, we quickly realized that this would be a bit different from what we'd expected.  We continued on over some large boulders, until we reached a point where the boulders ended and there was a good 10 foot expanse of chest-level water with the falling water crashing down over it.  We all held hands, slid off the rock, waded across to the next set of boulders, and climbed up.  We waited there until the whole group of 14 (11 of us and 3 other tourists) was standing up on the rock.  The air was so thick with the spray and mist from the crashing water that we could barely breathe, and we were instructed to breathe only through our mouths.  It seemed like my whole body was vibrating with how much adrenaline was pumping through me, and I felt like I was hyperventilating (though I wasn't sure If I was actually hyperventilating as a result of the fear, or if it was actually just the sharply decreased amount of oxygen that was available with all of the water in the air).  It was at this point that I realized I'd made a mistake.  I am a clumsy, awkward individual, and adventure sports are not in my repertoire.  I was a little nervous that I would kill myself or someone else, so I began the following dialogue with Rafael:

Me: "Um, is it too later to turn back?"

Rafael: *pause with surprised expression* "Yes."

Me: "Oh.  Does it get worse than this?"

Rafael: *pause* "A little."

Me: "Oh."

Rafael: "Would you feel better if you were the first person in line so you can hold on to my hand?"

Me: "Yes."

This is the moment I decided I would marry a waterfall tour guide.  But I digress.  With my hand tightly grasping his, Rafael led us off of the boulders and back into the water.  This was by far the scariest part of the tour.  At this point, I was almost up to my chin in water, and the waterfall was actually falling straight down onto my head.  I could not see.  I could not breathe.  I just followed the tug from Rafael's hand as he pulled me up to another landing of boulders.  Rafael told me to climb up to the top and wait there while everyone else was coming.  He'd broken the group up into 2 groups of 7 to get everyone across more easily, so we waited up on top of the boulders for about 10 minutes as he went back and then got everyone else across.  These were the longest 10 minutes of my life, as I stood there shaking, gasping for breath, thinking about the Bible verse tattooed on my back, repeating a short prayer over and over and over again, and seriously contemplating the consequences of just pooping my pants.  Finally, though, everybody was across and we grabbed hands once again as we climbed off the boulders, continued through another stretch of water, and then crawled up into a tiny opening of a small cave.  Once we were all squezed into the cave, we caught our breath, took a few pictures, and collected ourselves enough to do it all over again.  We crawled back out and then trekked down the path we'd just come through.  The return went by much faster, and I was soon climbing up out of the water and back across the narrow, muddy path along the cliff.  After about 30 minutes, I had stopped shaking, my heart was back to a normal speed, and my limbs had stopped tingling.  I bought a popsicle and continued about my evening -- like an adult.

Would I hike the waterfall again?  Absolutely not.  I am, however, happy that I did it once.  I'm not sure if I would have wanted a better idea of what I was getting myself into or not, seeing as I probably would have turned the opportunity down if I'd known what it entailed.  Regardless, I conquered the waterfall.

And I didn't poop my pants.

"You do what you love, and fuck the rest."

Please excuse my title.  I've been feeling vulgar lately.  I've also felt like rewatching Little Miss Sunshine.

It's officially been just over a month since I moved back to Honduras -- this time to a new school and a new town.  I thought I'd begin by sharing a few exciting stories:

1) On the way to school, our van hit somebody.  Well, actually two somebodies.  On a bike.  I was too far back to actually see it happen.  Our van suddenly came to a jerking halt, and the people in the front gasped.  The guy on the back of the bike (everybody here has pegs and rides with a passenger) smashed a huge spiderweb crack into the windshield with his face, and then walked away saying that his wrist hurt a little.  No exchange of insurance info.  No ambulance or police.  No lawsuits.  We were on our way within 10 minutes.

2) I accidentally locked a few parents and their kids into my classroom during parent orientation.  I have two classrooms -- one for classtime and one large muscle room -- and the parents were in the other room playing with their kids.  I had stepped outside, so I couldn't see that there was anyone in the other room.  I'd been at school all day (it was evening), so I was tired, hungry, and not thinking clearly.  Therefore, when they called for snack, I excitedly locked my classroom door and started making my way toward the cafeteria.  Fortunately, I heard someone calling to the people in my classroom before I walked too far.

