In order to combat the negative energy of my last post I'm going list all the nice /funny/excellent things that have happened to me this week:

1. Most importantly, no one pooped on the floor.
2. Payday! More money than I knew what to do with. All I could bring myself to buy was an ice cream.
3. A small child came up to me in the middle of our Math class, wrapped his arms around my legs, buried his face in my skirt, and went "NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM!!!" and then just grinned up at me. It was really hard to scold him or send him back to his chair.
4. Miss Christine, my teaching assistant slash sanity keeper, brought me spring rolls that she made for lunch one day. They were so delicious.
5. I teach second grade art as well and a little boy came up to me, handed me a folded up piece of paper and said, "This is for you." I unfolded it and all it said was "I love you." Pretty smooth for a seven year old.
6. Miss Christine told me she is so happy to be with me in class because she thinks I'm a good teacher.
7. I tried to play "Duck Duck Goose" with them in PE and it was an EPIC failure. Instead we played "Mr Wolf What Time is it?" which was basically Miss Christine bringing them close behind me followed by me turning around and chasing them like Mr. Wolf at 'dinner time.' And really enjoying their little screams and giggles when I did so.
8. Realizing that when I sing the Wheels on the Bus, even the ones who don't speak or understand English know which hand motions go with which lyrics. I think I sing that song approximately 13 times per day.
9. Walking around in the mall on Thursday, waiting for the bank to open so I could cash my check, seeing one of my students in the food court with her mom. She waved, hid behind her mother, came up to me and said "Mees Pat-ree-see-a," and ran back to her mom.
10. A small child coming up to me and kissing me good-bye at the end of the day.
11. Thursday night we went to the ritziest place I have ever been in my whole life. We went to a bar at the Doha Sheraton just for fun. We walked in and there were red carpets, gold chandeliers, and glass elevators. We rode it all the way up to the eleventh floor. Just because. Even though we were going to the basement.
12. Wednesday I set up all these shapes on the chalkboard ledge and told them they had to come up and choose the red one. I turned around to get something and there are suddenly cascades of hysterical laughter. I turned back around and one yellow oval had fallen over on its side. I picked it up, put it back, and much to their great enjoyment, it fell directly over. They were practically screaming with laughter and kept trying to blow it over from their seats.


The most important thing I think I realized last week, in the midst of wiping copious amounts of snot and blood off of a little girl was that I'm making this up as I go and that's alright. Some days I have to literally climb under the desk to get and keep their attention because they think I live at school and I tell them I'm going to sleep. (My supervisor walked in at this moment, by the way). Some days I have to sing the Hokey Pokey in front of the George Clooney look-a-like disciplinarian. Some days they will all yell RED!!! when I hold up something red and ask what color it is. But then other days they will yell NO! when I hold up the same thing and ask, "Is this red?"

I realized I'm working with limited knowledge, experience (obviously) and materials. So I'm doing what I can with what I have. There are actually no supplies for art class. We have 24 colored pencils for 28 kids, so I can't even give each kid 2 colors to do their art projects with. I can't even give them all ONE at a time. (I bought some colored pencils today so that won't happen next week.) For my second grade art class, there is nothing. I had only computer paper and their pencils. So, last week we sang the Bare Necessities from the Jungle Book and they drew that, but this week, I had them draw the whole jungle. I was actually very impressed by their jungle drawing skills. They were asking me to draw all of these animals on the board. And if they could draw rainbows, and Spongebob. Sure, why not kid? If you can tell me why Spongebob is in the jungle, you can put him in the jungle. And he did. So I let him.

I think making it up as I go is working out alright so far. Even with vomit, bloody noses, and wet pants as the extracurricular activities. Even though I definitely stand at the board and have moments of "Whaaaaat the frick do I do now?"every now and again. Rather often actually.

Miss Batty