Coming Along

Excitement of the day: I was the classroom hero because I caught the little lizard that leap from my bag. I think it wanted to know what that delicious American peanut was all about and had been hanging out just trying to get a taste of it. I didn't see any miniscule teeth marks on my pb lid, but hey, I bet its' tongue is pretty fierce combat, and busted that gecko up!

Lemme just say that despite my miraculous feat, I get no respect from those girls. Up until the they set foot in school (most not until the age of 6) they've had no discipline. I mean zero. They do what they want when they want and they want to keep it that way. The parents don't seem to care, and the nannies don't want to lose their job, so they don't say anything. I'm totally the bad guy now, because everything is "No! Sit down! Stop! Listen!" I feel absolutely wretched: for the first time in all my three(!) years of teaching, I raised my voice to a kid. And it wasn't just once, I was at the top of my threshold of patience and puttin' up with x y and zed all day long. Eh, nasty stuff.

Nonetheless, there were some highlights during the day. For instance, I got the girls rolling on some fun activities that they seemed to go for. Like reading books with me, mimicking movements and naming colors. Tomorrow we're going to do shapes, I'm hoping that they can figure out what a triangle is if I flip a right triangle on its side. Such anticipation as the adventure continues!!

In other news, I'm in my apartment, yay! Granted I am camping out on my lovely thermarest until my bed gets here (two weeks more!), but it feels good not to be shlepping my two years of baggage from five star hotel to four star back to five. Life gets rough without one's kitchen, and that beautiful breakfast buffet was doing a number on my hips... ha! I'm happy, and I'm working on settling in.