Wait For It...

I know, I know- it has been a week since I have posted. I am going to bed really early tonight, but wait for it and tomorrow I will post a nice long letter from the week.
~Betherd~

Weekend Ups and Downs

Ok, so I am soooo proud of myself- it is not even 7pm and I already have my evaluations done, my lesson plans done (except the part that I have to do with Natalie), and a load of laundry (yeah I had to do one on Sunday- we were gone all day yesterday), not bad if I do say so myself. But it is ok, because once again I have much to catch up on in my journal and I am sure that it will take much of my time tonight.

Wow I got really distracted, it has been over an hour since I last wrote something, now I really got to hurry to get caught up, as I was hoping to have this all done by the time that Natalie got home so that we could do our lesson plan and then maybe I could go to bed early. So I guess that, that means that I had better get typing.

The last time that I wrote was Wednesday night, and so I need to get started with Thursday. In my morning class we played a game that was supposed to be called “Hot Hoops,” what you were supposed to do is get hula hoops of different colors and set them on the ground. I was supposed to then have each kid stand in one hoop, then I was supposed to say “Red Hoop is Hot” or something like that and then all the kids were supposed to run to the red hoops, there was also supposed to be a rule that only like 3 people could be in each hoop. We didn’t have enough hoops, so I ended up just setting out different colored chairs around the room. I thought that it might be a little confusing for the kids if I said that only like 3 people could be a chair, so I would just say a color chair and all the kids would go running to the chair (they wouldn’t sit on the chair, they just had to be touching it). The kids seemed to enjoy it and we got to work on our colors.

In my middle class we were talking about insects. I started with reading a book about what insects do, where they live, and a book where it had two pictures of animals, one of an insect and one not- the kids had to identify which one was the insect and which one was not. Once we finished reading the books we got to go outside and explore the playground trying to find insects. I was really happy with the 5 year olds, the last couple of times that I have tried taking them outside for an activity they have ended up having to come back inside, but before we went outside we talked about what my expectations were and what would happen if they didn’t follow them, they followed it perfectly and didn’t have to come back inside.

For my afternoon class we were talking about mermaids, I tried finding pictures of mermaids. It made me quite sad how hard it was to find a decent, appropriate picture of a mermaid, most of them were disgusting and not appropriate for me to look at, let alone for me to show preschool kids. I decided that the best thing to show if we were talking about mermaids was to watch Little Mermaid. In my 1^st class the kids were half asleep and watched the movie, it didn’t seem like they were very excited to watch it, but I guess they must have been because they told the next class that we had watched the movie in my class. When I announced to the 2^nd class that we were going to be watching the movie they all got really excited and said Yeah!! When class was over I heard several groans, and so I continued to play the movie until I had to leave to go and tutor someone. It was funny to see them get so excited to watch the movie (I even had some kids from the 1^st class come back in and watch more after the class was over). Because I had gotten the movie off of youtube the movie came in chunks of 10 minutes and so I had several different tabs open, Thursday night I finished off the movie :D it has been a long time since I have seen Little Mermaid.

I don’t really remember what happened Thursday night, which means that not much that much exciting stuff happened. So I guess I will continue onto Friday. Friday morning for my class we worked on our kicking, I didn’t really have any concrete plans when I went into class except that I had 3 semi-soft balls with me and that we were going to work on kicking. It didn’t take me very long to figure out that it was not a good idea to work on our kicking inside, the room is really small and the ceiling is really low (especially with the fans), so we moved our activity to outside. It was pretty hot outside on Friday so the kids were all searching for shade in the 4 year old class. For the 5 year old class we did it back inside but we tried it a little different, we stood in a circle and worked on our small kicks on the ground, on a scale I am not quite sure what score I would give that class.

