Today is....

Sorry about yesterday’s entry being so short and kind of cut off at the end, by the time I had gotten to the end I wasn’t even able to keep my eyes open, I kind of stumbled to bed and was relieved to get there. Gratefully though today I have felt much more rested than I have in the past week or so, so that is a great thing!
Monday:
Last night when I ended I was barely through with my Sunday and so tonight I have to cover yesterday and today. As yesterday was a new day I figured that it would be hard for the kids to remember the new month so I was going to do some kind of review of the months. I went to class with a jump rope and quickly discovered that the months would be a little hard for the 4 year olds, rather instead we did the days of the week- each kid would jump while saying the days of the week. The 5 year olds were able to do the months, they knew a song that they sang as they jump roped. Of course for the 3 year olds I didn’t even try to do the days of the week or the months, we just worked on jump roping (though for them it is really what you say, jump roping- we hold the rope still and they jump over it, but it is really cute as they were so proud of themselves when they had done it). Today the kids were still trying to say August and so I had them say September 5-10 times just so it could get in our heads, which is kind of funny because tonight when I was talking to Teacher Stephanie we said something and we both started to say “Today is…” and I said August, she was like it’s not August anymore!! I felt kind of bad as I had been kind of getting at the kids about how we needed to remember that it is a new month. When class was over I rushed upstairs so that I could be part of the family phone call for a little bit, but sadly it was already over..since I am not able to join the family phone call very often I expect that everyone should write more letters!
Yesterday’s middle class theme was safety and health. The kids are not always the best at stacking their chairs and so I decided that, that would be what we would be talking about. We started by using simple blocks and trying to make stacks with them. We talked about how there are good ways to stack things and there are bad ways to stack, we then moved onto chairs. I first made a stack with chairs and stacked it purposely so that it quickly fell down (don’t worry I moved it away from the kids so that it would not hit them), of course the kids thought that it was the most hilarious thing that as I turned my back to go and grab another chair that the stack behind me fell down. We talked a little bit about how we should stack the chairs and we made a rule that stacks should not go higher than 4 chairs because once they start going higher they get tipsy even if they are stacked the correct way. We then had a relay of sorts and practiced stacking our chairs, the first time we just stacked our chairs and the 2nd time we stacked our chairs by color, it was really cool to see as several times someone would go to put a chair on a stack but it already had 4 in it and someone else would go rushing forward and tell them not to stack it there as there was already 4.
There have been more and more people coming today, yesterday, and the last couple of days last week (today Teacher Stephanie told me that we are up to 44 when just a couple of weeks ago we always prepared for 30 students and never used all of the supplies—AHHHHHH). So yesterday for lunch we separated into 3 groups rather than the two that we have normally been doing, it kind of confused me yesterday when it was time for lunch as no one had told me and I looked outside of my classroom to see kids running into the classroom that we don’t normally use. But I soon figured out what going on, so now for lunch Natalie helps Teacher Jane in the Yellow Classroom, Teacher Michelle is in the Green Classroom, and I help Teacher Stephanie in the Orange Classroom- I think that somehow Teacher Stephanie and I have the largest group for lunch. It has been kind of interesting, before coming here I had never read any of the Chronicles of Narnia series but Yuling had purchased the whole series for the interns to read and I think that I am already half way through the series, yesterday when lunch was done I went quickly upstairs to read some and then to take a nap.
This week our theme in class is Around the World, Natalie and I both decided to yesterday to do kind of a beginning review of the world, to go with our theme for the week Natalie had the kids make Passports yesterday in her class for us to use the rest of the week and I showed them the movie of the guy dancing all over the world (it was kind of disappointing- the TV hook up was still not working so I had to sit with my laptop on my lap and the kids sat on the floor in front of me, they kept getting on excited about different parts and laughing at things but I couldn’t see what they were so excited or were laughing about. It makes me sad when I cannot appreciate with the kids. After we finished the movie we got to color the different parts of the world, we stuck with the basics and colored the water blue and then each continent a different color (though even for some that was a bit difficult and I was disappointed to find that they had left Hawaii and Antarctica off of the map that I got). It was kind of funny, I have taken to finding out whether the kids will need markers in Teacher Natalie’s class and try to tell them before they leave my classroom so that they will not have to come running back and get them once class has started, I had forgotten and was telling them right as they were walking out the door, not all of them heard me but Leslee did and before I knew it she was yelling out “blah,blah,blah,blah (except it is a Chinese version of blah), Teacher Natalie, blah,blah,blah,blah” I found it funny to have my own translator.
