of co-teachers, Bumblebees and Koalas

My co-teacher, Teacher Tina, is not returning to JacksonFive next year. She lives kind of far away and has to take care of her mom. She's been the Bumblebee co-teacher for the last two years and has literally been with them (in the same room) for about 6 hours every day, 5 days a week. They're pretty attached. So we're making this ginormous cool card for her and we took a picture last week to put on the front. I took four pictures and it was like pulling teeth to get the boys to smile nicely without making a face *siggh* here they are:

ok, I did tell them they could make a silly face for one. This one was my fault.

This one would be ok, except you can't see about three of the kids because they're too short and are standing in the back (aggh, bad planning teacher Sharon!), and my Kyle only has his hands up (I guess he figured since somebody was standing in front of him he'd better try to get some part of him in the picture)

The girls are so cute and the boys are unmanageable. Seriously, I couldn't make them just smile nice. Well, it's test week for them so maybe they're a little off.

This one, even in it's weirdness, is the winner for the card. You can see all the kids, and...yeah, that's pretty much why.

This is one of my night classes, the Koalas. They're a little bit older, about 5th grade - junior high aged, with the oldest being Tommy on the left in black. He's 13.

When I started teaching this class it was a nightmare. They didn't know anything they were supposed to know at this level English class, some of them had attitude, and nobody would ever volunteer or do the conversation activities.

But now we have a lot of fun. They've come a looonnnng way. I'm really proud of them, actually.

My co-teacher for this class, Tr. Fanny, is also leaving next year so this will go in a card for her.

My Bumlebees are so cute. They've been making little "gifts" for teacher Tina at home and will sneak up to me with their hands cupped and whisper "look what I'm going to give Tr. Tina!" and it will be some little paper thing or note or something and I'll whisper back "it's amazing! she'll love it! go hide it until Wednesday" (our last day of class). This has happened about four times this week. They can't wait until Wednesday..and neither can I!

wheee ... vacation here I come! :)

Tonight we're having a good-bye party for my roomate Stephanie and couple of other people from our cell group who are leaving this summer. It's an 80's party so we're supposed to dress 80's ish. Well I was a tiny kid in the 80's and also I lived in Suriname.. how am I supposed to know..

but I did remember the big ol' T-shirts the older kids in school used to wear and they would bunch them up on one side and tie it with a scrunshie or a t-shirt clip made specially for this purpose. I inherited a big red t-shirt from a previous teacher that has a black outline of a guy with a mullet hair-do and sunglasses on the front and it says "Mullets rule! business in the front, party in the back". I sort of think mullets are 80's...maybe...anyway, I'll wear that and tie it on one side with a scrunchie and wear some big red earrings and my black and red Converse shoes and I should look sort of 80's. I think the other foreigners will be dressed in similar attire, but I'm interested to see what the Taiwanese people do. Should be fun, I'll post some pictures.

Well, I've gotta run. Zai jian!