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I´m sittiing in Jinotepe and it has just begun to rain so this will proabably be a long one. It has been a great week. Independence Day is on Saturday, which has pretty much meant a week of vacation. I have had a few afternoon classes but the morning classes were all canceled so the kids could practice marching through the streets for tomorrow's parade. Until just now it has been dry all week. I probably should have taken advantage of this and done some laundry but I have been too busy reading. I am sucked into The Time Traveler's Wife and I do not want it to end. I highly reccomend it. The big news of the week, and my life in general is that I found a house!! Actually, I found THE house. As in the house of my dreams. It not only has a yard, a real toilet (INSIDE!!), and an extra bedroom but also a porch! The porch is definitely the best part. It is enclosed by bars so I will be able to sit out there in my hammock all hours of the night and still be totally safe. My boss came and approved it the same day that I called her, and now all I have to do is move in. As soon as I am in I will take all kinds of photos and put them up here so everyone can see it. It is truly the best house that I have seen. Last week was rough. I had pretty much given up on ever finding my own house after Maria and I walked around knocking on doors and trying to convince people to rent me the house that their cousin's sister's kids stay in when they come home from Costa Rica in December and was told ´no´one after the other. Several people offered to rent me a room, including one in a house that was not even fully built. Finally on Tuesday, when we were out making our nightly rounds one of my students came up and asked me if I had found a house. I told him that I had not and that I was, at that very moment, on the hunt. He told me that his cousin would rent me his house and we arranged to look at it the next day. I met him at his construction job, (which explains why he has not been in my class for two weeks), and we walked to the house. Initially I thought I was coming to look at the project house that sits on the same lot as the actual house. Project houses are small box houses that were built by some NGO last year. They are not supposed to be rented but I was desperate and thinking that if he wanted to rent it to me I would not complain. Then he started showing me the main house. And I realized that the super nice orange house was the one he wanted to rent. I was so excited that I did not even blink when he told me the rent would be 60 dollars a month. That is outrageously expensive for the region but well worth it in my opinion. I will still be able to survive on my stipend but the 13 dollar splurges on peanut butter will have to stop. Oh well, it is practically impossible to find here anyway. In other news, I killed my first scorpion on Monday. It was liberating. I think that was what needed to happen before the universe would let me find a house- I needed to prove my bugslaying abilities. Now that I have crossed that bridge there is a whole new world of possibility. But I will still probably have to get a cat to take care of the other more hirsute pests. This does not make me happy at all. I do not like cats. Yes, I have Sylvia at home, but I am still amazed that she did not run away or commit cat suicide under my care. But here a cat is sort of a necessity. I also saw a place in Teresa that sells boxer puppies. I am seriously considering buying one. Of course I will have to send in one of my Nica friends to ask how much before I go look at them but that is just par for the course. I do not know much about boxers except that they are super cute like a pug, only more menacing. I should probably just adopt a dog. God knows there are enough unwanted ones roaming the streets in this country, but I want one that is healthy and mentally stable without emotional baggage. I should at least be able to have that in a dog, right? As for work, I taught the kids ¨head, shoulders, knees and toes¨ and it was great. I think it is the first time I really knew that they learned something. I am now convinced that everything needs to be taught in a song. If anyone knows any good color, month or days of the week songs please let me know! Lastly, On Saturday I am goiong to my first Quinceaños, or Quinciñera as they are called in Mexico. I am super excited. I will take lots of pictures!!