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Published: October 6th 2007
What a crazy week! Finished teaching, preparing and giving exams, maintaining the peace between classmates, broke up two first grade girls who had each other in a two-handed neck choke hold, grading tests with the powerful red pen, celebrating a new friends' birthday, even saying good bye to the kiddos, and saying good bye to some of the other volunteers, getting Rob back to good health, and keeping my good health, whew! It was our last time seeing the students in first grade, second grade, and third grade, which was full of mixed emotions, depending on the day and their behavior. We will be seeing the upper grades next Monday and Tuesday for English summer camp, one day at school and one day at the beach, which should be fun! The chaotic first grade class actually sat and finished their tests (we have evidence through pictures, oh yeah!!) and cooperated well during "busy work" which our little ADHD kids did very well and zipped right through all of the worksheets, such connect the dots, color by number, etc. Wouldn't you know that the most hyper boy in the first grade and most troublesome with behavior and following teacher instruction, was one
of the smartest kids in his class and received a 93 on his final exam!! Phenomenal!! Always full of surprises and we greatly praised him up and down for his good work, in which we received the biggest smile of all! Very cool! We are sooo proud! And, wouldn't you know that one of the troublemaker girls in the first grade class, gave me a friendship bracelet that she made on the last day of class along with a hug and a kiss on the cheek! WOW!! These kids are amazing and are so sweet in many hidden ways! Aside from our hectic school week, I gave Rob my little head cold/sore throat bug that I had last weekend. So, needless to say, he had a challenging week between his head being in the cloud, kids poking and screaming "teacher, teacher!"" or "Hello, hello! HELLO!!!" Poor guy, but he made it!! He is a true team player! After school we enjoyed our weekly massage, dinners with new friends and roommates, walks on the beach, kid time with games on the computer and Rob playing his music to them, which they loved. We had some surprise rainy rides on the motor
Sushi, birthday dinner with new friends
We celebrated our friend, Mandy's birthday, at a delicious sushi restaurant, with our new friends, new volunteers, and present volunteers! International dinners are always fun!bike, lost the key today, oops! I think it is in a puddle somewhere, but thank goodness we were able to make a copy without any problems. We had a very sweet surprise on Friday, in which we knew they were honoring our fellow volunteer friend from Germany because it was his last day here, but we had no idea they were honoring us too! It was such an incredible, special moment, in which my heart was so full of love and appreciation, as each kid came forward, gave us a "flower" (a cute handmade gift that had little hand written messages on colorful paper, such as "I will miss you", "good luck", "see you again"), a hug and some of the girls even gave us kisses on the cheek! So amazing! Such love, respect, and big hearts! You guessed it-I cried, just a little though. I couldn't help it! It was such a generous act of kindness that blew me away! A moment I will always remember and treasure. As we have have seen with the other volunteer good byes, the head master of the school, gave a speech, with his limited English, thanking us for volunteering at his
school, good teachers, good hearts, and to come back again. Very nice! Overall, it has been incredible to get to really know the Thai people, as they are very generous and giving, with what little they have, in which they live very simple, happy lives without all of the material possessions. Very amazing and wonderful to see, opening our eyes and hearts to bigger world out there, in which we are so small, but are all connected in one way or another. Hope this finds everyone well, enjoying each day! Love to all!
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Sheri
non-member comment
so cute
Hmmm... 1st graders choking each other?? Your adventures get more and more interesting! I went through all the other blogs to check out the videos... everything looks so great! Miss you both!!