Okay, so I do realize that it has been about 5 months since I have last posted anything here. For a long time I just plain didn't have anything interesting to post. Then it got to be such a long time that even though I did have something to write, I was too embarassed about waiting so long that I didn't do it. So here goes....
Since I last posted in October I have done a lot of things. I ran my first marathon, visited home, became an official member at my church, and started volunteering at a local orphanage.
I can't believe that there are only three months left in the school year. I know that time will go really fast because we have so many things left to do at school (2 assemblies, read-a-thon, book fair, international day, sports day, field trip and Spring concert, just to name a few). Recently we had our first ever Science Fair for the whole elementary school. I sure had a hard time figuring out what my first graders would be interesting and they would actually understand. We ended up doing projects about food decay. Each group did a different type of food. We put one set of each type of food in the classroom, and one in the refrigerator in the staff room. Pretty simple, right? I figured that it would at least be relevant and something that they could apply to their lives. I thought the whole thing was going pretty well until one child, after four weeks of working on this project asked me what a refrigerator is. Wow, I really failed on that one.
About 6 weeks ago I decided that I really needed to find something to do with people outside of work. I found a group on the website Meetup that was visiting an orphanage. I thought that would be a great thing to do, so I signed up and went. I didn't know that they had just started doing this, and there wasn't really any organization yet. On my first visit, the kids ran around the room for 3 hours, fighting over treats that volunteers had brought, screaming, climbing on tables, walking on the piano keyboard, etc... It was one of the craziest experience that I had with kids. There wasn't any staff from the orphanage in the room with us, and the volunteer organizer didn't really seem to care. Many of the volunteers were there for the first time and didn't feel like we had the authority to discipline these kids. Once I realized that this was just a start-up operation, things didn't seem so bad. We have things so much more organized now, with games, arts, music, and sports activities planned for each visit. The look on the kids' faces when we come is priceless, and when you see just how much love they need your heart can't help but melt.
Coming up, I've definately got some stuff to look forward to. The last week in March I will be on vacation in Vietnam!! Then it will be back to work, nose to the grindstone until the beginning of June, when I leave for a summer at home!
I love and miss everyone so much!
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