3) The debacle of a van that we continue taking to to school every morning (cracked windshield and all) had another small issue: the door fell off on the way home from school.  When our driver couldn't get it back on, he called another driver to pick us up.  After we'd all piled in his van, he couldn't get it started.  Just as we thought we'd be walking home, the driver put the car in neutral and coasted down the rest of the mountain until the car had enough umph to start up.  Naturally, this is what put Little Miss Sunshine in my brain.

Now that I've grabbed your attention with my exciting stories (which are less exciting if you've been checking my facebook statuses), I want to spend a few sentences gushing about my job.  I like it.  A lot.  I have a class of eleven adorable 2-3 year olds.  I would like to post pictures of them, but I'm not sure that's allowed. While I'm only a few weeks into the school year and I know that I'll get frustrated and worn out and hit low points, I feel really good about where I am right now.  This is the age I love working with.  I'm happy to get up every day.  I look forward to going to work.  I think about my students all the time, and it makes me happy rather than stressing me out.  Even when a student throws a screaming, hitting, spitting fit, I leave work feeling at peace.  I felt so out of place last year.  I am a teacher and I like to teach, but I hated the teaching that I was doing.  I'm now back where I feel happy, and I can see that my students are happy and are already learning a lot.  I'm doing what I love.

And fuck the rest.

P.S. I tried putting the dance scene in here, but I can't find it anywhere.  You'll just have to find the movie and watch it.  It will make your day better, anyway.

Closing Thoughts... A Little Overdue

As anticipated, I have done a poor job keeping up this blog.  I finished my first year (rather, first two 1/4 years) just over a month ago, so I've been back in the States since late June.  I knew that I should really write a blog with my concluding thoughts for the year, but I've had no idea what to say about it because, honestly, I'm still unsure how to interpret everything that happened.  The problems that I talked about in my previous posts never got resolved.  If anything, they just got worse as the end of the school year neared.  Making it to the end of the year was a fight that left me totally worn out.  I had hoped that giving myself this month and a half break to relax from it all and just think would be enough for me to draw some insightful conclusion about it, but it wasn't.  All I can say is that it's done.  My students and I made it out alive.  They are ready for 6th grade -- academically, at least.

I don't want reassurance or sympathy.  I also don't want to bullshit some deep, insightful conclusion to it all.  I'm not bitter or angry, nor am I doubting my abilities as an early childhood educator.  What happened happened.  I've grown from it.  I'm tougher for having done it.  I'm also thankful that it's over and that I will never teach 5th grade again.

I hope that I left some sort of postive impact on my students.  I really hope that I didn't make anything worse.  I doubt that I will ever know either way since I'm not moving back to that town and will probably never actually see any of my students again.  That said, I do love my students, and I will never forget them.  I wouldn't trade the last 6 months for anything.  I'm looking forward to moving to a new town and working with 3-year-olds again.  I will continue to write throughout this school year -- hopefully more consistently than I did last year.  Thank you for sticking with me and this whole blogging thing.

That whole "being a teacher" thing...

I've been living in Choluteca for just over a month now, and it's been quite a bit different from what I'd expected.  My class has 29 of the most talkative, energetic 5th graders that I've ever met -- quite a bit different from my class of 1 in Catacamas.  I'm not sure how to deal with this.  When I was student teaching, my kindergarteners were really antsy and mischevious, and I initially had a hard time with classroom management.  After several weeks, though, I figured out how to manage the behavior better and teach successfully.  It's been over a month here, and I still haven't figured out what I need to do differently.  I know that this is an exceptionally rough group of kids; the teachers that they had for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade have all talked with me about how exceptionally challenging they are to work with and have told me stories about some of the weird little mischevious things they did in their classes.  They, too, said that they sometimes felt like they couldn't teach because they were trying to get them quiet the whole time.  I've watched the class as their other teachers work with them (like Spanish, Art, Music, and PE), and they really do give all of the teachers a hard time.  One of the other teachers, though, has some sort of handle on it.  She can at least get the room quiet enough to teach her lessons.  I have class periods where, because of my continual stopping to quiet them down, it takes so long to just get through the previous day's homework that I barely begin my lesson, and I have to push the rest of it back to the next day.  I've tried mirroring that teachers' methods, but it doesn't work for me.  I follow the school's discipline system; I write their name on the board and give them checks each time they do something they shouldn't.  When they get 3 checks, I send them to the office to get demerits.  They don't care, though.  They care when they've accumulated enough demerits that they get a note sent to their parents, but it doesn't have much of an immediate effect for most of them.  I feel bad for feeling this, but sometimes it's nice to just get the most distracting students out of the room for 10 minutes so I can teach the ones who want to listen.  I've tried the methods that they taught us in college: clapping and having the students respond with claps, counting down, standing quietly and waiting, writing names on the board without stopping my lesson, using a reward system.  None of it has worked.  I've found myself resorting to exactly what I was taught not to do and just shouting to get their attention.  This is stupid, though, because it doesn't work any better than anything else.  It's all just very frustrating, and I'm not sure what to do.