Middle class: we worked on numbers 0-5. In the 3 year old class I had a sheet where it said a number and then you were supposed to color in that many of the picture beside it, I first did the whole sheet in front of the class so that they could get it. I then handed the papers to the class, Teacher Stephanie and I went around and dotted the pictures with a black marker to help the kids a little bit more. I was so impressed with Annie, before Stephanie and I had gotten to Annie’s paper she had already done 2 of them, the correct way. Annie likes to pretend that she is not smart sometimes I think and so when I saw her paper I was so impressed. For the 4 year old class their sheet had little pictures and then underneath them it had two numbers, one with the correct number and one of them not, the kids had to circle which one was the correct number. Then at the bottom of the sheet there was a mini color by number, basically just a square with mini squares with numbers in them, we worked as a class and colored in our “picture.” For the 5 year old class we did a color by number. This was one of the 1^st times that I have tried doing different activities and I think that it went quite well, I think that I chose pretty well for the levels of each age group (though when the 4 year olds saw what the 5 year olds did they assured me that they could have done it too :D).

For my afternoon class we were talking about ocean, just as a general subject. I started by reading a book about saving dolphins (yeah it didn’t really apply, but oh well), the kids laughed and then enjoyed it. When we were finished we made a ocean bottle thing, it is where you start with a plastic bottle and fill it about 1/3 with water, then you food color the water blue, next fill the rest of the bottle with oil, close lid and then move the bottle up and down, it looks really cool. I came to class with the bottle full of the water, I asked the kids what I had (a bottle full of water, a water bottle!), next I put in the blue food coloring and shook it up and asked the kids what color it was (blue water!). I had got a package of plastic bead from Yuling and then one at a time I called each kid up to come and pick a bead to put in the bottle (to be our shells, of course!). It was kind of funny, the first person that I called up didn’t quite understand and they dumped their bead in with the oil rather than in with the water, I got a good laugh out of that, though I felt kind of bad for laughing because she didn’t really understand what was wrong with what she had done. Once every child had put a bead in the bottle I filled the rest of the bottle with oil. I closed it and showed the kids a little bit how to do it and then passed it around and let each kid play with it for a little bit, for some reason they all really liked to shake it up and down really fast so the oil bubbled up and the colors mixed together for a little bit. At the end of the class we had a few minutes remaining so we played a little game.

Because of the typhoon last weekend the BBQ had been cancelled, or so I had thought- but fear not I was wrong, it was only postponed to Friday! At first I had thought that Natalie and I were going to go to the church at 6:30 and we would catch a ride to the house it was going to be at, but then a couple of days ago the Sister Missionaries asked Natalie if she would be willing to go on splits with them Friday night, so that cancelled out our plans. At one point Yuling had said that Stephanie would be willing to give us a ride, so Friday morning I asked her about that, she hadn’t been planning on having to give us a ride (Yuling had told her that we would be going earlier) and so she had brought her scooter instead of her car, she asked if I would be willing to ride to her house afterschool to pick up her car, I have never rode a scooter and so was a little nervous but said that yes I would (obviously—she was doing me a service), so we had it all planned, later in the day though she told me that I was going to go with Yuling and Allie instead when they went, as they would be going straight to the BBQ once they were done cleaning up everything. I had considered not going to the BBQ as I am supposed to tutor the Chou family Friday night, but when I told that to Yuling she was like,” no I will cancel, they cancel anytime that they have something they want to do, it is no problem.” So it was kind of weird to be going out and doing stuff on a Friday night rather than preparing to leave to go and tutor.

It was kind of nice to go with Yuling to the BBQ, on the way we talked about lots of different things, particularly how I would like to go to different places while I am here, she told me that I should be able to go to Hong Kong for $200-$300, for three days and two nights, it should include the flight, the hotel, at two breakfasts, and they will pick me up at the airport and drive me to the hotel. That would be amazing so I think that I will look more into it, I still am not sure if I will be able to convince Natalie to come with me but it really is something that I want to do. I also asked her about where I could maybe get some plus-size clothes as my shorts are falling down more and more each day and some of my shirts are getting destroyed in the washing machine. It was funny when we were on our way to the house where the BBQ was (which I found out is actually Yuling’s Parents-in-Law) we had stopped at a red light and were just talking when all of a sudden we heard a bang and something had hit the back of the car, we both jumped and then realized that it was the bar that comes down when a train is coming. It didn’t do any damage to the car but it scared us both pretty bad, luckily between the lanes and the bar there is a lot of space so we were safe from getting hit, but Yuling and I talked about it and we decided that, that was a terrible place to have a light as it is on either side of the railroad tracks, and sometimes people will race through it or they will stop too far in like we did and it could be rather dangerous.

