So, we had our big year-end banquet today. You know, where the company spends a lot of money to show how successful we are (nevermind that we can’t get a new, working, cd player in my treehouse class because “it’s so close to the end of the semester”). The food at the banquet wasn’t really to my liking, but the beer was. Oh, and Seth won $1000! Woo! Cheers, right?
Kindergarten is going to come too early tomorrow morning, I fear.
So, we have tomorrow off. Our branch is moving locations later this month, so they’re using Saturdays to pack instead of teach. Granted, it means I have to teach some other classes on a few random Wednesday and Friday nights this month, but I’ve got tomorrow and the next 4 Saturdays off.
Friday night, meet my big pink cup full of orange juice and tequila. Mmmm….I’m sleeping in tomorrow.
I have an abundance of nonpaid, work-related paperwork to do that I really don’t want to think about. But, I’ll want to think about it tomorrow or Saturday even less, so I’m doing it tonight. I’m going to make some popcorn (work stress + pms = Lisbeth in grazing mode), pour a large diet Coke and tequila, pop in my earphones, and get started. I’m telling you to hold myself accountable.
When I’m all finished, I’ll let you know. And then, I’ll fire up the computer and watch an episode or two of Chuck. And then I’ll go to bed.
Update, 11:30pm:
Woo! Finished! And it only took 2 hours and 10 minutes!
(for posterity’s sake - 11 HW books and 13 tests for SA6, 20 HW books for SA2, and 7 communication books) (I still have 5 communication books to write tomorrow - they’re the ones I need to get translated for me before I write them)
I’ve been sitting on this story for a while, but I haven’t posted lately, so here goes:
BoingBoing has had a couple of posts lately about a magic rubber pig that squishes and returns to normal. We have a couple of those each, though I have a pig and a tomato, and Lisbeth has a duck and an egg. We use them in classes for games. A few weeks ago I took the tomato to a class in which none of the students had seen any of the magic balls. One of the girls, (around 12,) saw me squeeze it and said it looked like “the little chicken.”
That can’t be what it sounded like, right?
To help me find out what obviously innocent thing she actually meant, I asked “What now?”
“Little chicken,” she said. “Is a boy’s… um… a boy’s,” she shook her hands exasperatedly, trying to think of the word as I noiselessly flapped my mouth, intending to tell her “Stop. Seriously, stop talking right now.” As I worked my jaw, still unable to speak, while she “ummed” and continued waving her hands and rolling her eyes to the ceiling, a boy jumped up onto his chair, pointed to his crotch, and yelled “Teacher, this!”
I’d have felt much better if she hadn’t smiled and said “Yes, that.”
Blargh - it’s almost midnight and I still haven’t written (or gone to sleep, which might be the greater problem of the two). So, it’s a quickie today!
Tomorrow I’m headed to the zoo with my kindy class. Should be fun. Or not.
We got our Christmas box today - thanks Mom and Dad! I went ahead and opened after Mom said she’d wrapped all the stuff that we have to wait to open, and woo! We got some candy! And stickers! And WeeSing books! And presents! Wooooooooo!
So, I understand that it’s freezing cold and miserable back home right now. In my hometown, “a major ice storm that had been forecast and feared for the past few days appeared about to come true.” Oh, the foreboding! Worse, though, is this news:
Oh no! Kansas City International, sleepiest international airport ever, shut down? I guess it still sucks if you’re trying to fly in or out, though.
In light of such cold and suffering, I thought you might like to see a few of my pictures from today:
Ivan, going to town on the monkey bars.
Ivan and Lola, looking down from the lofty heights of the rope bridge that doesn’t even clear my shoulders.
Minnie, sporting uncharicteristic braided pigtails.
Thomas. He looks so serious, but I think it’s really just squintiness from the bright, warm, sun.
Possibly more than any other kid in the class, Peggy loves to have her picture taken. She’s got the same reaction to the camera that cats in comic strip (Garfield, Get Fuzzy) have to the sound for a can opener - somehow, she knows there’s a camera out and comes running, no matter what she was doing before.
