Surprise, Surprise

It was a day full of surprises. The day started off right at midnight. I was still up because I couldn’t fall asleep. I thought that I was over that, seeing as I’ve been sleeping pretty well the past two weeks. This was different though, I couldn’t go to sleep because every inch of my itched. It was driving me freaking crazy. I finally heard my watch beep that it was 1am (it beeps every hour, it’s not like I set it for 1 am) and I got up to see if running cold water over my wrist would help it stop hurting. If it had, I think I would have taken a cold shower. But, unfortunately it didn’t help, so I went back into my room, sat down on my bed and had no idea what to do with myself. While I was sitting on my bed, I happened to look up and notice a large cockroach on the wall by my door. Nancy was still up and on the computer and so when I made a funny noise she asked what was up. She told me to use the fly swatter and kill it. Problem…the fly swatter is in the hallway and I was in my room. The only way to the hallway would be to walk right by the roach. Nancy asked if I needed help, but when she went to grab the fly swatter I heard, “Oh crap, there’s one out here too.” I grabbed a shoe and finally worked up the nerve to squish it- by nerve, I mean I screamed when I actually hit it. Nancy was having troubles killing hers because hers was a runner. I finally had to go in and kill it for her. Luckily she cleaned it up, I accidentally spread it’s innards on the wall and floor.

The second surprise of the day was much better. At the beginning of my afternoon class, Teacher Steffanie brought in a package. Why Yuling didn’t keep it in her office until after school I don’t know, but I got a package from Grandma Petronaci. Unfortunately I had to wait an hour and a half to open it because I still had to teach class, but I guess that it made it that much more exciting when I could open it. It had some crafts and little toys, stickers, and some candy for the kids. The crafts are on my wall right now until I figure out what lesson to use them in or who to give them too. They are super cute zoo animals, which is really funny. The lesson theme for this week was animals and so getting the package on the last day of the theme was slightly ironic. But I taught about zebras, kangaroos, and koalas and out of the animals she sent there was only a zebra. So I could have used that one, but it’s not like she had sent all three, four days late. Not that it was late or anything, it came at all, and for that I am very grateful. (That is not a push for everyone to send me a package, don’t worry. They’re expensive to ship over so I don’t really expect them.)

As for the rest of my day…. I went running and had an egg crepe with ham in it for breakfast, that was good.

Oh yeah, I was super slick in my lesson planning last week. I decided to do a morning lesson on cameras so that I could get pictures of my students. So, my lesson pretty much rocked today- not because it was a fabulous lesson, but because I sneakily got pictures of my kids. Hee hee, go me!

For the second class, we just practiced for graduation. It’s on Saturday and I’m starting to really wonder how well it’s going to go. The 5 years olds will rock it, the 4 years olds have it mostly, and the 3 years olds are great some days and totally off on others. Let’s hope Saturday is an on day!

We went to Tzu Chi again today (I also remembered to take a picture of our outfits) and learned about the traditional tea ceremony and about the art of flower arrangements. Apparently Director Tsai wants Kaylene and me to do a performance/demonstration of the tea ceremony and flower arrangements on July 5th. Uh, okay. Since Nancy will be gone, I don’t have plans (not that I wasn’t planning on making some plans) so that seems like a pretty okay way to spend my Saturday (believe it or not, that’s not a sarcastic comment).

In the afternoon class I taught about koalas and that was cool because I just showed them a bunch of pictures that I’d taken at the San Diego Zoo. It was a nice trip down memory lane for me, and they got a look at some new pictures, not the same old books with the same old pictures (although, I don’t think anyone had taught them a lesson on koala’s before because they seemed pretty impressed by my lesson).

Yeah, so after class I opened the package, and then went to tutor. When class ended I went to the night market with Nancy because we were meeting Adam for dinner. Adam brought a group of people from National Hualian University. They were from the English department, so it was nice that they spoke to us in English (unlike the students at Tzu Chi). It was really fun, and they were way nice. They kind of invited us to a graduation party tomorrow, but I think they did it a little jokingly, not thinking that we’d actually want to go, but Nancy and I are like… party? dancing? where and when? Dang shoot! I guess we missed out on that experience. That’s okay, we still have bowling to look forward to tomorrow.

And that was my day… I’m pretty happy with it.

These are the 5 years olds:

These are the 4 years olds:

These are the 3 years olds:

This is Kristy, the preschooler I tutor: