Back on Track!

So I think that I am finally back on track. I was a little off there around the holidays, but I think that was because I had a lot of variation in my schedule so I was a little lax on my blogging updates...sorry about that!

Well I hope now that I can get back to my regular schedule of updating every Sunday. It was a good way to go and a good way to reflect on the events of the week! This week was back to normal for the most part. I was back in the classroom, and had some good days and some not so good days. That is life though right. I think the not so good days were coupled with the fact that I have a cold, so that made it difficult to concentrate and also my tolerance level for misbehavior was way down. Some of my classes have gotten a lot better though. I started a new behavior/participation chart and the students have been fairly responsive to it. Some classes more than others. Sometimes they are not super excited about the stars, but they definitely do not want the red checks and sometimes all I have to do is hold the red marker in my hand and they stop misbehaving and start participating well.

Right now I am trying to work up the motivation to plan my one lesson that I have to teach tomorrow. The kids are having a test for the most part tomorrow and Tuesday, so it will be an easy week for me, I will only have to plan for half of the week. I am having trouble coming up with ideas, so sometimes if I focus on something else for a little while the ideas just come to me. I hope that they do well on the test however, they are good kids for the most part, but some of them are a little bit lazy, if they just put forth a little bit more effort and believed in themselves I know that they could do it. I guess that is what I just need to work on, is believing in them so that they will believe in themselves. We shall see about that and I will just continue to have faith in them every single day!

So this week we had a little twist in our schedule, we had to teach on a Saturday! Back in October I believe it was, we had a day where the teachers went on strike, so we didn't teach. The teachers were striking because the government is talking about cutting their salaries. I know it is the same in every country, but why do the budget cuts always have to come from education, I mean I know the decision is difficult to make, but without a good education system there is no way that we are going to make things better in the future. To train future leaders, we need to educate them first. I think that education is the fuel for a better world....oh well maybe they will figure it out eventually and maybe one day our political leaders will be willing to take a little bit of a pay cut rather than our teachers. Well you might be thinking, why did we have to make up a day if it was a strike? Doesn't that defeat the purpose? Well yes it does defeat the purpose, but apparently the teachers were paid for that day, so they had to make it up. Oh well what can you do. So I just played games with my kids to help them review for their test next week. I was supposed to have 3 hours, but when I went to go get my last class, they had all went home. Oh well what can you do, I was a little annoyed because I had put work into the lesson, preparing Jeopardy, which I actually cannot reuse, but oh well. Kids will be kids and I didn't want to be there any more than they did.

So it looks like for Valentines day we are going to be selling flowers, they will decorate the flowers and put a little note on them to someone they "admire" I think that will be sweet and it should be a nice way to raise more money for the kids in the student council to do more things like maybe sometime in the spring they can have a school dance. Traditionally that is only done for the high school here, but I thought that would be something that the students would enjoy. Another thing I know they did last year was had a carnival and I think that would be something they might also enjoy. I guess we shall see what time brings us and what the kids might want to do when that comes around! :)

Our February break is coming up so I will have a week off and I hope to do something fun and interesting. I want to go visit some people maybe, I have heard about a few activities that are going on, I just want to get out of my site for a little while. It should be fun and just something different to do. I am not a huge fan of traveling, because it takes me forever no matter where I go, but it is worth it once I get there. It will also be good for me to see what else is out there, and more about the country of Romania, I want to have as many interesting experiences here as I can!

Oh and I fixed my sink all by myself...I also broke it first...but then I fixed it! It was clogged so I took it apart...bad move, because when I did so...the part where it screws together sort of cracked. Well I went on my way and I found a replacement part and it was a pain in the but to screw back in because it was tight and I didn't have a screwdriver and it was slightly bigger than the last...but I got it screwed in and it doesn't leak or anything and works like a charm! I was just excited that I fixed it all by myself! Look how well my Daddy raised me, I am just a little handywoman! Just an odd side not for all of the feminists out there (my friend Carly would get a kick out of this) My spell check does not recognize the word handywoman as a correctly spelled word, but it does however recognize handyman as a correct word, I think that we need to call Websters and have them make their dictionary more politically correct, maybe that will be my next goal!

So that is about all for this week, no exciting stories to say, it was a pretty slow week. Hopefully this next week will bring more excitement, but we shall see! I am just trying to instill some new and better habits this new year, like keeping a cleaner apartment, drinking more water, watching my spending more and eating healthier. So far this weekend I have been doing well....and I hope I can continue! It is sure hard to eat healthy when you live all alone and don't have your weight watchers buddies to keep you company and keep you motivated, but I am going to try to do better in this new year and to take better care of myself like I was in the States! We shall see and I know I can do it! Well I better be off to lesson plan...I still do not have any ideas...I have to do something with parts of the body and the verb to get....so many not appropriate things come to mind with those two subjects...I have to make sure my students don't put them together that way! LOL sorry just a little tired and not really even that funny!

Oh and before I forget I wanted to extend a congratulations to my friend Bridget and Claire. Bridget just had a healthy baby boy, Noah Joseph, 5 lbs 11 oz, Jan. 5th and Claire had a healthy baby girl, Autumn Victoria, 9 lbs 21 inches, Jan. 7th. Both babies are beautiful and healthy and I am so happy for the both of them! I wish you the best of luck and I hope that you have so much fun with your new little angels!

That is all for now, I hope you are all doing well and that you are not too cold in these winter months, just think before we know it it will be warm again...or so I hope! Love and miss you all!!!

Voi iubesc
Va pup
Mi-a dor de voi

Pana mai tarziu
~Sarah B.