So it's been a while and I have a little catching up to do.

Before I started working at CEC, Theresa, Meadhbh and I went to Atacames. Its a beach by Esmeraldas. The bus rides up there wasn't too bad. Our hostel was close to the beach but far enough away that we didn't hear all the noise from the clubs from our room.
We were hungry so after we dropped our stuff of at our room, we went to eat. I ordered shrimp because we were right on the coast and fish was the main thing on the menu. Unfortunately the shrimp didn't really agree with my stomach and I spent the rest of the weekend dealing with "digestive issues".
Meadhbh and Theresa had fun though. They went out on Friday, then went to the beach on Saturday. I joined them for about an hour, but I wasn't feeling so hot. But it was ok, because in that hour I realized that I really don't like laying out in the sun, or on the sand, or going in the ocean. So being sick wasn't really all that much of a disappointment.
Atacames is really cool. Its completely touristy, but for Ecuadorians. I saw maybe 4 other Gringos there. And all of the restaurants were traditional Ecuadorian food and were AMAZING! all except the one I ate at on Friday night. The beach is also super loud because all the clubs that are right on the beach blast their music. So no matter where you go you can hear about three different club songs, even at 10 in the morning.


As for my job at CEC, I teach 3 classes of Intermediate II. I really like my students, they are all really smart. Most of them are students from la Escuala Politechnic Nacional, which is pretty much the best Univeristy in Ecuador. CEC is the English department of the University but its also opened to the public.
My schedule isn't that great because I teach from 7-9 then 2-4 and 5-7. But I'm ok with that because I'm pretty sure the next cycle will be better.
At first I didn't really like teaching just because it was so exhausting, but then I got used to it, and my students are turning out to be really cool. So now I really like it. They are at just the right level too. They can speak well enough that we can have conversations, but not so well that they are asking really difficult grammar questions. But they do know more English grammar than me. I guess that's ok because I can talk circles around them about Spanish grammar.
Their first exam was on October 27. That was nice because I didn't actually have to plan anything - CEC writes the tests because they are the same for each level. Grading actually wasn't that bad either.
Things are going pretty well but I'm cool with this continuous improvement deal too. We'll see how it goes.