Happy Birthday!!!!

So it has been a while since we posted because things have been a little overwhelming lately. So I was looking forward to today. It's my birthday and a Wednesday. Which means I normally only have one class and then the rest of the day to get things done. But today my class was cancelled so I had ALL day to do as I please. I still worked, but that's okay. On your birthday, at our school the clock in machine sings happy birthday- its pretty funny. I just finished my grades and realized how many of my students didn't do so hot even though I tried desperately hard this term to get them to pass. I've had one of those months were you work til your heart bleeds and then work some more and still nothing seems to really make the difference and you wonder why are you here and why are you a teacher and if anyone even notices that you are there-literary. No one can see me at my desk (you hear a lot of good gossip that way, but still you would like people to know that you are there) Until this afternoon...

I have kept my birthday pretty quiet (crazy I know I am the queen of this is my Birthday WEEK!) only the song from the clock in machine this morning and telling my Thai teacher a few weeks ago or so I thought. This afternoon Master Jay comes in and says that there was a problem with one of the students in 8 B and if we can all talk...I immediately start wondering who the kid is and that all of them turned in their work and there really should be any problems and then he brings over the kid... Okay not a bad kid one that has improved so much over the last year what could be the problem? Then I see some other kids from his class and I'm like wait we having a serious talk here and then I look up to see that the entire teacher work room is filled with grade 8 and 9 students and they all start sing me Happy Birthday (the Thai version). And my Thai teacher with two huge ice cream birthday cakes. It was so loud everyone got up and were signing and clapping. A few other groups of students came in later for their own rendition. It made me feel really good to know that so many would come in...just to surprise me and wish me happy birthday!

I guess I am doing a little better than I thought. No one else has kids that come to them in such force to wish them happy birthday! I will see if someone got some pictures to show.

Well I think Ed and I are off to a birthday dinner. We have to come to work on Friday for "Sports Day" for the teachers no kids but I think some of us will sneak away for a Pad Thai lunch to also celebrate my birthday - ( I got more of the week to celebrate)

P.S My Thai teacher told everyone I was turning 24...I guess I will really be able to stretch this being 29 thing out for a while!

Cookin' in the classroom

Today (back in March) I set out to conquer spaghetti and meatballs with grade 5 students in their normal class room with no kitchen equipment. I say conquer because this was our second try at the lab. Something told me yesterday that I should stop the lab and try again another day- that something could have been the children yelling things a crossed the room- in Thai of course or the kid bouncing the ball all over the place and asking me every 5 seconds if he could eat a cracker or just maybe the kids chasing each other around the room with gunky meatball hands trying not to lose their meatballs while I was trying to cook (mostly burning) the huge meatballs I had already captured? Not sure which one it was, so you can take your pick. I have really lost my touch here- I haven't cooked with kids in almost 10 months and these kiddos don't understand everything I say so I needed to reevaluate my plan. So today I came in with some new rules and better directions to help win the battle of the meatballs. We added some more spices and crackers to our lumps of meat and finally got them into balls. Then for the cooking. We have one grill/ pot combo hot plate to cook on and twenty plus kids. So I have noddles going in the pot and six kiddos cooking their meatballs on the grill- pretty amazing we had something good to eat at the end and no one got hurt. It only took us two days and four class periods. Mission accomplished- finally. I clearly have some things to work out before cooking during the normal school year!

Check out some of the pictures. Some of them have their chefs hats we made the first day on. They think they are pretty cool when they have them on while cooking- it's pretty cute.