Monday, October 02, 2006

Tears

Nothing much is new around here. I'm trying to convince myself that I'm on a two week vacation. No, I'm not delusional: we actually have four days off over the next two weeks. There's even the possibility of a five day weekend starting on Friday. Actually, the whole thing is a great example of the way things are done in Taiwan. Friday is a government holiday (Moon Festival) and Tuesday is a government holiday (Double Ten independence Day). Only now, a week beforehand, does the government think... "Hmm, maybe we should make Monday a holiday too?" Apparently people are very put out because those planning weddings on Monday won't be able to get marriage licenses and those planning weddings on Saturday won't have anyone show up. That's the craziest part: a "Day Off" on Monday means that the work day is moved to the following Saturday. In my opinion, that's hardly a day off!

Anyway, I had a rough couple of grade one classes this morning. The students are really growing on me (they are too cute). We were working on a worksheet...

Chameleon, Chameleon
What will you do?
You sit on a Blueberry
And now you are Blue!

All of a sudden, I look around and a little girl is standing in front of me sobbing. She was a really sweet, quiet girl so I almost started crying too. It turns out she had a really bad tummy ache (her Mom came to pick her up). I'm not quite sure why she came to me and not her homeroom teacher or my Taiwanese co-teacher. In my next class, another sweet, quiet girl came up to talk to me while my co-teacher collected their homework. If a student is late turning in their homework, it goes from an A to a B. Jasmine finally whispered to me that she had forgotten her homework, and she started to cry. She was so scared of getting in trouble or being yelled at (I can emphasize!) I thought it was sweet that she came to me, I am a softy through and through, and I tried to tell her in every way possible that it was okay.

Posted by Kathleen @ 5:56 PM