Facebook Poll's Closing / What's Uppening

the should-i-should-i-not-get-Facebook poll is drawing to a close, with one day left to vote. as of this writing, Yes has a commanding 7-1 lead over No. nay-sayers should get on their horses and fight the good, but pointless fight. otherwise, y'all can just look forward to stalking me by the end of the week.

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and for those that are oddly interested in this sort of thing:

i started my internship this week at the elementary school i volunteered at last May, working with a grade 6 class, primarily to help them prepare for the upcoming EQAO testing.

today, i spent most of the day in the library coding an Excel spreadsheet to analyze the marks from a standardized reading test that was done earlier in the school year for the grade 7/8 class. it took a long time because a) i'm not a programmer; b) i've forgotten most of Excel; c) i'm way too ambitious about spreadsheets sometimes.

the analysis called for counting the number of students in each level per question by gender. i thought a handy COUNTIF function would suffice as i use it all the time for counting things in columns that fit a certain criteria. unfortunately, the AND function does not work in conjunction with COUNTIFs. after devising a crude workaround (sorting by gender and COUNTIFfing for those specific ranges) i happened upon a new function: SUMPRODUCT.

this function operates with arrays, which allows me to basically do a count with multiple criteria. here's the tutorial i found just after i printed out the poorly coded version. so i spent about half an hour editing everything with SUMPRODUCT formulas instead of COUNTIFs.

ex. =SUMPRODUCT((B2:B50="M")*(C2:C50=3))

to count the number of male students who scored a Level 3 on the first part of the first question.

my other accomplishments today: the teacher i am working with discovered that her sunglasses had fallen apart while sitting in the staff room during recess. one of the 'legs' fell off. after about 2 minutes of staring at the ground looking for the screw, we gave up and conceded defeat. i looked on the table and found the screw. while she went back to class to corral the students, i set about screwing the 'leg' back on with limited tools. i checked the knife drawer for something to turn the flathead screw with -- too unwieldly. i checked my wallet for a thin card -- nothing thin and strong enough. on a whim, i went to the photocopy room and rooted around the little container of miscellaneous items (staples, clips, scrap paper) and found a box-cutting razor -- success. i am king of random problem solving.

last year, i defeated the industrial stapler which had been jammed for months and neglected. prior to grade 8 graduation, i was called upon to add a student's grad photo to the framed copy in which he had been mistakenly exempted from. this required me to emulate the name font, scan a copy of the photo, crop and adjust it to the right size, learn how to disassemble a fairly complex frame and glue it down with elementary school supplies. it's still on the wall today.

tomorrow, i will try to solve the busted three-hole puncher.

i still haven't visited my babies yet, but i've seen half a dozen of them at various times in the halls. they still recognize me =D

psych out!

i visited some schools yesterday: one i only left 6 months ago, and the other one i had not visited in 2 or 3 years. i made it to my high school in time for lunch period, so everyone was out in the halls and all the teachers were in their offices. there were a sea of faces and i recognized none of them; reasonable, since i graduated in '03 and all of the present students were born in the 90s.

i had a lovely chat with my english teachers, Mrs. B and Brown Mrs. B (Ms. M). the ones who read your writing are the ones you tend to get to know (so that they can look more favourably upon your writing =P). my high school english teachers are the reason i chose to take english as a teachable.

after a stop by my old faithful locker, i headed back out for St. Florence. i wanted to make it in a certain timeframe (to minimize class disruptions) so i decided to skip lunch with family, and subsequently skip lunch entirely (because i'm poor).

when i arrived, (nearly) everyone was in the staff room having a pizza party; they roped me into not skipping lunch afterall. oh, how i had missed the people and the staff room banter.

after lunch, i went into the primary hall to bring the students back in from lunch recess, so that i could see my darlings, now in grade 2. i had forgotten how small they were, but they did not forget me.

"Mr. Chan! I missed you!" "Are you a kid?" "Are you a daddy?" "Do you have a girlfriend?" "Are you in love with _______?" "Didn't you marry _______?" "Are you an adult?"

students i never really talked to before also came up to say, "Hi!" and "I know you!" and "Are you going to work here?"

outside one of the grade 2 classrooms, i stood to greet them. a student i did not know came up to chat.