I was supposed to be having a couple of tutoring jobs yesterday, one group and a one on one, but both have been either cancelled or moved to a different day. So with my free time I decided to talk to Yuling for a little bit about how we should do our different tutoring classes and groups. I was glad to have a time to sit down with Yuling and ask her about it as I was feeling a little overwhelmed with my tutoring and what I was supposed to be doing.
Last night because I didn’t have any tutoring or really anywhere else to be I figured that it would be a good thing to do my laundry (which was a good idea considering that I didn’t have any shorts clean), like I mentioned earlier I also got really distracted watching TV and writing my journal, I also talked got a chance to talk to Joel on skype.
Today:
I woke up this morning feeling a little stressed as normally I would have looked at my lesson plans and ideas of what I would be talking about, but because last night I was so tired I hadn’t even looked at today’s schedule. Luckily I had picked very simple things for my morning classes so it wasn’t as bad.
In my morning classes we were talking about simple exercises, basically we got to do stretches, jump around a lot, do sit ups, jumping jacks, and drink lots of water- tons of fun! Though by the end of the first class I was more than done, I could have done more but I didn’t exactly appreciate the feeling of being covered in sweat so in the other two classes I just gave instructions of what to do. It was kind of fun, in the 5 year old class the girls and the boys had a competition of who could do more jumping jacks. It has been kind of frustrating lately, Teacher Stephanie has been leaving the classroom and so the class is crazy, the kids don’t like to listen when she is gone and so I am still feeling like the 3 year old class is pointless (it frustrates me even more as they would like to have 20 in the 3 year old class, that will make it even harder for them to pay attention and learn). When class was over I ran upstairs so that I could do read some more of my book while I had the time (:D).
For my middle class I was going to talk about Mother Goose but sadly we didn’t have any Mother Goose stories so instead I grabbed “5 Little Ducks” and “The Cat in the Hat” and read those to the class. it was really cute, at the end of “5 Little Ducks” there is a part where the ducks are all sleeping, we acted out the story and they all would lay down and pretend to be sleeping oh so peacefully.
Today Ali (the Cook) was gone, I guess she went to another town to help her son with something and so today Yuling got to be our cook, we had something very simple because of that. It was really good though, dumplings- I have found out that they are one of my favorites here and coffin bread! Lunch went very quickly, we didn’t have enough bowls for Teacher Stephanie and I so I had run back to the kitchen to get some more and buy the time that I got back to the classroom there was only like 25 dumplings left when, when I had left there probably had been closer to over a 100.
I was a little tired by the time it rolled around to be lunch time and so once I was done with my lunch I went upstairs in order to take a nap. When I woke up I didn’t really have any plans for what I was going to be doing for my lesson, but I knew that the topic was Peru (Natalie and I each took a continent and then are talking about some place from the continent- of course I had to do Peru :D). I first went to my trusty youtube and found a cool 5 minute movie about tourism and then I started to think what I could do with the rest of my 45 minutes. I started searching for some pictures but didn’t want to get too complex with things for the kids when I remembered that I had pictures on my computer from my trip to Peru, so I busted those out and put a bunch onto a PowerPoint presentation. I was kind of concerned about how often I use PowerPoints and youtube videos, but tonight Yuling told me that she likes that I use them, she thinks it helps the kids understand better and it catches their attention better- I totally agree, I am a major visual learner and if someone stands in front of me for 45 minutes and doesn’t have anything to show I totally zone out and do not learn anything from it. I felt better knowing that she totally supports me using them (not that I probably would have stopped using them anyway :D). After we had watched the movie and went through the pictures we busted out our super cool passports and added Peru to our book, I had them draw the flag (the really simple version that is) and a “Peruvian” hat (most of them I was just lucky to get a hat on the page)…Erick, random question but does your National Anthem have any words? I was trying to find one really quick on youtube and everyone that I found didn’t have any words playing, just music.
When class was done I stopped in the office again to talk to Yuling, a good thing that I did, for I found out that I was having a tutor group at 5 (class got out at 4:30), I had been thinking about running and getting some bread from the bakery, so it was a good thing that I stopped in to chat. While I was standing there and Yuling was giving the kids their after school snack Daniel got a little fussy so of course dear Aunt Beth was right there to pick him up and rock him :D. Yuling was telling us that in the last year here stuff for babies has been increased in price by like 6x, and not just a small amount either, I know that to have a baby is a lot of money and that it is totally worth it, but I think that I will do better if I do not have to think about what the costs are.
