Hello all,

We are almost through the second week of teaching.  This teaching stuff is hard.  I'm not sure how to get the kids to listen.  I have tried all kinds of things.  I think I have passed on some knowledge to some of the kids though.   So a partial success. 

We found out today that the school has bought us bikes.  We are supposed to bike to the other branch schools on Thursday.  I hope I remember the way.  My school is on the way to Ryan's so maybe he will ride his bike with  me to school.  :o)

The principal has asked all the teachers to take part in at least 2 physical activities a week.  Some of the teachers have decided to do aerobics.  I went to the music room and watched the equivalent of youtube videos.  It was pretty funny.  I think it was everyone's first time.  I was the only English speaking person for most of the class so it was pretty funny.  I was having trouble with some of the moves and they tried to teach me.  Lots of counting and laughing.  I was also the strongest person in class. I was the only person to use the 3 lb weights of the entire class.  :o)

 Tomorrow I have 1st grade.  I am pretty nervous.  Those kids are tougher than I am.  Wish me luck.

So, as many of you know I love milk.  I love ice cold milk, that is refrigerated.  For that matter, I sometimes add ice to my milk to make it colder.  I have been known to drink 2 gallons of milk a week all by myself.  Well, things have changed.  Here, the only milk they have is shelf stable milk. This is not milk.  I'm not sure what it is.  This is barely edible.  I wish I had a video of Ryan drinking what he thought was a juice box.  It was a shelf stable milk box.  Milk should not be room temperature.  It should not come in a juice box.  It should not come in a container that resembles a plastic coke bottle. 

So my favorite food they serve at the school is the noodle soup.  This stuff is always awesome.  Sometimes it spicy.  Sometimes it has lots of cilantro.  It has onions and broth.  And since we eat with chopsticks, slurping is completely acceptable.  Maybe that is why I like it some much.

Last night for dinner we had a green pepper and chopped up beef dish.  It was delicious.  We ate a ton of it.  I could not get enough.  We were sure it was beef.  It was some of the first beef we had since we got here.  We told everyone about it this morning.  They didn't believe us and double checked our source.  Needless to say, we had pork.  The Vice Principal said that maybe they can get us some steak.  We said no need, just put a lot of soy sauce on our pork and we won't be smart enough to know the difference. 

-julie