"I'm new here. Who are you?"
"Mr. Chan. You must be Nicholas."

His eyes bugged out with amazement and he sputtered, "How did you know?!"
I pointed to the coat hooks that lined the hall. "Your name tag is right there."

my kids

since we left for Longlac almost immediately after school let out, i haven't really had a chance to process my experience at St. Florence. as i was going over some of the photos that i took, i realized that i missed my kids dearly. i still remember their names and faces and quirks and writing styles and hobbies and the shoes they wore and their hilarious questions and their ever present smiles.

me and the ladies


that's my normal photo face; theirs are better.


me with most of the girls and one boy. see if you can find him.


the pure joy of bubbles


LCG telling me a secret

When I Grow Up...

today was Senior Kindergarten Graduation, a useless, but adorable event.

i was drafted to handle the audio (from two stereos) by kindergarten teacher (last year she got her husband to take time off work to handle it).

upon receiving their 'diplomas', each student would say, "when I grow up, I want to be...". a handful picked normal, worthy careers: teacher, doctor, dentist, lawyer, etc. others were equally worthy, but slightly less normal:

boy: When I grow up, I want to be a worker.

boy: When I grow up, I want to be a basketball player and a soccer player.
next boy: When I grow up, I want to be a basketball.

girl: When I grow up, I want to be a grizzly bear.

boy: When I grow up, I want to be a man.

"self-esteem is for everybody..."

kindergarten teacher: herman, i would never date you because you're so skinny.

other volunteer: yeah, me neither.

should i have:

a) considered it a compliment - two very personable, confident and attractive women finding me threatening to their self image? maybe i could become professionally good-looking.

b) cried myself to sleep - no one wants me =(

c) taken offense - hey, i try fairly hard to eat to bulk up a bit, and also to exercise on a regular basis (play tag with the kids, climb ladders to put up decorations) to make sure it bulks up in useful places. i'm pretty sure i'd be sitting pretty with a 1-pack if it weren't for this awesome long-lasting cough that is molding my abdominals into a washboard.

d) found it a sad and frightening indictment of the overwhelming pressure to be attractive our society burdens women with - two very personable, confident and attractive women finding me threatening to their self-image? they're not rail-thin supermodels, but they are not superhuge triple-cheese-and-mayonnaise-pizza-with-fries-for-breakfast type people either. this pressure doesn't just come from men. most of it comes from the media big-wigs who try to determine what is 'beautiful' and what sells. the worst kind, in my opinion, comes from the mothers who tell their daughters to stop being so fat and ugly or tomboyish or outspoken or any number of 'unladylike' things.

Day 22 at St. Florence: The End

and so ends my official tenure as student teacher at St. Florence. it was awesome.

little kids in grade 1 are arguably the best age for kids to be. they know how to pee and poo and wipe on their own, they say really cute things, they still look really cute and they hug you and hold your hand just to say hello. by now they know how to read and write the most common words, so they laugh at your jokes for the right reasons. their personalities are starting to flesh out but they're not at the stage of grudges and cut-eyes and backstabbery that plagues grade 5 and up. even when they're hurt and crying they can be cheered up with a hug and a funny noise or face. the best part about teaching grade 1 students is seeing how they've improved from the beginning of the year. the fruits of the teacher's labour are clearly evident in spelling tests and carpet-time questions.

we had a brief 8-word spelling test today, on less tricky words than last time because these could be sounded out (rich, chest, shed, club, land, ring, etc). i was given the task of marking while the teacher carried on with the next lesson. i thought checking eight words per student was a little bit too easy, so i set up a chart with eight boxes per student to track which words they had the most trouble with. then i totalled the scores and calculated an average. there are no calculators in a grade 1 classroom, so i had to do it manually for 20 students. to make it easier for myself, i plotted the marks in a histogram first (1 zero, 2 threes, 2 fives, 4 sixes, 4 sevens and 7 perfects). then i dotted all the boxes that indicated errors with a red marker so they'd stand out. most kids had trouble getting 'club' correct on account of mucking up their 'b' and 'd'. it was so nerdy; i wish i had taken a photograph of it.

can you tell i was playing with Excel the other day, tallying my university marks? i finished with a cumulative grade point average of pi (rounded to two decimal places) by the way. i was quite pleased since i had been on 2.9ish for the longest time. and then i found out i missed out on a Distinction by 0.06 and i felt like a loser; it was great.

anyway, there was a lot of hugging and hand holding and begging today from kids asking me not to leave; i already told them i would be in tomorrow. and now i will likely be in every monday, wednesday and friday for June as well (because i have no life and i like the attention they give me and because the teachers suckered me into it). now that i'm technically off the clock, i can be a bit more bold in building relationships with the kids and staff and subtly ministering to them. i should bring a camera some time.