We finally got to the BBQ safely without any more “accident,” the BBQ was interesting. The food was delicious; people were so friendly and kept on offering me more and more food- I don’t think that I had even been there for 5 minutes when I already had food in my hands ( I asked the Missionaries how to get it to stop- Elder Christiansen told me how to say no thank you but I forgot, he also said just keep pointing at your stomach and shaking your hand or something like that). It was kind of funny I would be talking to someone and then all of a sudden I would hear Yuling yelling Beth from the other end and I would go over and she would be telling me to try some other kind of food. We were there for over 3 hours, and it amazed me how people were eating for those 3 hours. It seemed like most people just kept on going the whole time and never stopped (I thought of you Erick while I was there, it looked like your kind of feast and how you can just keep on eating :D). Most things that I tried I really liked, but there were a couple of things that I didn’t like, it amazed me how food there actually was and how it just kept on coming what seemed out of nowhere. Natalie ended up getting to come for a little bit, the Sisters had pushed their appointments back a little bit so they could at least come and stop by, pretty soon after I got there Natalie and Sister Hill left, Sister Wood stayed all night as they had a couple of investigators there. One thing that I tried that I did not like was wheat tea, Sister Wood was drinking it and seemed to really like it, it sounded suspicious to me and I didn’t really want to try it. While I was considering trying it Elder Christiansen came up and was talking to us, he described it as a mixture of cigarettes and water (doesn’t that just sound lovely?), stupidly I tried it (just to say that I had-see how I am getting better at that, at least I will try it once), it was disgusting and I totally agree with his description of it.

When the BBQ was over I was more than ready to go home, I haven’t gone to bed early at all this week and so I was ready to get into bed, sadly though Yuling wasn’t quite ready to leave yet and so I was just standing around doing nothing. Finally she was ready and we all started walking towards the car, we got distracted and stopped several times but we did eventually make it to the car. When we got there I found out that Yuling would not actually be driving me home, she doesn’t see the best at night and so she was going to drive the scooter home (don’t ask me how that is better) and Joseph was going to drive me home in the car, we got home very quickly with no accidents, I was very happy to get home. Oh I almost forgot, on our way to the BBQ Yuling told me how she used to be able to balance with her feet on the pedals for a whole red light on her bike (which is like 60 seconds), I was quite impressed because I can only balance as long as I am moving (and sometimes not even then :D). She also told me that I should go to Thailand, but she said that it takes about a week for Thailand, I don’t really have a week open so I don’t think that, that will be happening L.

I wasn’t as smart as I had hoped to be when I got home and didn’t go straight to bed, Natalie came home and we talked for awhile and then I talked to Mom for awhile. I ended going to bed about 1am, but I did get to sleep in until like 8:45, which was kind of nice. When I woke up yesterday morning Natalie was not up yet, we had talked about leaving at 10am, but I didn’t think that we would actually be leaving that early. I got on facebook and started talking to Erin, I don’t know if it is because I am in Taiwan or what but facebook chat has not been working very good lately so I suggested to Erin that we get on MSN instead (Jamie and I had gotten it for her last year so that we could talk via it), we got on and found out that they have added an option of using video and phone call, we tried that, they were so-so, so I suggested that Erin download skype. While we were talking on MSN Shalynn came into the room and so I got to talk with her also and then also we added Jamie on our MSN conversation, it was so nice to be able to hear my best friends voices and to see them “in person.” Finally skype finished downloading on Erin’s computer and so we switched over to it, it was so much better (*if you are doing video or phone call totally do Skype over MSN, the quality is sooo much better and Skype is free). A little after 10 I realized that Natalie was up so I ended our phone call soon after that so that she and I could get ready to leave. Before Natalie and I left we cleaned out our food cupboard (we have been taken over by ants lately), when we were done we were both like we should have taken before and after pictures, but sadly we didn’t so you don’t get to see the amazing work that we did.

