Ding ding! Round 2.

The moral of week 1: Little boys can't control themselves.

In Grade 1F:
I have a peeping tom and a flasher. Should work out well for them.
I have another boy who has never been to school (or seen other children before apparently). Generally it takes six tries for him to respond to his own name. He also cannot open or close his own pants. He also booty dances around the room shaking his rather large butt in the other kids faces when he wants a pencil or an eraser. I wish I didn't want to laugh at him.
Another boy only wants to dance. Instead of doing his mental maths today he jumped out of his chair exclaiming, ""Miss! I make dance!" and wowed me with some pretty sweet Gumby moves for a five old. Thanks, MJ.

In Grade 2C:
I have confiscated: two rulers, six pencil cases, one Bakyugan pencil sharpener the size of a softball, two baseball caps, one Matchbox car, and three water bottles.
During spelling: "MISSSSSSSSSS!!!!! MISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTYFELICE! I spill!!"
Well....WHY do you have chocolate milk out during spelling?!?!?

Our language lesson was about family this week..one little boy told me, "Miss! I have no sisters! Four brothers only." God bless your mother.

Welcome back.

And so it begins again...

Hello again! Back for round two in the desert. I've been getting resettled in Doha and into a routine (finally!). School starts again on Monday. I am the class teacher for 1F and the English teacher for 2C. Bye-bye babies! Thank God. Pictures of my new classroom to be posted soon. I get to teach science. Week one- 'observing seeds.' Can't wait. 

Also, the notorious kindergarten child moving up into first grade? 1F. Into my class. All of the assistant teachers keep saying, "AHHHH MOHAMMED*! You have Mohammed? Ah, is too much." Can't wait.

Snack time

[Sitting at my desk correcting a few final worksheets for them]

Small spastic child: Teacha! Teacha! Miss Patreesia!
Me: [turn to child] Yes, what do you nee...
Small spastic child: Eat! [Shoves a Cocoa Puff into my mouth while I'm still talking] Eat! Eat!

I don't even like Cocoa Puffs.

You might think that's cute but all I can say is it's a good thing that tomorrow is the last day of school.

A is for Azerbaijan...

Can you name the countries that go with these flags?
How many adults do you know who can draw this many flags from memory?
Most brilliant kindergartener of all time? Possibly.

Trials, tribulations, and tokens

Everyone, breathe! Concerts are over- with minimal tears, waawaas (booboos), and failures. Almost everyone sang, almost everyone left their costumes alone (except one boy who refused his tail and two others who took their ears off on stage and played with them instead of singing), and only one girl cried (and she kept singing through her tears- yes, she is a champion.) We sang the Itsy Bitsy Spider, the Wheels on the Bus, and Five Little Monkeys- all very successful. Especially Five Little Monkeys- I'm almost certain that the Greek Embassy across the street could hear their stomping on the stage. Some of the parents came up to me afterwards saying things like, "Ahhhh Miss Batreesa thank you so much! It is too much hard work you do for them" or "Ah it is lovely! Thank you Miss Batreesa!" or "God help you." That's right it's too much hard work. You should have seen me twenty minutes ago safety pinning tails and monkey stomachs on them and trying to keep them quiet in the back room of the stage.

But in the aftermath of the concert and the school year winding down, I'm returning to teaching life skills. Like tying your shoes. I obviously know children cannot tie their own shoes until they are taught but I just assumed that you teach your kid that before you send it to school to settle on an unsuspecting teacher. The only reason I discovered their serious lack of shoe-tying/velcroing skills is that the kids had to take their shoes off for our practices. Time to go back to class. Now, Choose Your Own KG1B Adventure:
1. Child lurks near my knees while holding its shoes and patting my upper thigh. Miss Batreesa Miss Batreesa Miss Batreesa Miss Batreesa Miss Batreesa
or
2. Child attempts to put on its own shoes. Because I am occupied by those who are making choice #1, I do not notice that 70% of them have put their shoes on the wrong feet until we return to class. How did they even walk that way?

I realized before I could teach them how to tie their shoes I had to show them which shoe goes on which foot. So yesterday after lunch consisted of me explaining a. the difference between left and right b. the difference between the inside and the outside of their foot and c. the difference between the inside and the outside of their shoe. Then I took their shoes away, threw them in a pile in the front of the room, had them get their shoes and put them back on. Minor chaos ensued and semi-successful outcome. Everyone got their shoes on the correct feet... eventually. We practiced again today. Maybe something we do until the last day.

And now for the final segment of my thoughts, tokens. Tokens of love and appreciation and personality insight from four year olds. To start this story off, for those of you who are wondering, yes it's summer again. With a vengeance. My glasses have started fogging up again when I go outside (the opposite of what used to happen in Boston). Today's high- 112. And today's special- P.E. Outdoor P.E. because KG1 doesn't rate gym time. Outdoor P.E. was all well and good when it was only 85 but now that the temps are consistently triple digits, I don't think it's safe to have four year olds running around in the desert. Plus they start to whine and I can't handle that. So today's P.E. consisted of me loosing the boys on the sole patch of grass on the grounds underneath a few struggling trees. Immediately I had three boys around me- "Teacher! For you!" "Miss Patreesa, for you!!" "Miss Batreesia, take!"

