For some reason, this Friday has felt exceptionally long; it had plenty in it to make it seem full, mostly in the good sense, but now, I'm so exhausted I don't really know how much I can write about it.
But write I will, if only because my sheets are in the dryer and I can't go to sleep yet until they're done, anyway.
I realized during my 5th grade classes at Cing-Shan today that I suggested--and we played--charades for three of my four lesson plans this week. It would seem that I'm getting unimaginative (Heaven forbid!), but at least the kids all liked it. And it's hard not to bring up charades for easy-to-act things like emotions, which we covered today. It's even more difficult, though, to differentiate between near-synonyms taught together: today we had "great," "excited," and "happy." No matter how you act it, those three pretty much look the same. As for the textbook activity--write the word next to the right picture--impossible.
Tomorrow is Patty's birthday, it turns out! The principal came into one of our later classes with a cake--I wish I had known before! Glad to have gotten to help celebrate a little, anyway--she is wonderful and I'm so glad to know her!
I stayed for lunch today at Cing-Shan for the first time since the observational week because today we started rehearsals for Readers Theater. Ah, how I miss theater: I realized it when our eight aspiring readers trouped in, and I was reminded of so many pre-rehearsal bonding moments with other groups of kids; I loved the camaraderie of being the select few. And I learned these select fews' names--a few to check off my massive class list of names to learn: Kiki, Sherry, Tin (like the French cartoon--he won't change it), Daisy, Alice, and...shoot, there were definitely 7 kids there; two more boys. Woops.
Anyway, rehearsal was fun--nostalgic for me on multiple levels, both remembering acting when I was younger and reading the story itself, which Patty adapted into script format from Bill Peet's wonderful The Spooky Tail of Prewitt the Peacock, which I read growing up, and lent to Patty. Our version is "The Spooky Crown of Hank the Cockatoo," and features a good deal more singing than the original, but I really like it. Some good vocabulary that got carried over from Prewitt. And I'm going to like doing RT! Even though it means staying long on my early Friday, it's the best of all worlds: I get to re-tap into my theatrical side, work to get pronunciation perfect (which I love) and work extra with the kids who already have a pretty wonderful grasp of the language for their age (read: probably the work of buqibans, but still...).
After school I ran out to Carrefour to get goodies for the BBQ that happened tonight at Tiffiany and Steven's apartment in Dashe--I tasked myself with drinks, chips and fruit, and Rachel chipped in on them. And in the process, I learned the right way to go grocery shopping on a scooter: with a backpack.
Fonda was nice enough to drive Rachel and I to the BBQ (others did a complicated MRT-to-bus-to-foot route), and we had a great night of hanging out with everyone--at final count, there were 14 of us, I believe: Tiffiany and Steven (of course), myself, Rachel, Analicia, Esther, Emily, and Lydia of the ETAs, then Fonda, and Evelyn and Rita (her co-worker we met at Dream Mall), Katy (new American English teacher at San-Min), and CJ (San-Min security) and his friend Bacon. We enjoyed such delicious fare as Steven's grilled fruit and Lydia's grilled salad, then snacked on all sorts of goodies and fruit until the main course, Steven and Tiffiany's fajitas, were served.
And oh, another important point of the night! Tiffiany and Steven share their apartment building with several of their students' families; also present tonight were Sylvia and her son, Yung-Yung, one of Tiffiany's students whose tenth birthday was today. And they hadn't had plans! So we sang to him and ate black forest cake. Happy Birthday, Yung-Yung!
Well, that's about it for now...have to be up early tomorrow. Goodnight world, it's been quite a day; happy birthday to Patty and Yung-Yung!
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