lazy sultry sunday

i have a new mattress. it smells like the chemical foam from which it was made. i sprayed it with a de-wrinkle spray i inherited here. the dye from the silkscreen fabric stained my sheets. but now at least it smells like Summer Breeze and less like stinky factory. a few nights ago i heard a ruckus outside my door. i ignored it as i do most of the chaos outside the walls. i later got a text informing me that a snake was coming into my house and the guards killed it. they call all snakes cobras (Portuguese word for snake) so we will never know. probably best.
i still have no motorcycle as i never seem to have time to go to town. shops close for siesta from 11:30-2:00. i have classes. we have 100 students registered. we've divided them into three groups of proficiency and meet twice a day. i may be tutoring a woman in the evenings. it will be good for my Portuguese. i am still trying to get internet. it would change my life.
i found dates at a shop in The Old Town. for $3. i made cashew, date, coconut bars. such a treat.
this weeks lesson involved practice in using the past tense. my students seemed to be tracking as i mapped out an elaborate lesson on the board about regular and irregular verbs and ending in ED. we put them in three categories, those that make a T sound at the end. a D and ED. for two hours solid i tried to teach them that it is incorrect to say walkED, talkED, etc. i showed them the rule about how it is only with words that end in T or D that pronounce the ED. they all seemed to be tracking. then came the quiz at the end. they all failed. miserably. right back to walkED and talkED. i was so frustraTED!
so it is back to the previous chapter and the more elementary book and i will put that lesson back on the shelf for another day. but i did walk away, covered in chalk dust, a little defeaTED. but it could not have been much worse than poor Ms. Manning trying to teach me 4th Grade Math.
i got to talk to my sister and her family via Voxer this week. no words. feels so so good to hear their voices.
hoping to start some sewing projects with the students soon. excited about that.