Friday, December 27, 2013

12/24/13: Christmas Eve!

Christmas Eve!

Weirdest Christmas season ever. I mean, we’ve tried but it’s just not the same. Still, it was super cute through the day with kids wearing little Christmas hats and such, telling us Merry Christmas and Happy New year, so cute!

We ate breakfast at the school, not too shabby, and headed to our offices. Luckily I had remembered to bring two bags of candy, pennies and pictures for kids! Grade 3 Class 2 was my first class of the day and it was the last time I was going to teach them. Ever. I was dreading telling them, trust me.

Anyways, I spent a while writing little notes and my QQ number on the back of my pictures before class started. My kids were going a bit nutty, but I got them calmed down and promised them candy if they were good.

They were a bit bored with the Christmas lesson- I just had a ton of pictures of gingerbread houses, drinks, Santa, and so on. But I got them using a few words and that helped! And then towards the end of class, I pulled up my slide [we had ten minutes ago and I wanted to give them a DVD], and then I got kids almost in tears because yes, I’m leaving and they’ll never see me again! And I’ll never see them again!

It was so sad and terrible. I had a kid or two return the snowflakes I’d cut out for the class- over forty! But only for that class because they’re that awesome- for me to keep which was precious.  I got all my kids to write down their names on pieces of paper and tried getting a few pictures but they started mobbing me a bit and it got a bit nutty so we had to stop.

Took forever but I got most of them back in their seats and as the bell rang, I hurriedly passed around my pictures, pennies, and candy. I had a lot of the girls wrapping up my picture and then kissing it and giving me the sweetest, most tender looks and I was trying to keep my heart from breaking. The only good outcome was that I managed not to cry, basically. That is all. It was terrible!

Then lunch time, that was okay.

Katie left after that, and I headed back to the office to chill out and write on more pictures. Turns out I brought almost one hundred more than I needed. But I went to work on writing them- and kids love coming in and taking one or two, so they’re going away pretty well!

However, since we were going to do Christmas together after morning classes the following day- Christmas!- I needed to get some more things at the store. I also planned a little surprise- a poem at her chair after her class, and then getting her lunch as part of her Christmas gift [she can’t fit anything more in her bags and there’s just about nothing she wants, and I already had a main thing for her], so I ran down to the grocery store.

I was super paranoid the whole time, wondering if she was there or not. Turns out, she’d been there and gone back home shortly before I left the school. Good thing I didn’t end up going a few minutes after her! She was paranoid as well, haha… Anyways, I got her a handy dandy pen because she likes the pens here, a cute very Chinese blue high lighter, then a boba hot drink, noodle bowl and a milk as well.

There was a Watermelon flavored soda so I bought that to enjoy later, yay!

I carried everything back to the school and hid them in my desk. I fiddled around with my things for a while before finally having to go teach class!

 Grade 4 was nutty. Kids ‘conducting’- four boys- but more than anything they keep the fights going, the kids talking, and it doesn’t help at all. I told the kids I was giving them grades, and tried to use that as leverage as Katie had to keep them behaving, but that didn’t do too much good. I got a kid to read the names out loud, but we ended up getting like four kids crowding around, one of whom ended smacking him in the face! So I sent him to the hospital- poor boy was in tears- and they go the school hospital for everything- and found another kid to call the list and make the other children sit down.

That took a while, and then we did the trivia game. Which went pretty good with them, but a little nutty as usual. They got a short DVD at the end, and we watched clips of the The Grinch before finally leaving at the ring of the bell.

I hurried, switched a few things and headed over to Grade 5. Yay.

They were almost as good as they were at the very beginning! It was pretty impressive and confusing. But it may have helped that I offered them candy on Friday if they were good, so… yeah. Yay! Anyways, so we did the trivia game which went pretty well and kept things going okay for the majority of class- and for the first time in forever, they got a DVD piece! I think they really enjoyed that…

Again I hurried to my office after the bell to switch books and head over to Grade 3 Class 3 which was pretty chaotic as it has recently become. We did the trivia game though that usually gets me a tiny bit of control. They love games like that, and it keeps them talking in English which is even better! Although I think they were still a little nutty so we didn’t end up watching any DVD for that class.

Finished with my final Tuesday, I went down to the bus stop to meet Katie, and we boarded the bus to get good seats and head into town for dinner! Of course to the corner for our favorite dumplings, yay! We went and bought chocolate drinks, and then we went to our dumpling place! They’re seriously the best dumplings and the best people, seriously. Some of the girls there ended up giving us these paper roses. A big thing they seem to do for Christmas? That and wrapped up apples! [The Chinese word peace sounds like apples or something like that?]

It was so sweet of them!

We headed home shortly after, warming up on the heater to watch How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Which Katie has never seen! That’s so crazy… well, the human one- she has seen the cartoon one. But yeah, we enjoyed that in the warmth of my bedroom and with the heater! It was pretty swell! It was a ton of fun watching the movie.

Also, she had an early gift for me… her gray sweater that I had been interested in, along with her sketchpad! It was super sweet of her. Although she still has to draw me something in that notebook, ehm… but still. It was sweet! So I concluded the little ‘4 Weeks of Christmas’ that I had been doing for her… basically just another candy. Yay… haha.


Then we called it a night! A decently boring Christmas Eve, hallelujah.

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