So I had my first “group” today, it was actually only two people, the rest of the group could not fit the time into their schedule or something like that so they will be the only two that I have. Their names are Passion and Brian, they both seem to be pretty easy going and seem like they will be easy to tutor. They are both very quiet and don’t have much to say except to answer the questions, I hope that they will open up to me more as time goes on. When that hour was over I went back downstairs with my laptop, it had again not worked during class and we were hoping that Yuling’s husband Joseph would be able to help figure out what was wrong, it turns out that it is pretty simple- all I have to do is change the display setting while it is plugged into the computer. It kind of made me sad and happy at the same time, I was talking to Teacher Stephanie and she said that she is concerned for Natalie as she doesn’t think that she comes to class very prepared and that she thinks that she should spend more time on her lessons, I kind of wonder what the teachers say about me and I also feel bad as sometimes I also don’t spend as much time on my lessons as I feel I should and I feel ill-prepared, but I do try to go down at least 20 minutes before my classes begin so that I can have all my materials together and am ready to go before the bell rings.
I tutored Mark again tonight, and man he was hilarious tonight. We were doing this writing exercise where Mark had to list some of his “childhood” memories (he didn’t quite get that one- I’m still a child) but anyway I had been giving him some suggestions like “have you ever been to the beach, ever ridden the train, etc.” and he was just going along with mine when he finally decided to give one… “my first girlfriend,” I thought that, that was ok but was a little surprised that he had a girlfriend (let along multiple) and then he decided to add “my first boyfriend,” he didn’t wait very long to add “I’m just joking”-I was like yeah, you had better be joking. I tried another approach with him, what was some time that you were really, really sad…
“Last week,”
“Why what happened last week?” (me)
“I died.”
“You died, what happened, how are you sitting here?” (me)
“I don’t know…..I just joking”
Then I asked him about a time that he was really, really happy and we pretty much had the same conversation again- he had something about death tonight. He also asked if he could put down about his first fight in school, I was like um how many fights have you been in at school, 3-4, ahhh- that is not good. The last one that made me laugh when we were making lists of his memories was this…
“Have you ever been to Taroko?” (me)
“Yes, Taroko is amazing, every man in Hualien should go to Taroko.” (Mark)
“I have never been to Taroko before.” (me)
“You should go it is beautiful.” (Mark)
“I have heard that is very beautiful and I would really like to go.” (me)
“Yeah you should, it is awesome.” (Mark)
First of all it just made me laugh that he said that every man in Hualien should go and 2nd of all it was really cool because when I mentioned Taroko he got all excited and was telling me about how cool it was and that I should go there.. I really do hope to go sometime because all that I have heard about it, is how amazing and beautiful it is. Another one that made me laugh was at one point we were describing an apple and the book said that we should describe how it sounds. I asked him how does an apple sound, and he was like I don’t know.. “does it say I’m an apple, I’m an apple, I’m an apple?” (me). Then he was like no, it goes “don’t eat me, don’t eat me,” it was just so funny though because he started to say it in a high squeaky voice, it pretty much made me laugh. It was also funny as when he was getting up ready to leave I wrote down a couple of the things that he had said so that I would not forget to put them in my journal, he read what I was writing down and asked me why I was writing them down, I said to put in my journal. He asked me was a journal was and I explained that it was a book that we wrote down what happened in our day, he asked me why and I said so that in many years to come I can open my book to September 2, 2008 and read those funny things that Mark said and be able to find them funny all over again, he didn’t quite get it and gave me a funny look and then walked out.
I have learned an important lesson today, never if I have any choice should I wear a skirt into the 3 year old class, reasons why:
• Jared- I believe that he tried flipping up my skirt 3 times.
• Sam- He likes to crawl through my legs, which would normally not be a problem in shorts but when wearing a skirt it makes it a bit of a problem.
• Meggy- When Sam crawls through my legs she likes to follow his example.
• Rennie- She too finds enjoyment out of pulling up my skirt, but she was worse as she did it from behind and I was not able to stop her as quickly as with Jared.
• Oh and why it is just plain lousy wearing a skirt at all- you sweat more!

Sunday night Natalie and I thought that it was getting cooler, we were both able to sleep with a blanket and we were so excited, but that ended quickly- it is getting hotter, but we supposedly only have to deal with it for one more month and then it is supposed to get “cooler.” We have decided though that we are probably going to die of coldness when we go home as we will be coming home right in the middle of winter, I am sure that I will be begging to come back, for more reasons than one.
Well I have caught up with my days, I hope that I have not missed anything but I am sure that I have, because how much fun would that have been if I remembered everything? Sorry again about tonight not being the longest entry, but at least I am up-to-date and have most of what has happened down. I guess that, that is all for tonight. This is ~Betherd~ signing off. Loves to all!