Big, fat worms!

(funny stories included)

Insect count: small flying bugs (I can't seem to get rid of them!), fat, dead worms

T5B: 1) My second time teaching that lesson that was a flop yesterday went MUCH better today! 2) It was hot, but I did better today than yesterday. (It's amazing the difference 1° and 5% less humidity can make.) 3) I got to teach some Gaelic, ASL, Spanish, French, and JSL to my students today. 4)

Basal temp: 36.73 - this is starting to get ridiculous, IMO. I again woke up with cold limbs (which I much prefer to sweat) and my temp is still going up!

First, I forgot three funny stories from yesterday. 1) In my sport class, when I had the students writing a few sentences to play a ladder game, one asked me, "Usso ok?" I TOTALLY misunderstood him. "Usso? Lie? Liar? Ok? What!?" LOL I didn't want to be the one to have to tell him that lying is morally wrong. He gave up after a bit. It only occurred to me a few minutes later when talking to another student what he had meant. I found out by one student being prompted by his friend to say he'd gone to France. I then followed with, "Usso ok." DING! Doh! So I went back to that student said, "Gomen! Wakatta! Usso ok!" LOL 2) Right after that boy had asked me about lies being ok, (and at this point I still didn't understand) I started giving examples to the student and his friends. I told them I went to Hokkaido and Sendai for vacation. His friend said to me, "Usso! Usso!" Me: "What!? That's true! I DID go there!" He just kept calling me a liar, lol. I can be a very serious insult in Japanese culture but knowing this student, I know he was teasing me. 3) In Suzuki-s's class, one of the charade verbs I did was "drink." I pretend to drink a glass of something and they just stared at me. I made a big show of swallowing, still blank faces. So I repeated. Then I started picking up glass after imaginary glass and drinking them. One of the students said something to Mr. S in Japanese to which he replied, "Iie, iie! Nominai." (I think.) Then he turned to me and said, "I heard you don't like to drink." I then said, "Nope! Zenzen. I don't drink." There was a lot of shock from everyone (but me) and then I followed that up with, "Yes! I sing karaoke SOBER!" Mr. S busted up big time and the students, I think, were laughing at his laughter as I'm assuming they don't know the word sober. (Not as a reflection of their character or anything - just obscure vocab at this point for them.) Good times.

I mentioned how my morning started. I had a slow morning just because I was tired. I was so sure I would sleep through the entire night but it felt like I was awake the whole time. My sleep was so restless, I woke up so often, that it felt like I was awake the whole time. So the night was simultaneously too short and too long. Grr. Oh well, try again tonight! I got ready for work, no hitches there, caught the bus and was on my way. The bus ride was nice - I was right under the a/c. When I got to school I was again in time for the beginning of the meeting. I also forgot to mention yesterday that we got three brand new student teachers. Our last three were all men and these three are all women. In Japan they only student teach for 3-4 weeks! I was shocked and when I explained that I had student taught for 3-4 months, the JTEs were shocked. LOL American students are not Japanese students, that's for sure!

After the morning meeting, I made my copies and mostly stressed about how my revised lesson would go. I was really excited about my new one though. Then I realized I didn't have some of my materials prepared so I set about getting those ready. When my adrenaline starts flowing, I get really shaky. That's part of what made my Tuesday morning so unpleasant. I was shaky, and my heart was pounding. It's as though I'm experiencing a hypoglycemic episode. For all I know, I actually am. I heard fight or flight halts digestion, reroutes energy to systems needed for fighting or running - but the thing is when I calm down, that empty, shaky feeling typically persists. So I try very hard not to panic. Well, here I was at my desk, panicking. GRRRR. I've gotten to practice my breathing exercises a lot this week! LOL At some point, it was time to go and off I went. (Part of my nerves come from the fact that this teacher, though a nice person, isn't very ... involved in the classroom.) -- The lesson went VERY well. Well, I didn't explain the game very well so I had to go around and show the students how to play it. :/ HOWEVER, all in all it was 100 times better. So I am feeling much better about teaching it to the other 4 first grade classes next week. Ah dang it! I just realized I left my lesson materials in my desk. :/ Guess I'm not planning lesson two this weekend. Shoot. I don't teach it until Wednesday, but I would have liked to have it ready to go to be looked at on Monday. :/ Oh well. All I can do is my best. I'm preparing some other new lessons tomorrow anyway for Monday. Sorry - back to today...

My next class was right after and I got to see the girl who saw me at Sansa. :D I learned her name as well. That class went very well (it's the one with those two boys who love ASL). It was fun to teach and everything went very smoothly. (Oh! That class has one of the boys who saw me at the train station as well. - I mentioned I saw him and he, like the other student, reacted like, "Huh? Who, me!?" I'm starting to wonder about their memory as I have a thing for faces and I know which students I saw!)

