Since there’s all of two weeks left of school (less by the
time this gets posted), I thought it might be high time to say what I actually
do with my life at work. And since Mondays are my crazy days, it’ll make it
seem like I keep occupied more than I actually do. Describing other days would
just be sad. So let’s pretend Mondays are typical for me.
Now that summer’s coming and the days are getting longer,
the sun comes up obscenely early and it’s hard to sleep past 8 so I get up and
either go for a walk or do my exercises so I can reduce my hobbling from old
age. I’m impressed by me too. I head
into school around 10:30 because that gives me time to cool down after the walk
to school. I’d forgotten how hot it gets when it’s not winter. My first class
is at 10:50, team teaching 5th grade and it’s an adventure every
day. It’s the class that proves that in 5th grade, both boys and
girls can behave horribly. They’re not bad kids, they just try my patience for
40 minutes three times a week.
For most of this quarter, I then had about an hour break,
but my other 5th grade class just got moved to that hour. My
training manager, who is my de facto
supervisor more than the school director, observed a class a couple weeks back
and noticed that they’re terribly chatty. We have a new Russian teacher at
school so she’s started doing class with me to help with management and
eventually I’ll probably include her more in the teaching after I work on the
language with her. They’re hands down my favorite class: most of them pick
things up quickly, they humor my attempts at Mongolian and we’re all champions
at Monglish, and they’re up for anything I throw at them.
Then twice a week I go to the kindergarten and “teach” the
children English. I ran out of material around January, but luckily 4-5 year
olds don’t care about new material as long as I keep playing different games.
Running around the room finding colors is a hit and has been for the past three
weeks. Today was extra special because they wanted to take pictures of my
lesson and even broke out a video camera. And yet, being on tape didn’t
discourage them from hitting each other and crying. They’re catching on to
numbers and colors though. Here’s a picture of me and the kids we took today:
 |
| believe me, this is the better picture |
Then since 5th grade is the end of elementary
school, they have big exams at the end of the year so I have an extra class
with my 5th graders for two hours twice a week. Basically it’s me
trying to drill present simple into their heads: “NO, you CANNOT write a form
of ‘to be’ before every verb. ‘He is plays basketball’ is WRONG.” Good times. A
couple are really doing well, but the rest just really like talking.
At 3:50, I have my 4th grade which is tough
because that textbook has no words, just pictures. I have no idea what it wants
from me. They were cute today and asked a bunch of questions about English
speaking countries, what the smallest country in the world is, what languages I
speak, and whether or not I’ll be teaching them next year too. Saying yes to
the last one got a cheer so that was a nice boost to my self esteem. After
that, we have 8th grade which is the biggest challenge I have. Only
a couple kids ever learned anything the previous two years and aren’t
interested in learning more, so I make a lot of frustrated noises. I’ve started
asking them questions at the beginning of every class and if they don’t answer,
they get to stand for the rest of class. After one class standing, all shyness
goes away and they are very eager to answer the question.
At 5:15, the beautiful yet obnoxious bell rings and my day
is over. Technically there’s a teachers’ meeting at 6, but I stopped going
awhile back because it was dark by then during winter, they’re long, I don’t
understand a thing, and it’s rare that anything even applies to me. Today I
made the mistake of wearing heels that I haven’t worn since August. Oh the
pain, the agony. I asked everyone I could if they would carry me home, but for
some reason, nobody took me up on it. I can’t understand it. The 10th
graders were outside planting even more trees, but none of them wanted to trade
shoes with me so I could walk home pain-free either. What a world we live in.
And now, sitting in my ger and watching the 4th
season of Gilmore Girls for the fifth time this year, I’ve discovered the
unfortunate return of a mouse problem. Last time I had a mouse problem because
they moved in under my ger. This time I have a problem because my cat finds
mice outside and brings them inside to torture and play with until they die.
I’m of course too freaked out to actually touch and rescue the mouse because
these things are ENORMOUS. Not little mice like last time, but big honking
steroid mice. She brought a bird in once. Don’t think it left. Can’t find where
she put it. That’s going to end very badly for me sometime in the relatively
near future.
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