It was Monday, Alright

I'm not sure what was with today, but my kids were being SUPER bad. Being completely honest, I wanted to choke nearly every one of them. I had to rearrange my seating chart and even then they would not stop touching each other. So frustrating.

Except of course, my girl Audrey. She is coming home with me, and she said she wants to. When I take them to their next class she always holds my hand. I tell her she's my favorite and she smiles with that toothless smile (she's totally rocking the two missing front teeth) and says, "Teacha Kayla, you are my favorite." I'm in love, there's no other way to put it. Every day when she gets to class, the first thing out of her mouth is, "Teacha, what time is it?" I've never seen a kid so concerned with the time, but it makes me smile every time she asks. She can tell when I get frustrated with the other kids and that's when she starts yelling at them or trying to help me. When everyone else lines up to leave, she stays behind to help me clean up. I could learn a lot from this seven-year-old beauty. We all could.

A large part of teaching, is learning to choose your battles. This is hard for me, because I care so much about their education and I want them to learn as much as they can. I want the lessons to go perfectly, and they never will. As a matter of fact, the only purpose that a lesson plan serves, is to make you feel prepared, when in reality, you'll be lucky if 10% of the class period goes as planned. That's just how it is. The real challenge isn't making good lesson plans, it's learning to roll with the punches. Most of the time when the kids act out, it's because they're bored or tired. I have to remember that they have class 13 hours every day and they are only kids, even if the Chinese education system doesn't treat them that way.

By the way, ELE today went pretty well. I love that I'm finally getting the hang of it and don't necessarily dread it anymore. But I still don't enjoy it, and I don't think I ever will, just because I don't feel like I'm teaching them anything.

 The awesome thing about Mondays, is that it's also Muslim Monday. Yum. Yum. Yum. I tried something different today than my usual Chow Mien. It was good, but I like my usual better. The people that work there are so cute. They get way excited when we walk through the door! We stopped by the market and night market on our way back. If I don't stop eating these damn ice cream bars, I'm going to have a major problem. But they're soooo good. They were actually out of strawberry today, so I got vanilla with chocolate swirls. Absolutely heavenly!

Superawesomeamazingdelicious.

Your eyes do not deceive you. Those are potatoes indeed.