I Promise to Play Nicely with the Other Children

What’s up!? Sorry I’ve been pretty busy this past week. Oddly enough, last week I had nothing to do and this week I’ve been keeping busy with a lot of things. To fill you in at school, next week is midterms but we already started this week on Tuesday. It’s very different here because there are tests 4^th block on Tuesday and Wednesday-which are different classes and different subjects as well, but then today we had our first day of testing which is actually only one test that goes for 1.5 hours. Kids came to the testing room at 7:30 and the test went from 7:45-9:15, but kids could continue taking the test until 9:45 but they were all kicked out then. As for the teachers, we had to stay until 1:45 unfortunately so we only got out an hour earlier than usual. Sunday and Monday will have two tests during school and then I think it goes back to one test a day until Wednesday, at least that’s my understanding. Anyways, I was really excited because these are all tests I don’t have to grade or anything because they aren’t mine and all I have to do is supervise these tests.

On Tuesday I had one of my worst classes when it comes to attitude and behavior and I had to give them the test and watch them by myself. I wasn’t really prepared for it or what I had to do and I still haven’t learned too much but I enjoyed it because students here have a bad reputation. I was told that on just about every test they find a way to cheat either by paying off the photocopy lady to get a copy of the test ahead of time, write on their arms/legs, take pictures on their phone, or just some of the good old cheating by looking at someone else’s test but a little more secretly. Well, my kids are pretty smart but I still ended up taking away 3 kids’ tests because they were cheating. So they should get a zero and that will go on their record. PLUS THEY’RE ALL SENIORS! I couldn’t believe they’d be that stupid or just think I wouldn’t notice or follow-through with what I said. I took all their tests within about 10 minutes of one another and almost took another few tests. Quite a few kids were talking during the test so I was pretty annoyed but I kept a close eye on them to make sure they didn’t change answers (they were ones that had already finished but still had the tests closed on their desks). The next morning I saw a couple of my students from that class and they were talking about how hard it was to cheat because I was staring at them the whole time-yup, one actually admitted to me that she was trying to cheat. However, they could not because every time they were about

to, I was watching them. So I felt pretty good about that later on. Word got out about that class so I had multiple students tell me they didn’t want me testing them for all the rest of midterms (today through Wednesday) because they know they would be easily caught and get in big trouble. Now I have my own reputation J I found out this morning that I am testing a group of 12^th graders and it seems that about ¾ of them are cheaters and the others are really good kids that I don’t need to worry about. So I have my work cut out for me but today there was no suspicious activity today. I’ll let you know about the rest of midterms...

Last week, there wasn’t too much that happened but the biggest highlight is that I went to jiu jitsu with my friend Jess last Wednesday for the first time. It was a really hard challenge but it was a lot of fun. The next class was Saturday, so that was also when I joined the class officially. I pay on a month by month basis but it’s 3 times a week for an hour each time. The only other thing I had to pay for was the gi, which is the uniform they wear during jiu jitsu. It costs about $200 normally (here anyways) but I got mine for about $125 since I bought it from another teacher that used to be in jiu jitsu. I’ve only been to 3 classes now but I love it and it’s a lot of fun. It’s a lot of self-defense moves or moves that you could use to escape in a fight but it’s a big workout. Jess and I are always partners since we’re about the same height and weight (as well as the only girls or Americans). I didn’t realize how much I missed being competitive and working out consistently until last Wednesday. As gross as it sounds, I love getting done with a class and being covered in sweat because I just feel really good about it.

Last Thursday after school I went to the gastropub before going out to hang out in two other teachers’ apartment a few blocks from our apartment building. A lot of us just went to hang out and a few people went out to clubs afterwards. However, I felt old and tired so I went home and was still in bed before 10. It was cool to see and hang out with almost everybody for the first time in almost a month because of winter break. The next night I ended up going to the movie Extraction at City Centre with Mike. It got really bad ratings but I didn’t think it was as bad as they said. It was definitely interesting and I could see why it was a worse than others but not too bad. Story line idea was pretty good I thought.

Other than that, tonight is a dinner that the owners of the school have invited us all to. It’s at their house and pretty much all teachers and staff from MKS have been invited. I don’t know what it’ll be like really as I have no ideas but I do need to go get ready for that now. So I shall talk to you all next week and let you know how it goes!