The first week of classes is almost at an end. I had quite forgotten how much teaching takes out of me. Tuesday night, I actually went to bed at 9pm. That is shockingly early for me. Again this semester, I have a day off! Which this means I can stay up late the night before and sleep in the next day. Whoo!
My schedule this semester is pretty nice. I teach Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays. I teach an 8am class, a 1pm class and a 3pm class on Mondays and Tuesdays and then the same for Friday, but no 3pm class. Wednesdays are meetings and office hours and Thursdays, my glorious Thursdays are my clean house, grocery shopping and writing days.
Enough about my schedule, for I have some pretty funny tales to tell about my first week of school.
I love my students so much. It was pretty funny, looking back on my first day of teaching in August and comparing it to my first day of teaching this week. In August I was a bundle of nerves, worrying about what if I forgot something, what if I ran out of things to say, yadda yadda yadda. This semester, I was blessed with confidence because I knew these kids, they were mine and they knew me already. I was also blessed that I get to start my week off with my favorite class! I know, I know, I am not supposed to have favorites, but, I do. I actually have 2 favorite classes. They are the same major, just two different sections because there are so many of them. It was in this class, the second section on Tuesday, that our story takes place.
So, because I have not seen my kiddos for over 2 months and vica verca, we played a game where we shared our stories from our holiday. But, since this is an oral class, I wanted them to do more of the talking. So what I did was, I wrote on the board the names of the cities I visited, split them into groups, and had them make up stories about what they thought I did during my holiday. They were allowed to ask me questions to get ideas, but for the most part, they had to make it up. The best story came from the third group and it went like this:
So one day, our teacher, Miss Hilary went to Xi'an and visited the Terracotta Warriors. When she was there, she met the dead Emperor and he came to life. She took him with her to Chengdu and they ate hotpot together. But, the Emperor was allergic to spicy food, so he died. And Hilary was very sad. So she took a panda from a zoo with her to Kunming because she was lonely. But, in Kunming it rained every day and the panda caught a fever, and died. And Hilary was very sad. So she borrowed an elephant and rode it across a river into Thailand where she met many pretty people and had fun. The End.
As you all know, I love to laugh, and this story had me in stitches. I always try to keep my composure in class and be professional; but with certain classes, I just cannot help it. I do think though, by me laughing with them, they become more comfortable around me. So, laughter has definitely brought me closer to my students and I cannot wait to continue speaking into their lives.
Another quick funny story has to do with Hilary being a klutz. I was walking to my office the other day, minding my own business, slowly picking my way across the ice, when one minute I was standing and the next I was on the ground. Yep, major wipe out on my right side of my body. My poor right elbow, this is the third time I have landed on it and I now have a nice little bump on it and a small bruise. Needless to say, yes I was laughing my head off because it honestly was funny. My main concern was not for my body, but for my huge Tervis Owl cup my parents had sent me for Christmas. I had been holding it in my right hand and it had hit the ground pretty hard. Once I saw that it was perfectly fine, I began to laugh and whimper a little about the pain I was in. I promise, I am fine, just a little sore today from the whiplash of falling so suddenly.
So while my internet is still behaving I am going to post this and run.
Keep on laughing!
Hil
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