Any guesses as to what they were holding? Leaves. Tiny leaves scattered all over the grass. Then, all the boys wanted in. So every 2 seconds was punctuated by, "Miss Patreesa!!" and me receiving five new leaves. Until I had in my hands a pile of approximately 738 leaves.

"Miss Patreesa, take to your home!"
"Miss Patreesa, nice?"
"Miss Batreesia, from you!"
"Miss Patreesa, show to your mommy!"

Then some of them surpassed all bounds of sanity and starting breaking branches off the bushes and giving them to me..."Put for your hair Miss Patreesa!" "Miss Patreesa, put here! [points to my ear]" So of course, I did. Which immediately prompted, "Teacher, you crazy!" Thank you, Rayan. But he made up for it by running up to me shortly after, wrapping himself around my leg and saying, "Teacher, you beauty!"

I may have officially lost it. Putting tree branches in my hair? Where are they getting this vibe from? What do I do in class that gives them this idea about me? One of the other teachers did call me 'earthy' last week....

Point taken I suppose.

Who is that woman and why is she wearing my shoes?

Now I have to say it's been an interesting year. 371 days ago I said good-bye to a beautiful place that was my home for four years. But I also left behind a life of which I had never imagined myself outside. I was that girl who loved school her whole life. Absolutely loved it. That girl who was happier in Bapst Library than in Mary Ann's bar. Am I where I thought I would be last year? Yes and no. Physically, yes. Every other way, no. Every time I walk into the classroom I think to myself, What are you doing? Who are you pretending to be? When I received my bachelor's degree in literature and philosophy last year did I think I would be spending my days teaching thirty four year old children how to sneeze into their arms instead of my face? Anyone who knows me asks me what am I doing. And generally for a video tape of a day in my classroom.

I spend a lot of time here feeling like I'm living someone else's life- and it's not just the snot wiping, jacket zipping, shoe tying parts of it. That's most of it. It's the big girl job, but it's also the boyfriend, the black tie ball, the nice restaurants, the school concerts, the chaperoning field trips, the going to bed at 9 pm. Everything rolled into one. What's going on here? How did this happen to me? How did I become Daytime Mommy to thirty other people's children when I don't even desire my own? I thought I would be teaching high school. But this year has shown me that I can do this- I can do something I've never done before, that I never thought I would do, and honestly, that I've never wanted to do and never want to do again. After the first week, I wasn't sure how I would make it through the year. I still have that thought every once in a while, like when a child hasn't eaten any lunch for the fifteenth day in a row and I have to tell him that he needs to eat his sandwich so he can become Spiderman. And then tell him to take crocodile bites and actually hold the sandwich to his mouth. (See? Who was she?)

But like it or not, that is my life for the next TWENTY NINE DAYS and then I'm out of KG1B for a much needed two month vacation. Next year I'll be returning but tentatively to first and second grade which is something I'm really looking forward to. After having worked with actual babies, substituting for first and second graders is a dream. You can open your own books? You can write your own names? You can pull up your own pants? (Most of the time anyway.) Sign me up!

Now I will say that I enjoy the job most days and mostly I'm grateful that I have a job in a time when many people I graduated with were not so fortunate to find one. I can pay off my loans, pay my bills, and travel freely. So even though I'm not exactly where I want to be right now, I'm trying to remember that I'm 23 and when you're 23 and the economy sucks (or even when it doesn't) you probably won't be able to do exactly what you want right away. And since I don't know what it is that I actually want anyway, this is ok. Besides, this going to Turkey, Dubai, and India on my term holidays isn't so bad.

PS- On Saturday I was helping Blaine out with the concerts for Grade 3 and 4- just keeping children relatively orderly while waiting for their turn on stage. At the end, many parents came up to thank those of us who were there helping out:
Mom: "Ah thank you so much for helping! It is lovely today! You work here?"
Me: "Thank you, yes, I do. I'm a teacher here as well. I work in the Infants' School."
Mom: "Ahhhhh [speaks in Arabic to her friends] yes we thought you were a student!"

Hint: At the point when I said "Yes, I teach here," you should have stopped that line of conversation and not told me I look like a high schooler. Even though in honesty, 2/3 of the twelfth graders are twice my size in every direction. I'm still kind of mortified that five years after I graduated from high school and a year after I graduated from college, that someone still thought I was a high schooler. That embarrassed me when I was in high school. Ah well. At least she had on great flats.

By the numbers...

Number of working days until the school year is over: 28.

Number of concerts I have to organize: 1.
Number of songs I have to perfect with four year olds: 3.
Number of four year olds I have to make monkey costumes for: 28.
Number of four year olds I have to prevent from falling off a stage: 28.
Number of four year olds who will probably sing in the concert: 7.
Number of parents/nannies/siblings I have to impress: upwards of 75.

Number of working days until the concert: Not enough.

Words of admonition from Ms. Batreesa during rehearsal today: "EXCUSE ME but if I EVER see you untying another person's shoe laces during practice, you will NOT be in the concert! I never want to see that again!"

Sometimes when I say things like that, I think about the fact that I still owe BC a relatively large fortune.
And then I think about the fact that I have no desire to have children. For a very. long. time.