Lola, Ivan, and Finian on the alligator teeter-totter. If you only ever saw these pictures, you might even think this is something that happens more than once every 3 or 4 weeks!
Elin with a rare smile. I think it’s my favorite picture from today? She doesn’t usually like to have her picture taken, but today, while she was playing, she didn’t seem to mind to much.
Oh, and one last thing - another video from yesterday. This one was shot during the afternoon, when official learning time is over and kids are playing while they wait to go home. There are kids from all three classes in the room, but the featured players are all mine.
(Mom, take the time to watch - there’s a minor tribute around the 50-second mark!)
Testing the embed-ability of my youtube videos. I suspect difficulty. If so, carry on. Nothing to see here.
You know the phrase worried sick? Well, I guess I am pretty much officially dealing with a cold, but I think I’m changing the phrase. I’m worried tired. All day worrying (worthlessly, I might add, since what exactly can I do to help, whee I can’t speak the language) about Seth, plus working, plus squeezing in a few things I was supposed to have done anyway but forgot about in the hustle and bustle of sick Seth, oh, and also running over to bushiban to give an oral test means I’m beat. Seth is doing better (although I’m planning to make sure he milks the recovery period as long as possible), and even though I’m tired, I’m doing okay. Yay for okay, right?
Oh, and my little sister is a Master (at least, I think that’s what her Facebook status is saying)! She gets extra letters behind her name on here resume, now, plus woo! she can sing good! Yay for Lindsay!
Blargh. I’m not the sick one, but I’m sure tired.
Today was one of my long days, and it was a little different today as my schedule got shifted around to try to cover some of Seth’s classes. I worked the same number of hours, but the classes weren’t all mine, so, yeah.
Seth is still sick, although he thinks maybe he’s getting better. I don’t know, though - I’ll believe it when I see him eating food and getting up and out of bed (for anything other than trips to the doctor, that is). He’s going to the doctor again tomorrow morning, and that visit is supposed to be to review anything that came of the lab tests of his, ahem, specimen. Heh. Seth had to poo in a cup. Poop is funny, pooping in a cup is funnier (well, and crazy-worrying for me, but I’ll concentrate on the funny. See? La la la, no worrying here, no sir!).
Anyway, all this not worrying has me exausted (wait, I may have already mentioned that), so I’m going to lay down, put on some mindless tv, and go to sleep.
Hey! Woo! I got a new camera yesterday!
It’s pretty much this one, but the model is called the μ 760 SW rather than the Stylus 760 SW. Pretty insignificant difference, right? I got the green model (yeah, it looks yellowish, but its more greenish in real life). I wanted the orange, but the guy I bought from (of the three vendors at NOVA who had this camera, he was the one most willing to give me a deal) only had one orange, and it was the display model. Now, I’d have taken the display without a care (although I’d probably had tried to get more off for it), but Seth sort of winced when I suggested that (apparantly electronics display models don’t perform as well - who knew? Not me!), so I got the green. It’s groovy.
New camera in hand, I went a bit nuts today. Here are some pictures, mmmkay?
William. He’s the youngest kid in my Jump class. He’s wicked smart. He headbutted me last week. In the head.
Vicki. Also wicked smart. No headbutting, but a lot of sass. It’s all good, though.
Yvonne. Perpetually just-woke-up-grumpy. Regularly one of the cutest-dressed kids I see. Very good when she feels like participating in class.
William. Not the brightest in the class, but he works pretty hard, and he’s doing lots better than he was when I took over the class. Go me, I guess.
This is my entire class. And my co-teacher. I can’t hardly believe the amount their parents pay for the class covers the cost to double-staff it twice a week, but what do I know? I’m just the English teacher.
Goofing off during breaktime.
William took this one. Not too shabby, huh? (I mean the photo-taking skills of a 4-year-old. I, on the other hand, look a lot shabby. Yay for exhaustion.)
That’s all for now. I also got a bunch of pictures of a few of my other classes, but I’m saving them for tomorrow’s post. Goodnight!