Bear with me, for I am a terrible blogger.

Here is a list of positive and negative things about school that I wrote in October. It has been updated to reflect the time since then.

Good and Positive Experiences:

·         Singing “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” and playing “Teacher Says…” every day.

·         How my students say “small wind” or “small windy” when they mean that it is a little bit windy outside.

·         My students are excited and happy to see me when I pick them up from school every day.

·         My youngest students can easily respond to the following questions:

o   What is your/his/her name? How are you today? How old are you?

o   What day is today? What day was yesterday? What day will tomorrow be?

o   What month is this? What was last month? What will next month be?

o   What year is this? How’s the weather?

o   Do you have any brothers or sisters? How many brothers/sisters do you have?

·         They are beginning to branch out from the pre-programmed response of “I’m fine, thank you” when asked “How are you today?”

·         The school provides the teachers and students with lunch every day, and it is usually pretty good (except for some of the sketchier meats, and when they sneak in the tiny crustaceans…iiick). I enjoy “sneaking” food home, a process made easier when my principal gave me a Tupperware container one day and told me to use that instead of just sticking my bowl in the refrigerator.

·         Payday is the best day, especially when the week has already been great.

·         Every Friday we go to the park. It is lovely. We swing, and play tag, and act like loons.

·         There are plenty of smiles and “See you tomorrow”s every day.

·         It was wonderful how excited my beginner students were to receive certificates for completing their books (I did this when we finished our first two books/workbooks). I love that I am in a job where I get to do things like make certificates for special class-wide achievements.

·         Marking and grading tests and papers can be fun, even when my students haven’t done as well as I hoped they would.

·         One of my quieter students holds my hand as we walk back from the elementary school to our school every day. It’s also nice because she is one of the students who I often have to jolt back to reality.

·         Being told something to the effect of “You’re scary, but we like it” by one of the administrators at school, and having her explain that one of the other teachers is also scary, but uses his scariness more effectively; the administrator gave me advice on how to emulate this teacher (staring quietly at my students and taking away break instead of using a loud voice), which has worked out pretty well!

Bad/Negative Experiences:

·         My beginner students like(d) to draw anatomically-correct pictures, especially of me, on the board and on their papers. Oy.

·         One day one of my older students snapped at me to get my attention. My response: “In the real world, people will slap you for that. I am a teacher, so I will not.”

·         General rudeness and disarray, most surprisingly from the children of teachers.

·         Sometimes my younger students fall asleep in class. I understand with the first class, because they have just woken up from their nap. With my second class, 4:30pm-6pm classes are late for a six year old. Sometimes I let them sleep. Sometimes we play games or sing songs so they wake up.

o   Positive: My first class can sing “Get Up, Stand Up”, which I thought was just a fun way to sing Mi Chamocha (thanks, Ramah!), but discovered is actually an awesome Bob Marley song (shush, World. I know you knew this already). This is what we sing to wake up.

·         Only one of the other teachers really talks to me, but that is fine because we are the only two full-time English teachers, and most of the Chinese teachers speak as much English as I speak Chinese.

·         Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are my longest and most packed days, and there is only a ten minute break between my last two classes.

From late October:

I wore my Map of Wonderland t-shirt to the Visa Office today, although I fell through the bureaucratic rabbit hole weeks ago. It is shocking to realize that I have only been here for a month and a half, because it already feels like at least twice that. This does mean I can feel less guilty about not having explored an outstanding amount of the country, since I am technically still in the “settling in” phase.

*Note: ”Guilty” feelings like this prompted me to make one of my New Year’s resolutions to explore at least one new part of the city/country every weekend, which I have kept up so far (I know it is still early in January to say this, but I am proud of myself)!

From mid-November:

One of the more problematic students (not in my class) held my hand as we crossed the street the other day. Also, one way that I know I am doing something right: the students I most frequently admonish are the students who come up to me during non-class time for hugs and to play games, practice English, hold my hand when crossing the street.

Yesterday, one of my younger students asked about the animal “poopoopine”, which we ultimately figured out meant “porcupine”. The class laughed for nearly five minutes (and continues to do so whenever it is mentioned) upon hearing the word “poopoopine”.

One of my older students is reading The Magic Treehouse series, and I told him the author came to my elementary school when I was about his age. He is eleven years old. That feels like a lifetime ago. Other students in that class asked me if I knew what “cut the cheese” meant. I said yes. They giggled, and asked if I had ever cut the cheese, and I responded with “Never.” So glad they are bringing that one back.