The fun continues

I've been teaching my own class for about a month now, and things have been going relatively well.  Every week has its surprises, such as teacher strikes or schoolwide assemblies that take away from my class time, but I just go with the flow.  Almost all of my students can now tell me what their name is in a full sentence, so wahoo!  We have to remember to celebrate the little victories!  Last week’s slang of the day was “cool,” and I now have tons of students coming up to me and saying, “Miss Kelly is cool!”  What can I say?  They learn fast J

I’ve also had quite a few students concerned about the flu being in the U.S. and asking about my family’s health back home, which has been quite sweet.  My new co-teacher, who has been in Ohio for the past 5 weeks, returned to school today and many of the kids were afraid to go near her because they thought she may have brought the flu back with her.  I tried not to laugh as I assured them she was just fine.  On a side note, a good amount of students have asked me if I know Arnold Schwarzenegger, and when I tell them that he’s the governor of my home state they all gasp in awe.  I’ve seen the Terminator movies on tv here a fair amount, so I’m not surprised by the Arnold questions.

Last weekend I went up to Chillán to go to visit my friend Jake.  We went to a soccer game, and let me tell you, it was exactly how I pictured a Latin American fútbol game.  Songs were sung and drums were played the whole time the ball was in play, tons of toilet paper was thrown onto the field at the opposing team’s goalie before the game began, and at one point someone took out a huge flare and started twirling it around.  And from an educational standpoint, I learned all kinds of groserías, or swear words, from the fans around me.  It was a great!

Some of my crazy 8th grade boys

The kids saying, "Awesome!"