Weekending

School on Friday was crazy because:

• It was Dia de Amor y Amistad, or Love and Friendship Day.  This is basically the Colombian Valentine’s day.  Apparently last Friday was the official Love and Friendship Day, when we celebrated this in our classroom, but it is celebrated for about two weeks.  Some of us thought Amor y Amistad was last Monday, then no, it is for the whole week, but is celebrated Friday, but is really Monday, but actually it is observed for about two weeks.  Go figure.
• On Friday, lots of parents and the PTA and such brought in candy for Love and Friendship Day.  We waited until the end of the day on Friday to give all that out, at which point they are kind of wild anyway.  I gave out pencils.
• One little boy (who looks like he is about a third grader) burst into tears randomly during work time, wanting to go home.
• Our classroom randomly started smelling (typo: spelling.  What would it be like to spell like diapers?) like diapers.  Fortunately, this was toward the end of the day.  Unfortunately, I had run out of the desmellifying spray, because my room smells funny quite often.

School on Friday went well because:

• My class was pretty on task during math, and I think I may keep math towards the beginning of the day, when possible.  They know time pretty well, and had a great time using the clocks.
• We read “The Grouchy Ladybug” by Eric Carle, which was a very cute book and tied in with time and clocks.  We made little books to go with this towards the end of the day.
• They presented their animal projects, which we have bene working on for this week.  Most of the kids did a pretty good job with using the books I’d borrowed from the school library and making posters about their animals.
• One of my students, who can be particularly challenging with his behavior, told me that I could borrow his markers whenever I wanted.

On Friday after school, we had a staff party, to celebrate Love and Friendship Day, along with the crap-ton of September birthdays.  It was held in our building, by our pool area.  They got a band and everything, and it was nice visiting with everyone.  As I drank some keg beer by the pool, the director of the school told me about his observation of me a week or two ago.  He had two main things to say:  That he was impressed by my patience, and that he was embarassed that his son was being so distracting.  This was really nice to hear, and the director told me that even though I was settling the class and trying to get them to focus, I didn’t raise my voice.  Now, I have raised my voice with my class, though I try to avoid it, but this was a big reminder that I need to stay calm and not let the chattiness get to me.  I am trying some new things with my class to work on quieting and focusing, and trying to follow through, help my students to practice, and to stay firm and consistent.  My mother tells me that the same things that work with dogs will work with kids.  The director also told me that he was glad I was his son’s teacher, and that he and his wife (one of the teachers at school) were behind me 100%.  It’s good to have that kind of support.

This Saturday, I finally went to get my haircut.  It had been going in the direction of it’s awkward stage, but it looks nice now.  Saturday evening, we went to a dinner party for one of the teacher’s birthdays.  It was prepared by a professional chef.  And it was insanely good.  I also am making the transition to mostly-whenever-possible-vegeterianism.  Most of the time here, I am able to find something non-meaty I can eat, but it can be difficult sometimes.  So, I had a few bites of meat at this dinner party, which had a Japenese menu, cute namecards, and delicious flan.  The texture of meat sort of throws me off, but it was tasty.

This morning, I went to this amazing buffet in Centro, along with my elementary principal and a few folks from school.  It was delicious and a massive amount of food.  I just realized how much I have written about food!  There is some really excellent food here, and I love going out and trying out places around here.

Happy Fall!  Hope you are enjoying some cooler weather!  Still hot here!

Love, Linnea