I had parent-teacher conferences today, and they went pretty well.  I had a translator for most of the time, but I did have to talk to a couple of the parents without any help.  One problem, though, was that the parents that I wanted to talk to the most were the ones who didn't come.  It was mostly the ones whose children get fantastic grades and listen well in class.  Who doesn't want to go to school and hear from the teacher that their child is wonderful?  Still, the experience was really positive.  Because of my mounting frustration with classroom management, I've really just started to pray for the end of the year to come quickly so I can have some peace.  I teach my lessons (when I can), go through the homework, give tests, and move on.  Basically, I've been turning into exactly the type of teacher that I've never wanted to be.  I've been really self-focused.  I think about how crappy I feel after a particularly bad day at school, and I haven't been stopping to reflect on how all of this effects my students -- not just the quiet and attentive ones, but all of them.  Talking with the parents today, two of them in particular, was really a slap in my self-centered face.  Having their teacher leave them so unexpectedly 3/4 of the way through the year was really stressful for them.  Not only do they miss her, but they have a brand new set of expectations and a new teaching style to get used to.  Two of the students apparently have a hard time understanding my English -- I'd only realized that one did.  One usually understood the old teacher, but frequently doesn't understand me because I talk faster and without an accent.  I hadn't realize that she had trouble understanding me.  The other used to acutally get Spanish support from the teacher -- something that I can't really do.  Most of the class has been receiving lower grades as they make this adjustment, and one mom shared with me that her son is really stressed out about it.  From their behavior and attitude in class, I'd thought they just didn't care.  My attitude and actions seriously affect my students, and I need to turn my focus to what is best for them.  I'm not here to give homework and tests until the end of the year; I'm here to teach.

Please keep my class in your prayers.

Slight Change in Plans

So quite a bit has changed since my last post.  Those two students I had?  One dropped the program after 2 weeks because she missed her old school.  The other got expelled 3 weeks after that.  Since I didn't actually have a class to teach anymore, the administration moved me to another one of their schools in a different city, Choluteca.  I just got here about an hour ago.  I'm basically back to where I was almost 3 months ago now.  I don't exactly know what I'll be teaching.  I don't know when I'll start teaching.  I don't know the school.  I don't know anybody here.  I was dropped off at the house of a woman that I can rent a room from, but I'm not sure if I'll be staying here or not.  It's also taken me less than an hour to realize how good it was to have Jen around for company (and to help with Spanish).

My panic aside, I'm fairly optimistic about this change.  While I'm still teaching outside of early childhood, it will be good to have students a few years younger than the teenagers I'd been working with.  It will also be good to have a normal, full class instead of just one or two kids.  Plus, this city (at least what I've seen of it) reminds me of a suburb that I would find back home.  It's not huge and not small.  There are a few fast food places.  It seems sort of quiet and a little more pleasant than Catacamas.  The only drawback is that it's really hot.  Like, uncomfortable with this laptop on me right now kind of hot.  Looking forward to only having cold water in the shower kind of hot.  Sitting in your underpants in front of the fan and still hot.  I'm thinking, though, that I'll just get used to it after a couple of weeks or so... sort of like the rooster outside my window in Catacamas.  This is doable.