Soon after we were finished cleaning we took off to Carrefour, I could totally feel that I have gained more strength; I wasn’t as tired this time on the way there (not to say that I wasn’t tired). We actually got there very quickly this time, it was kind of funny though on the way, at least 3 people on the other side of the road (4 lanes and a median over) yelled hello to us as we rode by, we are POPULAR! When we got to Carrefour our 1^st stop was the laptop area, to look for a laptop for Natalie, we looked for quite awhile and talked about the pros and cons of each one, she had decided on one and then we went to look at other areas, while we were in the movie section Natalie got hold of her dad and so she went back and talked to him for awhile about the computers that there were. They had decided that one of them was a good deal and that she should get it, so we headed back downstairs to the ATM, we both pulled out money and then went straight back upstairs (Natalie was carrying a lot of money, strangely she didn’t really feel like walking around the store with all of it). We explained that we wanted to buy a computer and which one we wanted; the lady went and got it for us. The lady told us that if we signed up for a savings card we could get money back (it was a big purchase obviously), Natalie decided to do it, she had just finished filling out everything when the lady said that they were having a special right now with that certain company of laptops, she pointed out a poster and it said (obviously we couldn’t read it) that if you bought an acer computer then you could either get $1000NT off of a monitor, a free TV box, a free flash drive (I think that, that was what it was), or a free printer, Natalie got pretty excited about the free printer offer, and so she said that, that was what they wanted. They were out of the printers (luckily as I was kind of worried how we were going to get the computer back home), but they would be ordering them and when they came they would call Natalie.

Along with getting the free printer we also got these coupons for $2000NT off our next purchases (for signing up for the card), that is a lot of money ($60) and so Natalie is pretty excited about that. They also gave us this coin keychain thing that we can use over and over for getting our cart (at Carrefour you have to put in $10NT to get a cart, but then when you return your cart you get it back so I am not quite sure if I get the point, but Natalie was pretty excited).

*Because I keep getting distracted and it is getting pretty late I am going to omit part of the story from yesterday.

We were at Carrefour probably for like 4-5 more hours, just wandering around looking at everything tossing random stuff into the cart, checking off items on our list, etc. When we were finally done I was starting to get pretty tired of being on my feet all day and was more than ready to leave. We took our cart out with us as we figured that it would be easier to take the cart to our bikes and arrange the stuff. It didn’t take me very long to figure out that the box was not going to fit in either of our baskets or in our backpacks or anything, but Natalie was determined to try and fit it on somehow. We probably stood there for 20 minutes trying different ways, I finally suggested that she go and call someone and see if they could possibly come and get our stuff (ok I had been suggesting it several times but finally forced it as an idea), so she went inside and tried calling people, she couldn’t figure out the phone for awhile so finally probably an hour after I had been standing outside with our stuff, holding our bikes up (they didn’t really like balancing with all the stuff in them) Natalie came out and decided to open up the box and see what it was like inside. We quickly found out that it came with its own computer bag and that if Natalie put it in that she could fit it in her backpack and then we could break down the boxes. We felt kind of stupid for having stood there for so long not trying that, but its all part of the adventure. We were soon off after that.

When we finally got home I was quite tired, but we were both really hungry so Natalie offered to bike to the night market and get us some food, while she was gone I posted some pictures on my blog and got caught up on what had been happening all day. When Natalie got home we ate our dinner and then we turned her computer on, it didn’t take very long until we had figured out that it was in Chinese, we tried changing it to English but we couldn’t figure it out. (Today Natalie brought it to church and had some people look at it, they think that the only way to fix it is to take it back to the store and have them download the English version of Windows or something like that, so she has asked the Chu family and they are going to take her back to Carrefour on Friday afternoon) I felt kind of bad that it was in Chinese but there really wasn’t anything that I could do, so I went to my room to try and work on some stuff, instead I got distracted by Erin and we talked on skype for probably another hour (it’s ok, it was a good distraction…hehe, Erin that reminded me of something….. ;D), when she and I were done talking I went to bed and then got up this morning.