Day 21 at St. Florence: "What are you still doing here?"

at long last: lunchtime talk turned to pregnancies.

we went through 8 cm dilations, not-false pregnancies, icky-placental guck, 34-36 wk births (4 pounders that fit in the palm of your hand), hospital policy, sleepless husbands (troopers!) and this story:

"when my mom's water broke for her fourth child, my dad said he was hungry and asked her to make a sandwich. she made it and he ate it. when they got to the hospital, the nurses asked, 'what took so long?'"

until kindergarten teacher asked, "Herman, what are you still doing here?"

it was late into the lunch hour and the only people left in the staff room were mothers, soon to be mothers and one male volunteer doing his elementary school teaching placement.

i shrugged. "gotta be prepared for this some time, right?"

kindergarten teacher: aren't you grossed out?

me: [shrugs again]

kindergarten teacher: that's your reaction to everything! i love Herman; [to the principal] can we keep him?

principal: yes, we should! can you come to our play date on June 25th? we're having games and hot dogs!

grade 5 teacher: and you can help set up...

principal: oh, and you can come to the bowling trip. [to grade 5 teacher] there, now you have one adult volunteer. you'll just need two more.

me: i'll come whenever i'm needed.

grade 5 teacher: oh, just come from June 2nd to the 27th...

by the end of the day, i had been suckered into spending at least half of June volunteering at St. Florence, which is great since i have steadfastedly refused to look for a summer job, even though this is the big year that i really need to.

Day 20 at St. Florence: Powerless

for the first half of the day we operated without power. this was scheduled electrical maintenance; some switches needed to be replaced and for some reason this couldn't be done on the weekend. the replacement procedure required a complete shutdown of the power in the area, and it took a few hours to reboot. this makes for a crazy day for kids because they need routine, or else their wires get all crossed up. most of the older students were off to Track and Field today, making for a further break from routine.

the one advantage of power outages is that everyone naturally becomes quieter with the lights off (on top of cutting out the white noise of air intakes, etc). and it was a gorgeous day. not overbearingly hot, with a gentle breeze and almost no humidity.

the rest of the afternoon after recess was spent enjoying the lovely weather at the playground with three other classes. while the teachers were busy chatting, i tried to supervise about 60 kids. fortunately two of the classes were grade 5 and 3 respectively; they didn't need too much monitoring, and they took care of their younger siblings.

LCG pulled me aside and told me she needed to talk to me in private. this struck me as a little bit weird for a 6 y.o. girl to ask of me, but it turns out she only wanted to ask me some personal questions.

LCG: how old are you?
me: i told you two weeks ago.
LCG: fifty-two?
me: yep.
LCG: are you hairy?
me: [points to head] yep.
LCG: and on your legs?
me: very.
...
LCG: do you have hair on your nipples?
me: no... [LCG], what do you talk about at home? these are some weird questions.
LCG: whaaaat? do you have hair on your bum?
me: yes. it's like a carpet.
some random grade 3 girl listening in: EEEEEWWWWWW
...
LCG: do you have a girlfriend?
me: no. why do you keep asking me that? do you want me to have one?
LCG: if you don't get a girlfriend, you can stay a kid forever!

Day 19 at St. Florence: Moving On

and so begins my last week at St. Florence. the cute little boy did an awesome dance this morning for o canada as he sang along (he was mostly behind). but he dances and sings every morning, so that's not really anything special. this is on top of the singing and dancing he does for Peanut Butter Jelly Time.

i had my first gym class with them today and i was assigned to lead them in some locomotion exercises for grading (report card season is nigh). so i lined them up and had them walk around like horses, prowl like cats, leap like frogs and waddle like pigs/bears/crocodiles. i have to do it again on thursday because it was so good today (like wha?). now i need to come up with a few more animals with distinctive attributes (elephant?).

lunch time conversation was interesting too. kindergarten teacher and i were reading the paper about the dreadful daycares around the GTA. it depressed her so we pulled out the Life and Entertainment section (formerly Arts & Entertainment and Life) to cheer her up with more brainless reads. apparently, couples in China set up appointments for sex. i had to remind myself a few times that kindergarten teacher was not Hannah.