As I expected, I'm not keeping up very will with this blog.  It's been almost a month, so I apologize if you've been waiting.  I have been busy... my class started last week Monday!  Well, half of the students came Monday and the other half came on Wednesday.  Half, of course, being one.  Things different from what I'd expected.  I have one 13 year old girl who went to a bilingual school for a year and already understands quite a bit of English and one 14 year old boy who came in knowing (sort of) the alphabet, the months, and numbers 1-19.  I was horrified when I learned the ages of my class (considering that, after student teaching in 2nd grade, I'd decided I did not want to teach above Kindergarten), but I've actually enjoyed it a lot.  I don't know if I would do very well with a whole classroom of teenagers, but working with the two is nice.  The start has been a bit rocky because I've had to teach it a bit like a double grade classroom and plan the day so that one student is always working independently while I work with the other one.  I've never done that before, so my timing hasn't been quite right all of the time.  I also need to try to find more ways to have my students work together in a way that is helpful to both of them.  I'm still figuring out how to do that when they're at such different levels.  I'm creating most of the curriculum on my own because the materials that were provided (first grade workbooks) aren't really appropriate for my students.  The content is way too basic for the girl, and the activies are too juvenile for the boy.  He hasn't quite reached the age where it's fun to do little kid-ish games again.  I don't really know what I'm doing.  They seem to be learning, though, and have told me that they enjoy class.

Outside of school, not a ton of new stuff has happened.  Things are good and I am enjoying myself.  Last weekend, Jen and I made some of the best cookies I've ever tasted.  She has also stopped translating for me as much and instead repeats or rephrases things that I didn't understand.  It's kind of nice because now my host family realizes that I can understand quite a bit if they just slow down or word something another way.  Also, I'm fairly certain I'm staying for another year.  I'm not positive yet if I'll be at the same school or a different one, but I'm pretty sure I'll be in Honduras.  I talked to the guy who hired me, and he said that there should definitely be a place for me at one of the schools.  Thus far, this news has gone over rather poorly with my family.  I'm hoping it will get better after a few weeks, though.  Keeping my fingers crossed :/.

Honduran Time

I've been here for almost two weeks now and I've learned something very important: Honduran estimates of time and quantity are quite different from U.S. estimates.  For example, "You will have your books on Monday," turned into, "The books should be in by Tuesday or maybe Wednesday," turned into, "We'll have the books on Friday for sure, probably," turned into, "I'm going to Tegus to pick your books up today, so you should have them by Monday."  My class, by the way, was scheduled to start Monday.  Fortunately(?), though, only two students have signed up for my class so far, forcing the school to push back the date to "hopefully Thursday or Friday."  I'm going out with the principal on Tuesday to try to recruit more students from a local town.  My proposed class of about 15 students from 2nd-6th grade has become a class of 2 students ages 13 and 15.  Estimates, it has become evident, are more like a picture of the best-case senario.

I sort of feel like life has been dragging me ass-first through these past couple of weeks... which looks a bit like this:

I wouldn't exactly say that I'm overwhelmed; this just isn't what I'm accustomed to.  In the U.S., things are just very controlled.  You know what will happen, when it will happen, who will be there, and where all of the exits are.  The classroom, of course, is unpredictable.  Things that M. Night Shyamalan couldn't dream up happen on a daily basis.  Everything that I learned in school, though, told me that I need to be organized in order to be prepared for these kinds of things.  I don't know how to do that right now, though.  I don't know how many students I'm going to have, how old they'll be, what the curriculum materials look like, when class will start, what my daily schedule will be, or where I'll be teaching.  The one thing I do have is flexibility.  In a duel, I'd put Gumby to shame.

Basically, I have no clue what's going on, but I'm becoming more ok with that.  I don't believe I'd be put in this situation if it's something I can't handle.  Rather, I know that my strength comes from an unlimited, unfallible source.  Plus, the coffee is damn good.

