Despedida, Departamento, y Día de Acción de Gracias

Hi everyone!  Happy Thanksgiving!  More on that later.

The ChACE program is designed so there is a 2.5 month overlap with incoming teachers and teachers finishing up their year.  Jenny, on the right here, will be leaving San Nicolás in December so our boss Alicia (next to Jenny) wanted to throw her a surprise despedida, or goodbye party.  Her boyfriend Greg taught at San Nicolás last year and stuck around to teach at Redland, a bilingual school, this year.

We had a great showing for Jenny.  Cata, a fellow English teacher, made a video with all Jenny's classes telling her how much they will miss her and what a great teacher she's been.  It was very emotional.

Thanks for everything Jenny!

Our incoming ChACE 12 group (7 of us) scheduled a meeting Sunday to discuss living situation, finances, travel, etc. for the coming year.  It went very well for all involved, I'd say.  There were some surprises in the end but no one had a doubt that I would want to handle the finances.  I get excited just thinking about the spreadsheet--I'll be spending some serious time with Excel.  Anyway, we split the last piece of pizza (peace of pizza?) ceremoniously to seal the deal.

Ok, Thanksgiving.  It was weird getting up and going to work.  First time in 26 Thanksgivings.  The Holy Cross priests at St. George's host all the Notre Dame affiliates in the Santiago area for mass and dinner after work.  One of the priests, Father Chris, is quite the photographer so we took lots of group pictures.  Pictured here are all the ChACERs, past and present, in attendance.  A few even flew down for the week from the 9th class so we had 4 generations of teachers represented!

Here's the whole crew, I count 37 plus Fr. Chris makes 38.  It was great to have such a community gathered for an American holiday.  I'm thankful for family, friends, and everyone in this photo.  It was a great day!

The mountains in the background are always stunning.  It's amazing to think how many millions of years the fault line has been at work to create them.  This week was particularly turbulent--3 tremors.  I'm starting to get used to them by now.

I'll take you through the ChACE groups that are still around.  These are the ChACE 10s that decided to stay for a second year: Garrett, Aislinn, Eamon, Phil, and Greg.  Phil is planning on starting a third year in March; everyone else is headed back to the states.  It's been great having this crew around because they've all been in Chile 2 years and know their way around.

These are the ChACE 11s who will be finishing their official ChACE experience in December (1 year of teaching).  Alex, Rachel, Ciaran, Caitlin, Emily, and David.  Ciaran and Caitlin will be staying at their respective schools for the coming year and everyone else is headed home.

And our crew, the newbies, ChACE 12.  Elaine, Ryan, Sarah, me, Sophie, Dan, and Laura.  This is such a great group of people and I'm very much looking forward to the coming year!

Apparently there are at least a few of you following my blog--2600 page views over 20 posts.  Thanks everyone!  Those of you that have been following along will have picked up on my running joke about taking pictures of myself for my mom.  Here's a pretty good one.  Thanks, mom and dad, for everything you've done for me.  Thank you for supporting me in this adventure and in all my adventures.  Sometimes they can be a little crazy and you're always there for me.

I got a haircut today, so stay tuned for a new Noah.

The meal.  It was catered, and it was delicious.  I can just imagine the caterers going over the menu with the priests: "You want us to pour what, exactly, over the green beans?  And what are these French's Onions you speak of?"  Except probably with more Spanish.

Anyway, on my plate here is green bean casserole topped with corn flakes, tomatoes with cilantro (comes with every Chilean meal, even on Thanksgiving), turkey, bread, stuffing (which I don't think included bread, actually--lots of fruit), stuffed chicken, and my favorite Spanish mix-up yet: the word arándano means both cranberry and blueberry, so we had lots and lots of blueberry sauce.  It was pretty good--very sweet.  All topped off with fresh fruit juices, raspberry shown here.  That brought back memories of the farm--a little taste of home.

In case anyone is unaware, the undefeated Notre Dame Fighting Irish are, for the first time EVER, ranked number one in the Bowl Championship Series rankings.  This means that if they beat the Trojans of Southern Cal tomorrow night the Irish will be headed for Miami on January 7th to battle for the national title.  GO IRISH!

Upcoming fun: Cirque du Soleil's Varekai is in town and 13 of us are going Sunday; still hoping to go kiteboarding sometime in December; retreat Decmber 7-9; the Franske Family comes to visit the 23rd through the 2nd.  Lots to post about, stay tuned!