Day 18 at St. Florence: Outdoor Mass

today was the long-awaiteddreaded outdoor Mass and it was as advertised: one big chore. it was hot, crowded and boring. too many people were involved doing little bits of nothing. the sermon... i don't even remember what he talked about because i was trying to concentrate on not rolling off my stool. the audio technician was clearly a last-minute call-up who had never seen a mixer board in his life based on the sound balance throughout the singing and the faith-shaking feedback (all 26 instances). too many people had things to say, and what they said was unremarkable, especially to 500 kids sitting in the middle of a shadeless field on the second hottest day ever. just before the massive recessional singing of "trading my sorrows" (a song that i now loathe), the TCDSB head whatever guy of this school region, Oliver Carroll, spoke about family values and stuff in the wake of yesterday's school shooting, which you can catch some of on City Pulse 24 today and possibly tomorrow morning. at a certain angle, i thought he looked like Richard Gere.

i was laughed down. apparently someone else said the exact same thing last year with the same result. someone mentioned that the cameraman from CP24 looked like Matt LeBlanc (Joey from Friends). there was a bit more debate about that one. in any case, we all got to talking about Richard Gere over lunch, and a story came up about the time one of the teachers had to explain Richard Gere and gerbils to my teacher. apparently there is an urban legend going around that Richard Gere has dabbled in the questionable practice of gerbilling. i love lunch room conversations and i am so glad this school does not have those stereotypical Catholic school teachers.

Day 17 at St. Florence: Two Fire Drills in One Day

kid: [hugs] you're the best mr. chan!
me: oh, thanks! don't get too close, i'm a bit sick.
kid: [holding] that's okay, i'm sick too!
me: okay, now i'm a lot sick.

---

lcg: are you famous?
me: yes, i am. would you like my autograph?
lcg: no... do you like girls?
me: yes, i like girls.
lcg: do girls like you?
me: do you like me?
lcg: yes.
me: then yes. girls like me.

---

lcg: mr. chan! i found you in the newspaper! [points to asian boy in the background]

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peace prayer, written by a grade 1 student:
"my prayer of peace is for M______ to stop fighting and making fun of people and getting into trouble."

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girl from next door classroom: do you love A_____ (other volunteer)? K______ (her sister, in my class) told me that you do.

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my teacher: those kids in New Guinea need these rosaries like they need a hole in the head!

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@ the 10:30 staff meeting
principal: okay, we have to choose between two dates for our staff retreat next year: Sept. 28 or Jan. 25.
custodian: i vote for Jan. 25 so we can go to Rama (the casino).
my teacher: [with raised hands] how holy!

Day 16 at St. Florence: Gimme that old time religion

so it's been about 3 weeks in a Catholic school, and i hadn't seen much Catholicism. sure, every classroom in the building has a crucifix with an elegantly modern-shaped benevolent Jesus and every morning begins with a prayer over the PA, but it was all... less than expected.

today, we got down to the nitty-gritty: making rosaries for starving orphan kids in Africa or New Guinea. the church of this district (diocese, i am guessing is the term) thought it would be a lovely idea to have the kids in all the Catholic schools in the area fork over a dollar and make rosaries for the poor heathens and pagans on the other side of the world. the sentiment around St. Florence is that a) the rosaries are effin' complicated for primary and junior high students alike; b) the dollar could've been put to better use for things like books, socks, beds, housing, FOOD etc.

so there was a bit of wondering why the church is headed by such pompous and chest-beating pricks -- pardon my Medieval English -- who start off their meetings with, "well, Sacred Heart (another school) has finished all their rosaries..." and wondering about the religion in general. sermons at mass are apparently either dreadfully boring or infuriating because the priest comes off so stuck-up and self-righteous. the teachers who are parents brought their kids to Mass regularly, but now they only go at Easter and Christmas. kind of reminds me of how much the church i attend has been blessed greatly with Godly leadership and servants (with only a few jerks sprinkled in for flavour).

i haven't had the time to sit down and formulate thoughts and theories about all this, but it all bears striking resemblances to things we've seen over and over and over again; there is nothing new under the sun. Roman Catholicism, in general, is one big punch-line in my mind, though there are definitely pockets of genuine Christ-likeness. the same can probably be said for Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism and Atheism as well.

all religious mumbo-jumbo aside, i love this place and the students and staff in it. they've all got their quirks and wrinkles, friendships and... animosities, just like any other group of people stuck together in one place for an extended period of time. this is community.