It is already 10:30 and I haven’t even talked about today at all. I think that I am going to sign off for tonight and then talk about today in tomorrow’s post. Natalie and I still need to finish our lesson plans also and this is starting to get pretty long. So this is ~Betherd~ signing off, I hope that everyone has a wonderful Sabbath. LOVES!!!

Erin

My friend Erin complained that I have no pictures of her on my blog, so here are some pictures of her.....

Adventures to Carrefour

Today Natalie and I went to Carrefour again, and of course we can't go to Carrefour without there being an adventure? Here are some of our pictures from the day (again refer to tomorrow's post about the past few days)

I got vanilla and oreo.

This was one of Natalie's many ways of trying to figure out how to get the box home, she really was determined to try it this way.

This is our cute new 'mini' mop that we bought today at Carrefour, we decided that if we really are going to be able to clean our apartment a mop is needed.

The many yummy flavors of ice cream that they had, we were a little worried about how we were going to tell them what flavor we wanted as there was no English words on the board but then one of the ladies handed us this pad of paper with the lists of all the flavors, we marked how many scoops we wanted and then what flavors we wanted. I was very grateful.

I love seeing the huge difference in the cone sizes, the smallest one is for one scoop and the larger one is for 3 scoops.

The prices for the ice cream, not that bad- for $1.50 you could get 3 scoops of ice cream.

Natalie went with good ol' traditional chocolate.

Natalie got a little excited about her new laptop and she opened in the parking lot of Carrefour.....

Ok not really, the box was a lot bigger then we had planned on and so it would fit into our baskets or backpacks, finally after trying to get hold of people for like an hour we decided to break it open and see what it was like inside-- we found out that it came with a carrying bag and that it could then fit into Natalie's backpack.

"Moon Festival" BBQ

Last night I went to the Ji-An Branch "Moon Festival" (it was postponed from last week) BBQ. It was really, really yummy- I will write more about it later in my journal post but for now here are some pictures that I took last night.

I realized that I hadn't posted any pictures of Yuling, this is one that I took last night- though not the best, I will be sure and try to get some more better pictures.

Just a group shot from the side (the little girl in pink is Allie- Yuling's niece, and the little girl in white is Ariel).

Sister Wood, one of the amazing Sister Missionaries.

Stephanie modeling the yummy grilled corn.

A view of the yummy food, table 1.

There are many shots of this view, I was quite impressed with the brethren that were cooking the food, it was really hot.

Some of the kids playing.

Another view of the cooking.

An over the head view of some of the people.

Cute baby Daniel sleeping on mommies shoulder.

The Elders got the kids to play duck, duck, goose with them- it turned into a dangerous game as some of the kids were diving in order to get someone or not to get tagged.

Another view of the people.

Again another view of the food table.

More of the Elders playing with the kids.

Yep you got it another view of the cooking.

Yum, Yum..he's cutting some of the yummy food.

I really don't know what this is, Ariel's mom called it Chinese Cake, all I know was that it was really yummy.

Just part of the bread that they bought for last night (yeah I also got sent home with one of the loaves)

The cooked vegetables

The vegetables up-close cooking.

Boot Scootin' Boogie

I know, I know I am a couple of days behind, but I don’t really have a reason- it wasn’t like anything that exciting was happening. Oh well! I wrote on Monday but I didn’t even get to my day, so I guess that, that is where I will be beginning.