(BTW I'm typing this as I listen to Dire Straits. <3) After that I had a free period and then lunch. I spent that time correcting and making notes on the worksheets I collected from the two classes I had just taught (as well as cooling down). All in all I had 73? worksheets. It took some time to respond individually but it's important to me that the students know I appreciate their efforts and I will make some of my own. After that I only had a few minutes to wait until the lunch bell. Because of my panicking in the morning I was in dire need (no pun intended since I told you I was listening to Dire Straits...) of food. Then I was able to eat and it made me feel much better. I had to sort of stuff in the last couple bites of my veggies - but for only a couple, I ate them. Then it was time for crafts! Yesterday Kanamori-s and another teacher stopped by my desk to invite me to the PTA craft. So I went. :) It's for the school festival next week. I am required to attend - and would have chosen to do so regardless but probably not stayed as long - so I was excited to be involved. I entered the room and found out I was the ONLY teacher doing the craft. All the other women were Japanese mothers of my students. Kinda trippy for me. I tried to chat but I was WAY outta my league. They were very kind though. :) They kept saying how fast I was. My speed is a product of many things: I was teaching 6th period so I only had that one period free, I am fairly impatient, I couldn't be distracted by chit chat, I have done many crafts in my past, and (related to the last one) I know how to employ craft materials. When the bell rang, we were only halfway done so I was torn. But I had to go. I tried to explain as best as I could and I took off. --oh! Also I found out that that room has a/c! It was GLORIOUS. I don't even care why the PTA comes to the school, the way they are treated... count me in! LOL So when I went back out to teach it was swamp land. But I adjusted quickly and was excited to teach my next lesson.

In this class, I teach with Oikawa-s and I had written down 3 names and had been looking at them periodically to memorize them. One of the names (since I wrote it before the break) had lost a face. So while they were working on the read and run I asked Oikawa-s to match the face with the name. Got you now T! ;) It ended up being perfect though. For part 2, there were 4 questions. I went around and warned each boy that I would call on him and which question he would be asked to answer. Then for the fourth, I learned a new name for a girl who sits up front. :) It went SO smoothly. I felt like a genius for doing it. Then we did part 3 ... slightly disastrous as words I thought would be common vocab for them... just wasn't. Oops. In any case, we joked through that and I had them write their summaries. After that we played a Jeopardy type game. Two especially funny moments: (some background: The lesson is about Harriet Beecher Stowe and Uncle Tom's Cabin. The lesson was divided into four parts and so each jeopardy heading was for each part.) Y raised his hand to answer a 400 point question that was true/false (they LOVE t/f here) but I had written it in a clear-cut manner. "True or false, Harriet Beecher Stowe (and this was under part 4 - open book for the students) visited President Lincoln DURING (I emphasized that) the war." Y, after raising his hand shouts out, "F!" "Oh no! Sorry.." LOL Suddenly a million hands were up! "Oooh! Ooh! Oooh!" I let Oikawa-s call on someone since I was laughing and not about to say who had been first. LOL Then Y got to redeem himself in the second funny story. A team picked 100 of part one. The question was, "Who is the chapter about (I know, but if I said, "About who is the chapter written - there's no way they would be able to extrapolate meaning.)?" No hands... no hands... no hands. So I say, "Ok, a hint: she is a woman!" Finally a hand! "Catherine!" ... (Catherine is HBS's sister) "No sorry." Next hand, "Lyman Beecher!" ... (Harriet's father.) "No, sorry." LOL I tried to give more hints and finally Y raises his hand. "Harriet!" "Good - all three names?" Which he gives me and gets 100 points for his team (they actually ended up winning). LOL It was really fun to play with them and they REALLY enjoyed the game which made me feel very successful and just awesome all around.

After class I went back to my desk and suddenly remembered my craft! (Thursday-Friday there are only 6 class periods so I was worried they would be gone since school was over.) I dashed back to those cute ladies and the a/c. Everyone else was finished but they had left me the supplies I needed to get done. They gathered around me, clucking (I mean that in the best way possible - they're just so small and I had no idea what they were saying to me, lol), and helped me finish. As I was getting done, they asked me to be in a picture. :D So I may or may not be in the yearbook/newsletter! :D It was SO fun. They kept exclaiming how fast I was. I tried mightily to tell them it was because I was the oldest of nine and ya .. I basically spouted nonsense since I was trying to hurry and my brain had shut down. LOL Still, it was really fun and I believe I get to keep the craft after the showcase. I hope so! If not, at least I got a picture of it! After I helped the ladies clean up and went back to my desk. Suddenly I was pressed for time. I hurriedly finished some things I needed to do and then went to say my goodbyes. I wished Hashimoto-s a good weekend and then said goodbye to Moniwa-s and apologized for not having helped with cleaning time. I tried to explain in Japanese what had happened - he had seen me in the craft room before and his eyes definitely twinkled at me (I think he was laughing inside - but in a nice way - to see me with all those mothers) - but I ended up showing the picture. He was very nice about it, "Sugoi!" Aww! Thanks! I showed the picture to Hashimoto-s and Oikawa-s as well.  -- Ok one more story from before. When Kanamori-s told me about the craft she said they were made out of "Japanese word, Japanese word..." She finally looked it up, didn't know how to say it, so she showed me the dictionary. "Cocoon." Uh... When they told me that yesterday my brain said, "No way. Nooo way it's a cocoon. How weird would that be!?" ... It was a cocoon. To start I had to cut roasted, dead bugs out of these cocoons. 0.o Good news though. I survived. I just tried VERY hard not to look at those 3 fat, dead, brown worms. *shudder*

When I had seen my goodbyes I went to the bus stop. Luckily one of my BFFs was online and I had company on the way home and part of the time I was home. I'm so grateful for that! When I got home, I ate, and watched some episodes of Code Geass. I'm excited to see my Deaf kids tomorrow! :D I have some errands to run as well. Here's hoping that tomorrow is cooler! (Today's temperature went over the fore-casted high. - I can't remember if I said that already...) My love to you all! XOXO, A

last night's blue moon

my crafty-craft!! :D

my face - in case you forgot it, which DAME! ;)