Day 15 at St. Florence: Siiiiiiiick

i managed to go to school today, though i probably should've just called in sick. i wasn't able to speak until about 11:30 am, so i relegated myself to working in the corner, stapling and labeling folders for next year's grade ones or photocopying stuff.

my teacher forgot her purse at home this morning, so her husband, my program coordinator at UTSC, had to drive it up.

student 1 - "Mrs. D---, was that your husband?"
mrs. d--- - "Yes it was."
student 1 - "I thought that was your grandfather!"
student 2 - "I thought he was your dad!"
mrs. d--- - "i will let him know, it will give him a good laugh."

for your reference: he looks like Colonel Sanders, but with a full beard.


[EDIT: 9:17 pm]
on a shallower note:
my abs have never been sexier than they are now, and they were plenty sexy to begin with according to the Ladies ("Fred, Harmony... the girls in Transcription"). no need for special diets or exercise; firmer abs are a natural by-product of trying to invert your bronchial tubes.

Day 14 at St. Florence: Can I Borrow a Feeling?

a lot has happened since the school day ended, so i cannot rightly remember much about the day itself.

it was just one of those normal days, slogging through the schedule, doing menial tasks, eating lunch and listening to them talk about the season finales for Grey's Anatomy and ER. no one brought up the finale of The Office (which was SOO many flavours of emotional that i need to watch it again to parse through it all) so i didn't get to gush and natter like i wanted to. last hour of the day was spent supervising a boatload of children on the playground. we had like 3 classes out there, with classes from the neighbouring school rotating on and off. i didn't even know which kids belonged to which school. extended playground time, unfortunately, causes latent emotions to boil over, and we had lots of crying and yelling because of hurt feelings. i think i might be too sarcastic to take a child's emotional pain seriously. i remember what it was like back then; you feel everything three-fold, be it pain or happiness. i think it's a proportion thing; the smaller body of a child does not dilute and diffuse the physiological responses brought on by emotions quite as much as an adult-sized person would.

i think i just coasted through today. i didn't really have the mental or emotional energy to really put myself out there. i am now sick so i think i'm being told to refuel and slow down.

shinny hockey helped to clear my mind a bit, and allowed me to try out the new senior stick i bought. less back pain now that i have something longer; less rattly hands now that i have something stronger. it is with a bit of sadness that i retire my trusty Jofa. i take this to be a metaphor for myself. there are still certain mental/emotional tools or reactions that i've relied on since i was young, but they are no longer adequate. i need to spend at least as much time and care on upgrading those aspects of myself as i did on choosing this new stick.

it just occurred to me that i've been serving (churchwise) since Fall 2000. i think it is nigh time for a Sabbatical. i've done a lot of growing in those years, but not really in the departments where it counts (spiritual walk, devotions, God-centric worship). i also conveniently have some soul-searching i'd like to get started on.

Day 13 at St. Florence: Satisfaction

the students here are subjected to biannual testing in their aptitude for spelling. 32 common words are dictated, with a demonstrative sentence, and they are to spell it. i think the same list will be used for grade 2 as well. they take the test at the beginning of the year and again around Feb/March to track improvement. this year, the second round of the spelling test fell on today (well after Feb/March, we realize, but we do not care). the words were fairly simple, but phonetically tricky (good, soon, pretty, would, train etc.), so the test measured experience with words more than anything.

at the beginning of the year, a majority of the scores were 0 - 9, with three outliers hitting 16, 21 and 22 out of 32 respectively. the little cute boy (who licks himself) got 0 in October, and scored a 21 this time around. he talked throughout the test and supplied sentences at times ("would... would you like to kiss me?"). improvements like that were across the board. the kid who scored 16 the first time scored 31 today, only mispelling the final word pretty as 'pritty'. nerd girl (of pee-pee foot fame, was away again, so she did not play -- i assume she would know how to spell pretty). the girl who scored 22 actually transferred to another school the day before i first arrived. juding by the scores i've seen and the tones of veneration i hear when teachers and students speak of her, she must've really been something special.

putting those two scores side-by-side and seeing the huge leaps of improvement really make all the yelling and haranguing worthwhile.

