Earlier in the fall I was sitting in the office and some men came in with all these blankets. Turns out they were traveling blanket salesmen. I thought it seemed kind of random for them to show up at a school to peddle their wares, but no one else seemed to think so and they made a fair amount of business that day. I guess they had come last year too and business was just as good then.
A few days after that, I walked into the office after teaching a class and what should I find but a grey parrot in a box. Apparently it had escaped from its home and flew into a classroom so somehow someone had caught it and boxed it up and it was waiting for its owner to come retrieve it. I was disappointed I had missed all the commotion of trying to catch it, not that I actually heard that there was any commotion, but I imagine that trying to catch a parrot is no easy task!
For Halloween, there were a bunch of school-wide activities in the afternoon and we were assisted by parent and grandparent volunteers. At my beanbag toss station, I had the pleasure of working with these two precious grandpas. I loved how good natured they were about wearing these random blue wigs just to get in the spirit of things. Unfortunately, they only spoke Taiwanese, so our communication was rather limited, consisting mostly of smiles and some attempts at Chinese on both sides.
The first graders all think that I understand Chinese fluently. The fact that after they rattle off all kinds of stories to me and I just kind of smile and say "oh?" hasn't seemed to change their opinion yet. So the other day I was working with a group of them and one asked me out of the blue, "Teacher Charissa, ni shi mei guo ren, ha shi wai guo ren?" (are you an American or a foreigner?). Everyone looked at me expectantly and were shocked when I told them I was both. I didn't know how to explain it, so I just let them be amazed, as if it was something I had any control over.
Recently, before I was to begin reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears to the same first grade class, the students asked if I'd be reading it in English. Grace, my LET, jokingly asked if Taiwanese would be better and then someone shouted that they thought Japanese would be good! I have no idea why since no one in their class understands Japanese. Also, immediately upon seeing the picture of Goldilocks in the book, a few students wondered whether that was me. No kids, I'm not Goldilocks.
Then of course, there was the day Grace and I walked into our fourth grade class and after the usual whole class shouting in unison, "Good morning Miss Yang! Good Morning Teacher Charissa!" a kid said that his pants ripped. No one seemed too concerned as I replayed what he said in my head and decided that that was in fact what he had said, but then he proceeded to show us and the whole class that his pants had indeed split completely down the middle. Thank goodness for long underwear!
We do a whole lot of singing (our Hello Darbie textbooks have a lot of songs. A lot of songs) and of course I sing along with everyone, usually kind of loudly at the beginning so they can hear how the words are pronounced. I decided to take it as a compliment (and believe me, it could go either way) when the fourth graders wondered if I was the person singing on the "Hello Darbie" CD.
Most recently, yesterday in fact, there was an old dog just hanging around the school all day. He didn't really move all morning and the kids were being told not to pet him since no one knows where he came from. In the afternoon apparently some of the fifth graders put him in a box and moved him to the orchestra classroom where their plan was for the orchestra to take care of him. This morning when I got to school I found out that after the orchestra teacher said they couldn't keep the dog (no surprise there), the students moved the dog to the bathroom where he apparently spent the night and is still there this afternoon...I'm curious to see how this is going to turn out...
Well, those are some of the first little stories that came to mind to give you a glimpse into my typical day...if there is such a thing as a typical day.
