sleep, you keep eluding me...

I am developing an addiction to green tea, specifically plum green tea and passionfruit green tea.  This week I drank lu cha almost every other day.  The bad thing is it keeps me wired for hours and it seems it's making it even more difficult for me to sleep, insomniac that I am.

Then there is the dog.  Everyone knows I love animals.  This dog is driving me insane.

Around midnight, every night without fail, the thing starts barking and continues for hours.  Earlier this week it started howling around 3 am and didn't stop until 5.  With bags under my eyes and disheveled hair, I've probably looked crazy to my students this week.

Speaking of my students, they really kept me entertained today.

I recently taught the youngest class what "lie" means and I even bought a book about a boy who tells a lie and imagines his lie turns into a green monster.  It was a little too metaphorical for them but after some hand gestures and stick figure drawings on the board (including one of T. Rhonda lying to her father when she was small), they understood.

Anyway, today one of  my younger kids named Roy blamed another kid for something.  One of my well behaved students, a  mostly quiet little boy named Joseph (he wears a set of glasses that sometimes look too big for his face) exclaimed "Teacher Rhonda, Roy is a lie!"

Of course he was trying to tell me Roy was lying about the other student.

My junior high classes the past two nights have also kept me entertained (though a little worn out).  Recently, my boss decided they should read an English-type magazine with Chinese translations on certain pages.  The magazine contains a lot of American pop-culture and idioms, which will be good for them if they ever study in the US.  Once a week I go over  an article with them and write definitions on the board for words they don't understand.  The article this week had to do with the history and meanings behind "The Kiss."

Of course, the kids protested loudly about having to read such an article but nevertheless, we had to do it.  I did feel a little uncomfortable, especially after some of the questions they asked.  The article mentioned the health benefits of kissing, slangs such as "kissing one's behind" (nice) "kiss of death," and kisses used in betrayal.  It even mentioned Judas's betrayal of Jesus with a kiss.

It was A LOT to talk about and I don't know if they understood half of it but they seemed to be more interested in this reading than last week's article about endangered big cats.

Some funny questions:

The article said that kissing brings stress levels down, lengthens one's life, and makes people healthier in general.  One girl raised her hand and said,

"But Teacher.  There was one girl in Taiwan who went to America and kissed a lot of boys and then came back to Taiwan and kissed a lot of boys and everyone said she was so dirty."

So I explained that lots of kissing is good between married people or boyfriends/girlfriends who really like eachother and it's not good to go around the world kissing everyone. *sigh* some of these questions throw me off guard!:)

In response to the article stating that there are many benefits (a word I had to define for them) to kissing, one of the older boys raised his hand and said,

"So if one boy wants to kiss you you will let he because it gives you benefits.  You will not do this..." he then raised his hand and made a slapping gesture.

I told him if a random boy tried to kiss me, I would indeed slap him.:)

The joys of teaching.

Though these children sometimes frustrate me and I don't know what I'm doing half the time, I will miss them when my contract is up.  They will probably look back at me as the teacher pretending to be a teacher, but hopefully they have some good memories.