I used to think that the song that goes "Everybody's Working for the Weekend" was probably the cheesiest, most annoying song in the entire world....until I entered the work force last week. It is Saturday morning(at last!!!), the day I've been dreaming of all week. I've just finally dragged myself from bed at 11am after having had a quiet Friday night in with the girls, pizza, and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. craaazy .I passed out pretty early by Friday night standards after having my first really lengthy long distance chat with Jeremy. Hearing about the happenings of Montreal coupled with the fact that I've recently discovered after careful observation that this "Candid Camera" type show that I sometimes watch and that is dubbed over in Chinese is actually a French show taped in Montreal, has made me miss the place so much! (funny thing is I don't remember too many French people with wild senses of humor... you know, since I knew so many...). Luckily, I am so busy I don't have much time to sit and feel nostalgic. I am fully into this thing that I hope resembles teaching and oohh my goodness is it exhausting! So now that I've done my first full week of it here are some highlights and thoughts.....

First day of school :
Finally having the first day of school was a relief! I had spent so many long days in the office making lesson plans, visualizing standing in front of a class, and skipping out to the girls' bathroom mirror to perfect my mean and serious face to match the "You forgot your homework?!!!!/ Be quiet!!/ STOP biting your neighbor/ I would not be smiling if I were you!" lines that I had been rehersing. Wednesday morning we were told surprise! You have to attend Junior High opening ceremonies. Of course the entire thing was in Chinese so I had no idea what was going on minus this one part when a fake door with the words "Knowledge" and "Power" (in English!) were brought to the front and students symbolically knocked and passed through the doors into ahhh the finer education that I will in part bring to them. To all of our horror a projector screen lowered from the ceiling and viola! there were the English teachers' faces as big as can be. One at a time we were called up to stand while our individual headshot and bio was shown and a videocamera zoomed in to capture every painful second. I think my face reflected my thoughts which were "look happy and nice... no wait, that was too nice, they will think you are a pushover teacher...be serious... no, that's too serious.. look pleasant.. no, just breathe." After that, teaching class seemed like a piece of cake!

My classes:

Kindy: OOOOoooooo myyyy.... seriously I have never been around so much cuteness in my life and it's almost more than I can handle. They are just so TINY, but so smart and really for the most part well-behaved. Sure some of them are sitting there picking their noses and can't understand more than 'hello', but when I ask 'how are you today?' most of them say " I'm fine, thank you , how are you?" This week I even got the response "Fantastic!" from this sweet pigtailed 5year old....brilliant!
My job with the little ones in basically to teach them English songs, stories and ingrain rules into their heads like "Rasie your hand and wait" and "English only, please" . You know how Dr. Suess had characters that only speak in rhyme? I tend to speak only in rules. Pretty much anything that is going on in the classroom can be addressed with one of the many rules. Little Betty starts crying in Chinese after David pokes her one too many times. My response: "David, eyes on the teacher! (rule 1) Be nice, be kind! (2) Sit up straight (3). Betty, English only, please (4) Remember, you need to listen carefully (5)and follow directions (6)."
Kindy is definitely the most draining class to teach since it is 2 hours long and you are singing and dancing around like a nut in this tiny tiny classroom, but it is definitely one of the most rewarding. I don't go a day without less than 20 hugs or the many "Ms. Katie!!! Ms. Katie!! Hellooo!!"s as I walk down the hallway. At last, I may have become one of the most popular kids at school!

3rd Grade: I might enjoy my 3rd grade classes most of all. It's a good thing because I have them on Monday and Friday mornings and I don't think I could handle anything less! I actually get to feel like I am a real teacher because I have a phonics book to work on them with. The great thing is I have a Chinese English co-teacher to help handle the 45 little ones. The co-teachers are all super sweet, speak English very well, and I even had the one offer to take me shopping and make me earrings this week!
The kids are at the age where they still actually want to raise their hands and answer questions and absolutely beam when I tell them "good job." The first day of each of their classes I brought in a powerpoint with pictures of my family and let them ask me any questions they wanted. The most common were "How old are you?" "How tall are you/your dad/you sisters?" "Do you like insects?" and "Do you have a boyfriend?" After each of the classes I had a few students latch on and follow me down the hallways giving me all their relevant info:" Ms. Katie, you are from America? My uncle lives in America and I go visit him but sometimes he squeezes my cheeks and I don't know if I like him" and so on.

