Sorry. It’s been over three weeks now since last I wrote, so I will try to summate more than expound in my description of my life overseas.
The end of the week in which I last wrote was excessively frustrating. They took a full day to give us the exams they wanted corrected, so with three days left I began my work. I had to correct the grammar and reorder the answer choices for the English in English (that’s actually the name of the class I teach) midterm exams for M4, M5, and M6. Well it turns out that M5 had three different versions of the midterm, so three tests to fix became five. Not only that, but we were given all the midterms in hardcopy which meant we had to retype the entirety of each, formatting and adding in similar graphics to those included in the tests. Some exams weren’t typed to begin with but were partially written and partially derived from photocopied passages and questions contained in other books. That is to say they were physically cut from photocopies, pasted on to the exam sheet, and then recopied for a one sheet thickness. Now, as the world’s slowest typist, I was both aggravated by the incredible pointlessness of the task we were given and by my being selected to do it—I may be arguably a good choice for grammar corrections, but I am the worst possible choice for typed transcription. I got more and more annoyed as I struggled through irritating formatting things and the simple process of typing that which was on another sheet of paper (I still need to look at the keyboard with some frequency when I type), and as I continued to contemplate how those tests which were previously typed existed in electronic copy somewhere, so I really needn’t be doing what I was doing. So, when I finally got to the page of Miss Dee’s test where she had glued half (not all, but merely the first half) of a paragraph upside down while the other half was attached properly. The effect was visually confusing and motivationally disabling. At that point I committed to full fledge apathy. And while the work got finished on time (thanks to some help from others), I was in a grouchy mood all Christmas Eve eve…at least until my Christmas cookies finally arrived in the mail (thanks again, Mom!)!
The last day of school, Christmas Eve, was hilarious. The students were supposed to have class the first half of the day and then classroom parties in the latter. Well, basically none of the teachers taught so the earliest part of the morning was spent preparing the parties and the rest of the day having them. This entailed decorating their classrooms and then having a ton of food and eating it all. Many classrooms played music as well. M5 room 2 went above and beyond all the rest. They turned their classroom into a veritable dance club, moving desks and benches, blacking out windows and doors, providing colored lighting of their own, and blasting dance mixes through an amp. It was hysterical! The kids got so sweaty dancing (it was a little gross), abut they had tons of fun and they kept trying to kidnap teachers and get them to dance. It was definitely an experience!
That same night, I hopped a flight (well, two) to Lisbon to meet up with my family in Sintra, Portugal for Delcher Family Christmas in Portugal. (I continue to call it DFCP despite the Delchers being far outnumbered by the collective Patterson/Owens and significant others contingent because I like to think we’re just that important.) Because Emily’s parents gifted her a flight for Christmas, she decided to join us as a last minute addition to our trip. This meant: first, that she and I spent the first few days in a b&b rather than the house providing us more heat, breakfast brownies, and cockatoo entertainment (I kid you not); and second, that I didn’t have to spend New Year’s entirely by myself in Lisbon. DFCP was awesome!! Portugal is beautiful and there were many cool sights to be seen, but more importantly I got to see my own immediate family and some of my extended family whom I hadn’t seen in awhile. It was also great to meet Lou and her mom, Jill while spending time with Ivy who none of us have seen for any considerable length of time in almost a decade. Much fun, hilarity, bonding, and so much loudness ensued! For pictures, see Facebook.
After coming back from Portugal, things have been somewhat busy with Dictations, marking Formative exams, and planning tutoring/period 9 lessons. I’m still getting asked to do ridiculous things from time to time; the best one yet is that I was literally called off the street yesterday by Miss Pat who then proceeded to ask me to go to Chiang Mai to do something for the foundation on my day off. I told her I already made plans to go to Singapore and my flight doesn’t get back until 2pm that day. She then, in typical Miss Pat, fashion called someone and found out that the flight is at 3 something so Ashley and I can go in her mind. We will see about this. Stay tuned…
