Oh me, Oh my ...

So, where to start?

We had a teacher in-service day last Friday. Many things talked about and etc. How, What, etc to do things in classroom and little behavior things. We had some fun (Yugoslavia—had to be there moment), we had some guilt (oops! forgot that was wrong), and some curiosity (are they referencing me?). Over all it was nice, as is usually is to have both of the schools together foreign teacher wise and see and talk to them.

Afterwards we went to Outback for lunch as we had a two and a half hour break! I love the salad I can get from there…and their bread is delicious. Anyway the reason I mention this is that our one co-worker Vicki goes there all the time; several times a week and is very well known. After we are given our bills and are getting ready to pay the waiter comes back and tells us that he has to adjust the bills—10% Vicki Friends—we were given the Vicki discount! It was awesome.

Oh, earlier in the week I swept poker night! I am very proud of myself for that…I was kinda tired of playing thinking that pocket eights sucked, but maybe something could come of it; scared when a queen came out and he kept betting, but then got trip eights…so went with it. Onaje was pissed, but oh well. Played another game and one that second “fairer” he said with ace-jack and then flopped a jack with ace high so it worked out.

KID STORIES:

Last week for the fourth of July we made these little fourth of July vests for the kids art project. They were red and white striped with blue color, “buttons” and “pockets.” Super cute on them! So while we were finishing tying the elastic to them and getting them on the kids some had the vests on and some didn’t. All of a sudden Dan and the ones with the vest said “I America-You Korean!” pointing to Harold who had no vest on yet. I thought it was the cutest thing and laughed so hard...

The kids have this obsession with being first to sit, stand etc; but instead of saying first like I tried to teach them they got it in their head that they are zero. “I’m zero” “No, I’m zero” then someone else starts to defend the first one “No, [name] zero” and a third pips up “No, [name 2] zero” until I tell them that all are zero and to be quiet and good.

I might have mentioned before that I use the word silly and knucklehead to describe my kids. It turns out that some of the older kids liken those words to a negative “crazy” and we are not allowed to use them. Luckily I am teaching my kindergarteners that they are usually good words when I use them and we use them. But the point I am working towards is that the kids are using those words to begin to describe how a fox might look in a book, or how they drew the facial expression on a person to be. It is cute when they use it.

I have discovered that I am anit-the-word-“Fine.” “How are you today?” “Fine, thank you.” I don’t know why I am now anti that word with the kids, but I realized I never taught my kindergarteners that word. They are using the words exciting, wonderful, fantastic, hungry, so-so, and disgusted (which I only sort-of taught after a student used that word on his own!) I love the fact that they use stronger words to describe themselves each morning.


KINDA KID-ISH STORIES

First one is mostly for my brother…The kids here (and adults too presumably) eat raw ramen noodles like they are potato chips. They have some sort of flavoring (usually something with shrimp-how they love shrimp here) and they eat it raw. Why this one is for Keith is that he eats raw ramen sans flavoring in the states.

Next: I teach a book called “I Can Write” there are three in the series and I am using book three for a class. The unit is called “Letter to Santa” now the kids know who Santa is and all of that, but the things in this book which I have to attribute to culture differentiation is really funny to me. We leave Santa cookies and milk; we might leave the reindeer carrots, but according to this book you can leave him donuts, orange juice, pickles and assorted other things that, to me, see odd. I guess it is good that Santa doesn’t get cookies form everyone all around the world; that could get kinda boring after a while, but pickles and orange juice just don’t feel like a winning combination.

Finally, one of my kids got a paper cut the other morning. It wasn’t bleeding, just a little line of red that didn’t come off on the tissue. I thought it would be okay. Cleaned it “kissed it” and sent him back to his seat; two seconds later he was back; same thing again and again. Life was over for him. The next day another girl had the same thing happen, until they got one of those magical band-aids life could not go on. I wish that paper cuts where the biggest problems as far as hurting oneself any of us had to deal with ever. What a wonderful world that would be when only a paper cut could destroy your world, just like when you where seven…