Week 1

Well, I’m here now.  My plane landed in San Pedro Sula Monday afternoon and Jake, the guy who hired me, was waiting there for me.  We drove for about 4 hours to Tegusigalpa, the capitol city, where we stayed for the night.  The next day, we drove another 4 hours to Catacamas, the city I’m working in.  We went to the school and I met Jen, the other American teacher here, and a lot of the other teachers (none of whose names I remember).  The last few days have been sort of crazy.  I thought that they would have all of my curriculum materials ready when I got here and I would have time to start planning this class since they have never offered it at this school and I’m starting from scratch.  I was mistaken.  The principal drove to Tegus this weekend to pick the materials up.  Also, I don’t actually have a classroom, so I couldn’t get that ready either.  As of Monday, I only have 4 students.   Things are a bit disorganized.  They did keep me busy, though.  Apparently, one of the teachers was robbed on Sunday or Monday and basically walked in in the middle of it.  She and her husband got home to find their front door open and all of their things packed up and waiting for someone to pick them up.  They got out really fast before someone came back for the stuff, and they were so shaken up by it all that they up and left.  The city.  And aren’t coming back.  She had just developed a new writing curriculum for 4^th-6^th Grade, too, and was supposed to teach the classes.  I got to the school on Wednesday thinking that I was going to start getting my class ready, but I ended up teaching all of hers, instead.  She hadn’t left any of her lessons at the school, so I had to make stuff up on the spot.  Thursday, the principal told me that the 1^st Grade teacher has a really big class and needs help, so I went and helped her out.  She ended up sending me out with a small(ish) group of struggling students to practice letter sounds with them, which turned into a mild disaster.  Even though the teachers are not supposed to use Spanish in the classroom, she (like a few of the other elementary teachers) speaks primarily in Spanish.  The students couldn’t understand me, so I had a really hard time managing the behavior.  Also, they have been learning the sounds incorrectly since they have not been learning from a native English speaker, and they were a little confused when I was going through the sounds.  I was supposed to do the same on Friday, but another teacher decided to peace out early and asked me to teach his last 3 classes for him – 5^th Grade math, 4^th Grade spelling, and 6^th Grade math.  He, however, left his lesson plans for me.  I really don’t mind filling in for a few classes if it’s needed, but I really just want to get started on mine.  It starts in 9 days, and I have nothing outside of the ideas bouncing around my head. 

Outside of my job, not a lot has really been happening other than just adjusting.  I’ve learned that my Spanish is way worse than I thought… which is unfortunate since this isn’t a touristy town and nobody speaks English.  I’m super happy that I live with Jen because 95% of the time I can’t communicate with our host family by myself.  She also helps me a ton when we’re walking around town and I need to buy anything.  Depending on the topic of conversation, sometimes I can do alright on my own – especially if the person I’m talking with speaks slowly in the present tense and uses common words.  That, however, isn’t very frequent.  Usually when I ask people what they said (hoping they’ll repeat more slowly and I might understand) they give me that oh-you-don’t-speak-Spanish look and shrug.  As far as daily life, things here are really different from the US.  Buildings are way more open to the outside, so bugs (and lizards) are just sort of around.   It isn’t like things are dirty – the house I’m in is actually pretty nice – but it’s just inevitable with the environment.  My host family has chickens in the backyard, so I’m usually woken up by a rooster a few times overnight.  Stray dogs run around everywhere.  The power goes off for a while most days.  You can’t flush toilet paper (which I learned the embarrassing way).  Water is different.  They have running water, but there’s no hot water.  Showers, therefore, basically consist of my dumping buckets of cold water over my head.  Also, the water isn’t drinkable.  I had thought that it was something that tourists shouldn’t drink but that Hondurans do since their bodies are used to it, but even they buy those giant water jugs for drinking.  My host family is really nice.  At first, they thought that I didn’t understand any Spanish and would always have Jen translate things for me, but now they know that I know some and they try talking directly to me (although Jen usually has to help me).  It does get a little frustrating, though, when I can’t express myself without needing help.  Jen and I have walked into town every day so far, and they have way more things available than I’d realized.  I really didn’t need to pack any shampoo or stuff like that because they have exactly what I use.  I basically feel pretty safe.  Some stuff sort of bothers me, but I’ve never felt in danger.  There are guards with giant guns standing outside of a lot of businesses… especially banks and grocery stores.  The police are apparently useless.  Everybody knows where all of the big drug dealers live, but the police are too afraid to do anything and can generally be paid off.  I actually live next door to a drug dealer.  I guess over the summer there was a police officer who decided to arrest a drug dealer, and his head was found in the middle of a field the next day.  From what I understand, most of the violence is drug related, although people will occasionally be held up at gunpoint and stuff like that.  Men shout stuff out a lot, too.  Usually they just stay at a distance, but they’ll sometimes walk into my path so I have to walk around them.  Yesterday, some guy actually followed us in his truck for about a block and kept shouting stuff out to us.  I expected that, though, and I basically just have to be aware of my surroundings and get used to it.

Overall, I’m really happy.  I’m getting used to a lot of new things, but my excitement overshadows the stress.  Mostly, I’m looking forward to getting things for my class worked out and then meeting my students.  I’ll post my address once I find out what it is.