Day 12 at St. Florence: Put on the Spot

this day was all about flying by the seat of my pants -- slow flying mind you, as i was verging on zombie again by 1:30.

the day started out, interestingly enough, where it left off the day before. nerd girl was absent (for the first time EVAR, so i'm told). we surmised it must have been an issue with getting peed on, a therapy session perhaps. her little brother in kindergarten was absent as well, but i found out about that a little later.

i was sent down to the office to ascertain the reason for nerd girl's absence. in the process of returning i was stopped by the kindergarten teacher, who reminds me a lot of someone who now lives in China, to take attendance for her class because a kid got hurt in the morning. the kids were neatly arrayed in a circle with their name cards on the ground or in their hands, sitting quietly, completely unsupervised until i got there. my, they were well-trained. taking their attendance was pretty fun; i only mangled three names. here is where i found out nerd girl's brother was also absent. they were both sick, according to later reports.
this wasn't the first time i'd been stopped to watch her class; yesterday, a kid got whapped in the head with a clock (not a real one) -- literally "clocked in the head" (kindergarten teacher and friend in the motherland pun alike), so i had to watch her kids as she fetched ice.

i got back to the grade 1s to find them in the middle of a probability lesson, concerning dice: which would occur more often when rolling two dice, doubles or non-doubles? well over their heads, i'm sure. my teacher introduced them to the dice and to the concept of doubles, then promptly handed off to me to explain which one showed up the most often. fortunately, my math did not completely fail me, though my chalkboard management skills did, as my list of possibilities (1|1,2,3,4,5,6...) verged on gross. i'm pretty sure no one got it, but we still had a high old time counting to 36. i have to learn to speak to the kids, not to the chalkboard. they start crawling all over each other once you turn your back. one tiny little boy, who is very, very cute in looks and mannerism and even voice, does the weirdest thing when he thinks no one is watching. when he raises his arm to answer a question, sometimes he'll lick his arm (like a cat). later i saw him licking his knee. these weren't little nips and dabs, they were long, langourous licks (like a cat). it cracked me and the other volunteer up.

yes, the other volunteer was in today. when little kids see a guy and a girl in the same setting more than once, they automatically assume romance is, or should be, in the air. i was prepared for this, due to years of Day Care. so Little Cute Girl asked me if i liked her, and if i would ask her out, etc. she seems way more concerned about my personal life than i am.

me - "do YOU like her?"
LCG - "yeah, but not like that!"
me - "i like her the same way."
LCG - "ooh."

and when one asks, everyone within earshot will ask too. ignore them and they won't pursue it further, because their attention spans are not that long.

Day 11 at St. Florence: Simple Pleasures

this post comes from my mom's computer, via Opera Portable. if you have a usb drive, i highly recommend finding a portable version of a web browser just in case your computer blows a tire (like mine seems to have) and requires a reformat. this one has all the features of a full Opera install, but doesn't leave any trace on the computer you use, has options for multiple profiles and is packed with all the speed inherent to the Opera browsing experience. i don't like browsing on the configurations of other people's browsers (it is usually the standard set up or overtweaked); it's like using their toilets.

anyways, about today. today was much better than yesterday, due to slighty more sleep and slightly less allergies and a few adventures to speak of.

i stuck around in teh staff room at lunchtime today because i was feeling better; as a result i am now privy to some really neurotic moments in the lives of the teachers i work with. it's like watching friends, and every character is a meld of Rachel and Monica. someone woke up last week to a mouse falling from her ceiling onto her shoulder, so she is mildly traumatized, traumatizing other mouse-haters by extension. mouse stories evolved to rat, raccoon, rabbit, cat, fox, coyote stories. i like animals.