In my first class Monday morning we were playing a game called “Musical Lines,” basically you are supposed to tape lines down on the floor and then the kids have to walk around on the lines as the music plays and then freeze like statues. I couldn’t find any tape that would be safe to put on the ground and so I decided that I would just improvise—it was a good thing too, I learned that when it is raining hard the kids stay put and the teachers rotate instead (it was considered raining hard on Monday- yippee!...NOT). So my improvising- I just had the kids walk and dance around the room while the music was playing and then of course freeze when the music stopped, it was probably a good thing that they didn’t have to stay on a little piece of tape, I have some kids that like to go really fast and push and shove while others like to go slowly and so it probably would not have turned out very well.

When I was done with my class I rushed upstairs to call in on the family phone call, sadly no one was there. I wasn’t sure if I had just called in too late or if it hadn’t happened at all, so I called mom to check- it was nice we got to talk for like 20 minutes when it had nearly been a week since we had last talked (yeah I know, SAD).

For my middle class we were talking about being in airports and airplanes, yeah I realized afterwards that it came to being really close to when we had talked about transportation and I had talked about airplanes, oh well the kids seemed ok with it. I started by reading a book about going on an airplane, and then for the 4 and 5 year old classes I drew a picture of a airport and showed how there can be a lot of people, we went back to our stranger lesson and talked about how we should stay with our mommies and daddies while we are there (sorry mommy and daddy, when I flew to Taiwan I didn’t stay with you!) and then we got to play a game where we were airplanes..yahoo!!! In the 3 and 4 year old classes we just practiced flying from orange cone to orange cone but in the 5 year olds class we set up the cones so they made this little area to the side, all the kids started there and one at a time I would say “Tower One to Airplane______(put in child’s name here), it is safe to take off” and then they would “take off,” once in awhile I would also have someone land and then take off again, they loved it.

Of course after lunch I took a nap (what kind of day would it be without a nap?).

This week in our afternoon class our theme is Under the Sea (sounds mystical doesn’t it?), and Monday I was talking about waves and currents (ok not really currents that much), to begin with I started by showing a 10 minute clip of Finding Nemo (because what kind of teacher would I be if we talked about the sea and didn’t get to see Finding Nemo?) and then we looked a bunch of different pictures of waves of different sizes and also watched another little clip of different waves, as it is cooler to see the waves moving then just pictures of them. It was kind of interesting to be talking about waves right after we had a typhoon, all the kids were like ahhh, we know what that is. Once we had finished looking at the pictures and movie clips we got to play a game, I had brought a whole bunch of plastic balls (the kind that are in the McDonalds play structure) and a blanket from my room, then the kids got to take turns making waves with the balls on the blanket. I would always start the kids with doing small waves and then they could do big waves, the balls would go flying up into the air, in among the other kids and basically everywhere in the classroom, of course the kids loved it- every single time they screamed, laughed, and then went scrambling after the balls to put them quickly back on the blanket so the next group could go (because if they went faster there would be a chance of them getting to go again).

I don’t have any tutoring on Monday’s but I went downstairs and hung out with the kids again for awhile, at one point somehow I became the kid’s jungle gym again and got my hair messed up. I told them that their payment was that they had to do my hair, generally I love having my hair done/played with, this time was not the case- Allie was doing my hair and she would pull really hard, she also enjoyed (for some reason) pulling my hair straight out and then hitting it really hard with her hand (ouch!). Natalie came by and invited me to come with her to the Chu’s house for a single adult FHE (I guess Bro. Chu just got a new calling of the single adult leader or something like that), I hadn’t been feeling very good all Monday so I declined in hopes that I would go and get my journal done and then get to bed early. Well neither of my hopes got done, I went upstairs and started working on my journal- but of course I was in the kitchen and had the TV on and was getting very distracted (which would explain why I only got a little bit done on Monday night—though Natalie did walk in when I was almost done and was like wow you have a lot, I was like not really- I generally have this much for one day). I was just about to leave and go to bed when this show started, Amazing Race. I had never seen the show before but had been seeing commercials for the past couple of weeks, it looked interesting- Natalie and I both got hooked and couldn’t leave until the show was over. I have been a little sad as some of my favorite shows are starting in the next couple of weeks and I have discovered that the websites will not allow me to watch them from over here, but I think that Natalie and I are both interested in this so it might be our Monday night show (I know, I know kind of pathetic). I don’t know if anyone has ever watched Amazing Race but it looks interesting, especially since this time they are in Asia! When the show was over I headed to bed, again later than I had wanted to.

