Sunday, January 23

I often bring my phone into the classroom because I use it to play music when I’m doing song and dance lessons with the kids. On Saturday morning, I opened my camera app to find these photos (and video) on my phone.

This is Pi. He is one of the students in my new class and is in K1 (the youngest class). He also apparently knows how to operate an iPhone. 

Pi is a bundle of pure joyful chaos. He is the only student I've ever had to ask to put his clothes back on and he always, always has a smile on his face, whether he's throwing all my teaching cards to the ground, or putting his face an inch away from mine to say "hi hello good morning" or agreeably stepping back into his shorts as I pull them onto him. I love him.

I know I haven't written in a while—my new schedule is hard, and I'm struggling with now having two wild classes out of three, instead of one of two. I'm also struggling with managing the kids' behavior, and with just feeling worn out, often just a few hours into the day. Covid numbers are also higher here and I haven't been doing much on the weekends—mostly swimming in the pool, cooking fun weekend breakfasts, and taking long walks.

The students have continued to bring me New Years presents, including this utterly baffling gift from one of the students I am closest with:

He (and by he I mean his parents) bought this same gift for all his teachers. I was speechless when I opened it, and about died laughed a lot when I showed the other foreign teachers later. 

Finally...meals haven't been as good at school lately, but this one was an exception.

Although I think I can officially say I'm not a big fan of chicken feet.