i worked witht he special ed kids this afternoon so i missed out on some excellent excitement while the grade 1s went out to play while my teacher did more shotput tryouts. Fancy Dancer tried out and swept away the competition with a trial distance of over 12 m with a 4 kg shot. my teacher thinks he's on steroids; i think he's a robot. the other fun time i missed was pyro-boy deciding on a whim that he needed to pee, so he let it fly off the top of the slide and it hit the nerdiest, most legalistic girl in the class on the foot. she tattled. the girl who is absolutely in love with pyro-boy told off nerd girl for getting her beau into trouble, so nerd girl got really upset and threw a fit. my teacher whapped me with her clipboard later for laughing at her and abandoning her at such a crucial juncture.

while all this was going down, i made a paper airplane and helped some kids with their homework on interplanetary objects while finishing the day's crossword.

throughout the day i tried to make note of the simple things that i appreciate and enjoy (much like Amelie). i've taken a shine to watering the little plants we jiffy potted on Friday; watching the soil soak up water is rather sublime. one has already sprouted and i stared at it for a good 2 minutes just amazed at life. i potted some extra jiffy pots with soil but they have no seeds and receive no water. they are my control group. they are also there just in case God wants to pull off a flashier miracle.

Day 10 at St. Florence: Taking a Dip in Post Quality

this morning was the pits. i woke up rather sore. allergies were acting up in class. the window was open and the weather was cold. i could have fallen asleep on my feet due to last night's late dinner and Boggle-fest. walking down the hall i actually thought to myself, "someone is having a case of the mondays," before i mentally slapped myself for quoting someone annoying from Office Space.

i zombied through the first half of the day before taking a cat nap in the corner of the room after eating lunch to get me past 3:30. the last half hour of the day was spent doing shotput tryouts, which was decent fun. hefting the 4kg shot around the school woke me up a bit.

Day 9 at St. Florence: Road Trip

hitch up the wagon, ma! we goin' ta Wal-Mart!

first thing we did Friday morning after the Daily Physical Activity (DPA) of dancing to Peanut Butter Jelly Time, was saddle up the caravan and walk on over to Wal-Mart. i got to tow the Play-Skool wagon to carry the plants we were going to pick up.

elementary school classes rarely go out on group walks like this, and it shows. the discipline of the students is easily surpassed by the kids at day care because day care kids walk together all the time. the walk to Wal-Mart was short, but it was not that fun. inside Wal-Mart was actually better than i thought it would be. kids love to touch things, but nothing got knocked over or grievously soiled.

i spent the rest of the day helping the kids plant flower seeds and beans into jiffy pots. some extra seeds were planted outside into the ugly ground. i have no gardening skills so it was a fun and messy time.

apart from that, marvelously quiet and boring day.

Day 8 at St. Florence: The Friend Zone

awww man -- back in the Friend Zone again.

there is another student volunteering with the teacher i'm working with; she's really friendly, nice, and actually attended the school from kindergarten and graduated in '99.

the teacher made the boo-boo of introducing her to the kids by her first name, thus making her equal with the kids: a friend, if you will. she corrected that mistake by introducing me by my formal address, Mr. Chan, elevating me as an authority figure in the eyes of the children. This, of course, also leads to various pronunciations by the non-Chinese (everyone else): Mr. Chang, Mr. Chen, etc. the other student volunteer calls me Dr. Chan because she thought someone called me that on the first day.

anyways, if you're nice enough to the kids and not a very good disciplinarian, the kids will bring you back down to the Friend Zone and basically never listen to you unless you're saying something they want to hear. so now i'm having a lot of trouble getting them to listen to me when i tell them to sit at the their desks or walk a bit faster after playground time. it's like day care all over again, especially with the girls. i'm like a toy now.

littlest and cutest girl (LCG) in the class - "Mr. Chan? Do you have a girlfriend?"
me - "Nope."
LCG - "Why not?"
me - [shrug]
LCG - "Are you a teenager or an adult?"
me - "Adult."
LCG - "So you should have a girlfriend! ... It's easy. Just find a girl that you like, and then ask her out on a date! Oh, but what if the girl rejects you?"
me - [shrug] "Find someone else?"
LCG [to the other girls] - "I asked Mr. Chan, 'Do you have a girlfriend?' and he said, 'No.'" [giggles]