Days 32-39: If you pass your teaching tests, does that mean you get to stay?

Okay.  So.  I’ve been really busy so I’m sorry I’ve been remiss in posting.  Since we last met…

Wednesday we went to the ballet, and it was absolutely fantastic.  Romeo and Juliet was so great and to top it off, the seats I’d gotten in the very front row turned out to be the best choice EVER.  We were in a perfect place, because the pit is very long, and so it was a perfect length between us and the stage.  Grace and Shelby loved it, and it turned out really well.  A great night for all J

Thursday was unremarkable, because I don’t really remember it… it wasn’t too awful, I assume, because I don’t remember it.  I do remember not feeling well, and feeling like I needed to sleep a lot more.  That’s all I got, though.  Haha.  Sorry.

Friday was good… We had a pretty good day at school.  The best thing a teacher could ask for happened to me Friday… I had the 5^th grade class, and I told them that I was going to be evaluated on Monday when they were there by the Director, and that I was hoping they’d be on their best behavior for my teaching “test.”  Zac, one of the students, said to me, “Miss Virginia, if you pass your teaching tests… does that mean you get to stay?”  So great.  I really appreciated that comment.  Haha.

Anyway, came home, and went to Hannes’ house (Irina’s son) because it was his birthday, and his wife’s birthday had been Monday, so we had a little double birthday party for them.  It was really fun.  The food was great, and I got to snuggle with their poodle who loves to sit in my lap and just be petted forever.  Martin (Hannes’ son) and I played for a long, long time also, which was really fun… I know most of the things that he says now, and things I don’t know, someone translates for me.  It was great.  We probably played together for a couple hours.  The most hilarious part was when he pulled out a little laser pen and was pointing it around, and we pretended to catch it and he would just laugh and laugh and laugh.  We do that with my cat at home, but with Martin, we were just as content as my kitten is.  Quite amusing. 

Saturday I slept in until about 9, and made plans with Irina to go to Nõmme to pick up a package from a mysterious sender.  We went to the shop called “EXTRA LARGE” for fat people, which let me just say… shopping in a store named Extra Large does not help one bit.  Amusing things in XL included a fully sequined sweatshirt that the lady told me was high fashion, a few weird excuses for clothes, and finding clothes that would fit three of me in them.  We went to the huge, massive, EXTRA LARGE (size, not the store) outdoor farmer’s market that happens every day, apparently, and browsed around, and then went to the post office. 

I WAS SO THRILLED WHEN I GOT TO THE POST OFFICE AND HAD A PACKAGE FROM LINDSEY MICHELLE CATHOLIC NEWLOVE.  WHAT AN AMAZING PACKAGE.  I GOT GARLIC!  Lindsey sent me Minced Garlic, Garlic Powder, Chocolate Cake Mix, and the crème de la crème… a Real Simple magazine!!!  SO SO SO FANTASTIC.  I have proceeded to put garlic powder on most of my food as of late… at least, the things on which it would be appropriate… my Special K is not a qualifier, but my pasta sure is J  First thing I did when I got home was put garlic powder on my pasta for lunch. 

I worked on some of the stuff I needed to do for school on Monday, since I had a lot of things to get done, and then headed over to meet Maarja and Kaspar, because Maarja wanted real American cheesecake.  I looked up the Cheesecake Factory recipe and we made it, which turned out to be amusing, since we forgot to turn the oven on and it sat in there for an hour cold…whoops.  But we watched the movie where her brother is in it, and it was very interesting and fun, and I got to play with kitties, so it was overall a great night :)

Sunday I went to a fellow teacher’s house to record some songs for him.  His wife is writing a book currently for preschoolers, and it has music to go with it, so they wanted someone to record the songs to send to the publisher, so maybe one day I’ll be famous in Estonia :) Anyway, did that for a while, and then came home to finish my work for school.

Monday, I woke up and my first thought was, “Did the weekend even happen…?”  So that’s always a great start for the week.  But overall, it was a good day.  I took over teaching full time this week, and Don came to observe one of my lessons.  Overall, I think it went well… I love teaching, and I really enjoy the kids.  Grace is improving so much in her voice lessons too (they happen on Mondays) and doing very well overall… she’s singing Plaisir d’Amour right now… everyone’s favorite French piece :)  We had auditions for the school musical, Fanny, the Frivelous Flapper after school, which went very well, and then I came home and just absolutely crashed… I’m so exhausted by the end of the school days that it’s just absolutely impossible for me not to fall asleep for a little bit. 

Tuesday was awful to start… I joked that all the awful things to happen to me today happened before 8:30 am.  I overslept my alarm, spilled oatmeal on my pants, got into an argument with Irina over cereal this morning (she read an article in the Estonian paper about how cereal is awful for people, and how Special K is one of the worst because of the amount of sugar in it.  Um.  What!?  I eat it BECAUSE IT IS HEALTHY.  WHATEVER.), got out of the house super late, had to sprint for the bus… um, I think that was mostly it… oh, and it was raining, for the 3 ½ day in a row… so that was good.  But, I got in and got settled, and ended up having a really good double lesson with Grace and had a good rest of my day.  We ended up staying super late at school trying to get all the stuff done we needed to, but the rest of the week should be good.

I’m very sleepy now, so I’m going to hit the hay.   I’ll catch up more soon :)  Hoping to buy my PacMan earrings this week!!  (Didn’t get to go today because it was so rainy…boo.)

Maintain,

Virginia