I also finally told Natalie about why I don’t generally accept her offers to go to the Chu’s house with her, about how I feel like a 3^rd wheel. I know that she doesn’t do it on purpose but it doesn’t make it fun for me and so I feel more comfortable staying at home doing my own thing.

Tuesday morning. So I was really excited about all of my classes yesterday, especially my two morning classes! In my morning class I was teaching some simple sign language (I have always been interested in it, but last year and this year I have had many, many friends take sign language at BYU and they have absolutely loved it- I am thinking that it will be something that I look even more into when I go back), not very hard stuff like- apple, dog, cat, candy, thank you, house, school, hamburger, day, night, cold, happy, please, hello, good-bye, and strawberry (the kids love strawberries so I had to do it). The kids picked up on it pretty well, but I hadn’t realized how much until later during lunch when I was getting ready to serve the kids some of them called teacher, I looked over and they started doing several of the signs. It just makes me all tingly and happy inside when they remember things like that, that I taught them- it helps me to know that I am not just standing at the front talking for hours at a time, that I am making a difference.

Tuesday’s middle class is supposed to be something about music or literature, generally I have been using some kind of book or teaching about a instrument, which are very good topics but I have felt like I was getting stuck in a hole and wanted to add a little bit of something different, anyway last week I was using a random CD while we were playing a game and I started line dancing to the music (it was country of course :D) and I realized that it would be really fun to teach the kids line dancing. So that is just what I did yesterday, I made up a simple dance like 10 minutes before class started (because even the dances online that I could find that said simple were definitely not simple- 4 sets, 22 steps is not simple in my mind) and then I taught it to the kids, they seemed to really like it. In the 4 year old class I even gave the kids chances to lead the others in the dance, the first one that I had do it was Leslee- I figured that they wouldn’t really remember it that well, boy was I wrong, Leslee stepped up and was a pro, she was so cute and funny; I wish that I had taken my camera. I did find out though that dancing for an hour and a half is a good work out (:D) I was sweating like something nasty by the end of the class. All in all I think that it was one of my best classes yet, I have decided that every couple of weeks I am going to teach the kids some other kind of dance, which would mean that I would have to learn it myself, but I think that it will be fun for both of us. It made me really excited also to hear later from Natalie that the kids had come into her class all excited about it and showed her the dance, she said it made her wish that she was in my class. (oh yeah and the title of the post is totally the song that we danced to)

Lunch was Ali’s delicious curry! I think that I commented about it when we went to “The Curry House” but I thought that theirs was good but Ali’s is definitely better, I am kind of sad that she doesn’t make it a lot L.

For my afternoon class we talked about fishing (because of course you use the ocean and sea to go fishing). We looked at some pictures of different kinds of fisherman (not at all that interesting) and then I taught them a song, which for the life of me I am not sure why as the song had nothing to do with the topic of the day (that is how my scatterbrain works).

The Song:

A sailor went to sea, sea, sea. To see what he could see, see, see. But all that he could see, see, see. Was the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea.

When we had finished that the kids got to color their own fisherman and then we put magnets on them and went fishing. Coloring took a little longer than planned again and so the 1^st class got a little bit of fishing but the 2^nd class didn’t really get to go at all.

When school was over I had half an hour until I had tutoring, I decided that I had probably throw in a load of laundry while I had the time as I was wearing my last pair of clean pants (yes I know, again). I was going downstairs when one of my tutoring students was coming up the stairs (I was a little panicky when I saw him but realized that he was 15 minutes early), I came upstairs and realized that our kitchen was infested with ants and started stomping like crazy, I guess the outside must have been too as Brian started stomping everywhere too- at least he was helpful for being there early. My tutoring went pretty good, while I was tutoring Yuling’s dad came by and fixed the light in my bathroom… so now I have a light again!!!

