Sept 16 2013

9/16/13

Mondays! Lovely, lovely Mondays… bleh.

Haha. So we ended up staying in bed for a bit. I slept in about half an hour longer than usual! Katie pointed out recently that a very noisy dump truck comes through and shortly after I usually stir, waking up soon. Mystery solved- hopefully I get used to it and forget it exists!

We showered and read for a bit but at 10 Katie was restless and bored of her book [she’s paused from Game of Thrones to the Grapes of Wrath], so we got ready and in about ten minutes we were headed out the door for the day! Clean and refreshed, we started off with high hopes. Lunch was delicious- great rolls with a buttery covering or other and more. I prepared a few things for my two Grade 3 classes of the day, and then started reading Catching Fire online once I got bored.

Eventually I went to teach.

Chaos, as usual. Nothing new. The homeroom teacher came in for the last 15 minutes and sat down, which definitely quieted the kids down. I had one girl crying at once, and she had a few friends trying to comfort her. I was trying to keep the noise down, and unfortunately there wasn’t too much I could do. She stopped soon, however, and participated in my Rooms chat. But it was pretty crazy overall.

The next one was just as insane, if not crazier. I had one kid grabbing my hand and pulling me over to his chair to talk, which was pretty cute. And the kids still love the comics in the back of their books, which is one of the reasons I don’t like having the books out unless we’re literally using them. But for these two classes, I don’t know how their Chinese English teacher is teaching from it or anything- I even tried asking but I don’t think we made sense to each other.

Towards the end, this time, I had two teachers step inside to quiet them down, which helped for a little except then the teachers left…  Oh but the bell rang and I rounded up class perfectly! In my own opinion, anyways.

Overall this teaching day was definitely a Monday.

We ate dinner and Craig, the Chinese English teacher for grade 7 joined us and talked a little. He’s pretty funny in an odd way, and he’s definitely fun company. They put up some fried rice or something similar to it, and it was delicious! Unfortunately they put it out while we were eating- so we grabbed some for seconds, but gah we were so full!

Shortly after, we headed out to the playground to see the kids. And to see them going inside… luckily one of Katie’s classes came out, however. It was a small group but we played with them nonetheless. These kids LOVE high fives! It’s pretty funny. Katie got them running around a wall for a bit, and I did jump rope with about five of them- and yes, I’ve still got it! They were pretty impressed, but I didn’t want to be too awesome for them, haha, so I stopped and had them show me their stuff. Very nice!

As usual, they weren’t out too long so Katie and I grabbed our things and headed out for the evening. First we stopped at the pharmacy with a text from Nicole for this stuff we can burn inside our place to keep the bugs away. It looked like a little green bottle of alcohol, but we bought it anyways! Then we crossed over to the grocery store- which is pretty embarrassing how often we are in there. I mean, people here buy things daily sure, but we come in for a buttload of stuff each week, and it’s a bit ridiculous although definitely funny!

We bought a lighter, a drink each, a squeeze-mop thingy, more tissue [totally makes sense all those times I had Asians in Disney World say we had no more tissue in the bathrooms], and ice cream bars! We tried new ones, of course. Mine was a pointed cone in the same foamy stuff like the cup ones back home with super creamy vanilla ice cream dipped in chocolate, and Katie got a berry one covered in caramel covered in… vanilla or something. I don’t really know. She said it tasted very fruity, though! Usually a good thing, right?

Overall, the ice cream was pretty good. We came home and tore up the wall we’d built in the bathroom the other week. Katie’s gotten super annoyed how the shower doesn’t drain all that well. The drain isn’t the issue, but how the tile doesn’t tilt or anything. Because of this, we ended up building a little wall around the corner of cardboard covered in thick tape, taped to the tile. It almost worked- and yet it did not. It also may have begun to stink a little. Katie was definitely bummed after all that work! But hopefully we’ll do okay with the mop now, we’ll see.

We played with the bottle of stuff, which is pretty awesome! Just dab some on a plate, and light it up! It looks super awesome and we love watching it. Katie did it in every room and I closed all the windows. We may have done too much, though; it’s a bit much right now. Haha, we’ll see how it goes…

I didn’t like the run-in with Monday during this afternoon, but hopefully it’ll be better tomorrow. And it is ending pretty well! Although I’m still pretty sore from our early morning stretching exercises [since Katie’s kids are basically Jackie Chan and we don’t like them showing us up so we want to do the splits or something], I’m well fed and pretty happy!