Talking under water

I haven't been feeling well this week. This morning as I was doing read aloud one of my students raised his hand and said, "It sounds like you're talking under water."

I've noticed that everyone gets really frustrated when kids don't understand a lesson. They get frustrated for not getting it. And I get really frustrated because I've tried to teach them the same thing so many ways that I'm all out of ideas. It makes me feel like a bad teacher. I tend to feel like a bad teacher when I'm sick. Maybe it's because I'm extra spacey? Or maybe I have less patience? Who can really say?

On a more positive note, it's my wonderful mother's birthday today for her, yesterday for me. Happy Birthday!

Noisy Neighbor

The above is a photo of our noisy neighbor. Daily he comes over and yells at us to let him in our windows. When we tell him that he's not invited in he just flies over to another window and tries again, like we don't know it's him at a different window.

We should be getting our new laptops sometime this week. And that's really exciting. For the past month we have been sharing Jordon's and while it's been ok, I can tell he wants his independence back. One good thing that's come of us sharing a computer is we've watched a lot of shows together. We're almost all caught up on 30 Rock, and Flight of the Conchords. And yesterday we started Burn Notice. Oh free time. As you know we've got plenty of it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dJRQBN8lN0

Jordon is working on mummifying chickens with his students as they student ancient cultures. It's pretty gross, but the kids are enjoying it. Maybe he'll write more about that later?

Jab chae is the yum.

Not much new to report. We're still thoroughly enjoying our life here. Teaching is going quite well. And, the parents seem to be appreciative. We've gotten a chocolate pound cake, 2 boxes of chocolates, and jab chae (delicious korean noodles) this week alone. Either they really like us or they think we're too skinny. After school today I was given a hand painted fan. The mother let us know that her cousin painted it and is a pretty big deal. It's beautiful.

We have a couple adventures in the works, and will be sure to keep you updated:

Melissa will be attending the EARCOS Teachers' Conference to be held at Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia March 25-28, 2009.

And then on April 4th both of us will be traveling to Beijing with the Manderin Club for Spring Break. We'll be there for a week or so.

We're extremely excited about those trips. And we're also excited for our trip back to America. It'll be good to be home.