Blessed

I am weak, I am poor. I am broken, Lord, but I'm yours. 

Little things make my life happy. The field trip I wrote about in my last post, lo those many days ago, was fantastic. It was the best thing I have ever seen for kids anywhere. It literally was a small town where kids got to go in a work, earn money, spend their money. They could be pilots is an airplane, they could go work for the police, I watched some of them stocking shelves (absolutely hilarious if you were me looking at the two boys I had last year) at a grocery store and working the cash register, some performed liver surgery, some were in the nursery at a hospital, some did a fashion show, and some were in a play. I saw resumes and fire fighters and kids in ambulances. And I sat at Dunkin Donuts chatting with teachers and doing some marking. It was amazing.

Watching some sporty little car nearly run me off the road and then immediately get pulled over by someone in a massive arrest-me-red GMC truck (I honestly don't know why the car pulled over) was also amazing. Seeing the terrible and seriously inconsiderate drivers here get a little justice also makes me happy.

Last week I had the privilege of making microwave popcorn with Aryslan--the little boy I tutor. He'd never had fresh microwave popcorn before. When I asked him if he had even had popcorn before, he said, "Yes in the cinema in the Kazakhstan. The green one." Not exactly sure what flavor it would have been, but it was really fun to make popcorn with him.

As of tonight, Aryslan and his family are off to Kazakhstan for the next few weeks, which means almost three weeks of no tutoring for me. : ) I'm very excited about that. I enjoy it, but it's a big time commitment. And, now not only do I have my normal tutoring time open, but school is ending a hour early until break. Hurray for that. Although, I do have to say, tutoring has one of my most obvious blessings lately. For various reasons, there were a few weeks when I only tutored fours days instead of five. However, come Thursday, five days worth of pay was handed over, despite me pointing out I'd only come for four days. And then there was tonight. Not only is tonight only day three of five, but I was asked if I could stay for only an hour instead of an hour and a half (since they are flying out tonight). Of course that was no problem for me, until Elmira (Aryslan's mother) handed me my pay. Guess how much she paid me? Yes, five days worth of work. Despite my protests, the brand-new-never-been-folded American dollar bills were placed very purposefully into my purse, and that was the end of that.

Did I mention that traffic has been really good lately as well? That's been a big whack in the face for me. There was a week when it was awful, right after we got all of the rain. It was never really good before that, but my normal hour drive took over three the one night. Gross. Anyway, I of course vented all of this upon my ever-patient fiance, who said he would pray about that for me. And I thought, "That's sweet and all, but I don't think God is suddenly going to clear up rush-hour traffic just for me." And then who got home nearly 20 minutes early the next day. Oh. Uh, I guess that would be me... *sigh* Oh me of little faith. I've been able to take the short route home ever since, which cuts off at least 15 minutes. I like that extra 15 minutes. A lot.

Church has been good lately too. I've been attending the "Friday Foundations" class (no Sunday School here) called "Money, Possessions and Eternity" based on a book by author Randy Alcorn. It's been insightful. Not everything I was hoping for a more, but solid. Here are two big points that I've pulled away from it.

• "Lack of vision, not greed, is probably the main reason most of us accumulate and spend in this world instead of laying up treasure in heaven." Alan Gotthardt - Eternity Portfolio 
• Why not be as generous with others as you are luxurious with yourself?

 I'm sure there is more that I could say, but I think that will about do it for now. It's report card time, which means another week of crazy-business, but such is life. I have 29 students in my class now--they've temporarily broken up the class of the grade 2 teacher who left. I thought it was going to be a nightmare, but my kids have had a transformation this week. The past two weeks were terrible, but I put them in new seating arrangements, painted little x's on the floor where the desks need to stay (it is amazing how much and how quickly they can move those things all over the place), and have been drilling into their heads that there are 29 of them and only one of me. My one mouth cannot be louder than their 29 mouths all talking at the same time. I think they're taking it to heart. That makes my heart happy. Anyway, all of that is to say that I am blessed. Blessed, and thankful for it.

And in case you were wondering, no I'm (1.5 + 1 + 9 + 2) not counting down the weeks until I'll be home. I'm trying very hard to keep my head here while I'm here, and just take everything one day at a time.

That's it from me for now. Thanks for taking a few minutes to read. : )

Saturday, Sunday, Someday

Round two of parent-teacher conferences are finished--hurray! I really wish I would have had more to give to parents, but I just don't have grades ready yet. It seems that we are always running from one thing to the next, and so few things are structed for grades. Which is to say, that if everything has to be uniform between six classes, then everything should be uniform between six classes, including how we grade things. And very few things are graded. So, it's the end of the term scramble to get things together. Blech. Seven year old kids shouldn't be getting A, B, C grades and percentages out of 100. They should be marked according to skills.

Anyway, tomorrow we're going on a trip, which I hear translates into time off for us teachers. We're taking our students to Kidzania, which is like a little town for little people, and no teachers allowed! We just have to sit outside and watch other people look after our students. Darn.

Have I mentioned lately that I'm excited to go home? Three weeks until break (which I'll be spending in Italy!), nine more weeks of kids, and then only TWO weeks until I go HOME!!!!

Well, I'm on the phone, so I'm signing off here.

A Note from Work

I know, it's been a bit since I posted. What can I say? Life keeps me busy. Except this past weekend. I went to church on Friday morning, came home, and basically took the rest of the weekend off (keep in mind that my weekend is Friday-Saturday). It was great. I read, I rested, I relaxed, and I did some research. And lots of thinking. That was about it. It was really nice. Except I think it made me realize how busy I stay for the most part. I usually don't have time for that kind of stuff. I get up somewhere around 6:00 and don't stop until I get home somewhere between 7:30 and 8:00 at night. Then I need to make food, try and clean up a bit (both the apartment and myself), get things ready for school, then I talk to people at home, do a little reading, and get ready to call it a night. Somehow that longed-for bedtime of 10:00 ish just doesn't come often enough. Anyway, that's not the point of this story.

So, I took the weekend off. It was great. You'd think that I'd be all ready to start Sunday on a positive note. Quite the opposite happened instead. I was so sad and lonely that as I stood in the moring assembly, I felt like my heart was literally going to fall out of my chest. I go the time to actually stop and think about home and, well let's be honest--Neal, and it was such a contrast to the way things currently are for me. I just wanted to sit down and cry. I wanted to call it quits and go home.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy working with my kids and I really appreciate the extra money from tutoring. The little boy, Aryslan, that I tutor is a really great kid to work with, too. If I'm going to be here for the next five months, I'd rather be more busy than less. But lately Admin has been extremely frustrating at school. A teacher walked out last Sunday, so it's been lots of extra substitutions, a schedule that keeps changing, extra work and stress for all of us, plus major activities going on at school, and now we have to come in all day on Saturday for parent-teacher conferences. I don't have grades done yet! What am I going to tell parents? Any why does the school feel the need to have me here from 9:00 in the morning until 4:30 in the afternoon, plus I have to be here the next day for school, and we have a field trip. It's just exhausting. And my weary state is starting to come out on my kids, which is not fun or fair. I feel bad, but I just gave them busy work most of yesterday so I could keep my sanity and start doing some grades.

Ok, enough of me complaining. I'm feeling better today, and I am determined that I will be strong and courageous as I have been commanded.

Time to go teach.