Monday night Natalie and I had talked about going out to dinner but because Natalie had tutoring until 9 she thought we had decided to do it another night, I thought we had decided to still do it and so was waiting until she was done to eat dinner. She realized that and so we still went, of course we went to the night market. We had been talking about trying the Indian BBQ and decided that, that was what we would try. I got some kind of Chicken Roll, it was pretty good, a little on the spicy side and a lot on the messy side. I was still hungry when I finished it and so got a crepe thingy too. I had my camera this time and took a little movie, but it was not the best so I will take it again with me next time and try to get a better one. Oh funny story though, Natalie and I have been staring to notice more and more places at the night market (like we both swear that the Indian BBQ had not been there a few weeks ago) and last night we noticed this shaved ice place, we both got really excited and wanted to get some. We saw what we thought was mango and so we decided that we would get one to share (as we remembered how big the last ones we got were), the lady didn’t speak English and so we just kept on holding up one finger and then pointing at it, finally this guy was walking by that did speak English and the lady called him over. He asked us what we wanted and we pointed at we thought was mango and said that we wanted one (if you haven’t figured out yet, it wasn’t mango), he told the lady and then she was like it’s not mango, it’s sweet potato, ewwwww. I am glad that someone that spoke English walked by because I would have been a little bit disappointed if we had gotten it and it had not turned out to be mango.

I thought that I was going to go to bed early but then I came home and again got distracted by something and then started talking to Sallee and looking at her pictures and others.

I woke up this morning feeling a little sluggish and very much wishing that I could go back to bed. But I am in the semi-real world and can’t go back to sleep because I am tired. So I got up and took a cold shower (I have been taking semi-warm showers lately) in hopes of waking me up, it didn’t help.

Luckily my first class was pretty simple, we were just singing the song “3 Speckled Frogs,” that went pretty well, the kids enjoyed when I got one of the cots down and used it as the log and I would shake it at the bumpy log part. By the end of my class I was having trouble keeping my eyes open and they were a little blurry so I decided to go up and take a nap during our break, that was the 1^st time that I have ever done that and I am not sure how much it actually helped me as I kept startling awake afraid that I had missed my alarm and was late to class. But thank goodness I was not late and made it to class on time. I had chosen to do another song for my 2^nd class, I don’t think that it was the best choice- it was kind of hard to keep the kids attention for the whole class.

When class and lunch were over I went straight to my bed and took a very refreshing nap, but once again I kept startling awake afraid that I was going to miss it. I got up and was preparing my lesson, it started raining but I wasn’t really paying attention to it, finally though when it had been raining for a little while I looked down and saw that most of my floor was covered in water, I got up completely freaked out and then ran into my other room and found half of that floor soaked too. I grabbed my towel and started mopping up the water.

In my afternoon class I was talking about octopuses, I first started with two movies (refer to previous post) about octopuses, the kids asked me to show the movies over and over, I limited it to twice of each movie. We then looked at some pictures of different kinds of octopuses (did you know that there is one kind of octopus that can get up to 40 feet across!!!!???). Then we got to make our own octopuses, we used half a paper plate- colored it and then stapled streamers to the edge for legs. The kids loved it, I guess they were really excited and went to Natalie’s class and were showing them to her. I realized that this kind of craft project is a little too much to do for that big of a group, the kids are not allowed to use the stapler and so I had to staple every kids, luckily the teachers helped me a little.

Tonight my last tutor student didn’t come and so I was done an hour earlier!! Yeah! Which meant that I got started on my journal earlier, which also means that it is not even 11:30 and I am already done with my journal! Hopefully that also means that I will be going to bed earlier tonight!

Monday Yuling told me some new tutoring that I will be picking up next week, so my schedule is going to be even more hectic. Hopefully I will quickly get into a system and get everything done and still get to bed early every night.

I am all caught up now, YEAH!!! So I guess that this is all for tonight. Love you all tons! And hope that you are having an awesome Wednesday morning, this is ~Betherd~ signing off.