Dun dun dun..... the BIG KIDS: hmmm so I had originally thought that it would be teaching the older 7th,8th,9th, and 10th grades that would be my forte. However, after a week and a half of classes I am rethinking this. The 7th grade is great because while they have mini-attitudes, I can still scare them with my mean voice. The 9th grade girls are a litle rough but I can forgive them seeing as they are in school from 7am-9pm everyday. I can't blame them for looking at me with pained or bored expressions after such a long day
It is the 8th grade girls and my 10th grade co-ed Speech and Debate class that have it in for me. I am pretty sure they must discuss their plan of attack for me before they come to class. The 10th grade class is going to be nearly impossible to teach seeing as Speech and Debate requires.. you know, speaking. Muttering to friends in Chinese while rolling your eyes doesn't really count. This week I tried to get them to speak up by having us stand in a circle and practice counting as loud as we could. "Project your voices!!!" I literally screamed. The response hardly qualified as speaking at normal volume for us North Americans. Needless to say I am losing my voice. The 8th grade girls are my very last class on Fridays at 4pm and definitely the most painful part of my week. There is not a single kid that acts like they want to be there.. even in the slightest. I stopped class twice yesterday to explain what the word "respect" means and how they are seriously lacking it. I tried to ask them about things they are interested in so that I can bring their interests into class material and make the class -gasp- actually fun. The process was like pulling teeth so I made a chart on the board of how their grade is determined and what class participation means and made them copy it down for the remainder of the class. haha can you believe how mean I can be?? I surprise myself! Being serious while teaching is even more tiring than teaching kindy... especially when it is your very last class of the week! I feel like I'm in the movie Dangerous Minds.. except I'm not teaching disadvantaged kids in the ghetto, but rather spoiled Taiwanese kids!

A few other interesting tidbits about school:
When I enter each class I have a class leader who tells the other kids "Stand Up!...Attention!...Bow!" (the whole class says "Goodmorning, Ms. Katie") "Sit down!" Ohhh, the feeling of power...

The kids all have English names that I am guessing their parents picked for them, but that they forget to answer to all the time. Most of the girl names end in "Y" so I have a plethora of girls with the name "Cindy" "Christy" and "Nancy". Some of the names are quite unique... I have a Woody, Conbell, Barbie, Cloudy, three Angels, Wisdom and in my 10th grade class I have 4 boys with the name Jeff, 1 Jeffery, and a Jeffers. I'm teaching over 500 different kids each week so memorizing names seems a bit daunting at this point!

Alright enough about school, school, school! This week was also difficult because I found out one of my new friends, Neil, is having a family emergency that is forcing him to move back to Toronto indefinitely. In the past month I've befriended this small group of people, and it's so sad to see it breaking up so soon! Thursday night we went out to say goodbye and I'm trying to post a few of the pictures from our night out. Luckily I have become really good friends with a guy, Chie, so I still have that outlet when I need to escape the house. Kate, another friend, has extended her stay here a bit longer, and it's nice to know I'll still have some people around to go out with for awhile longer! Speaking of going out... tonight I'm going to the Missy Elliot concert! No one from my house was really into it, but my boss could get an extra ticket so I thought I should just go for it! It should be interesting... I already warned him that my mission is to sneak backstage to convince Missy to make me a backup's backup's backup dancer and quit the whole ESL biz. Cross your fingers!

I finally figured out how to use the phonecards properly and was so excited to call many of you this week! Unfortunately with the time difference I spoke to NO ONE, yet enjoyed hearing your voices on your voicemail greetings, and tried to leave some little love messages. I don't have many people's new numbers since giving up my Montreal phone, so if you didn't hear from me and can send me your number and a good time to reach you, you may just receive a special "ni hao" sometime soon.
I love and miss you all!

PS- Thanks for the card Mom... it was so pretty!
Nadine, your card and treat were hilarious.. and yet still managed to make me cry! Thank you!