breaking rules

the other day, i’m sitting in class (and by that i mean standing). i’m doing a lesson on food, i believe -- though that’s completely irrelevant information.

in french schools -- at least in the elementary schools -- every class room has a plethora of rulers, protractors, triangles and what-have-yous to facilitate the drawing of geometric lines, squares, circles and other things. i often use these rulers (meter sticks, if you will) as pointers... due to the overwhelming lack of pointers in the class rooms. (there’s one class where the teacher has a four foot bamboo stick. i’m highly tempted to steal it. i think she’d notice. on a side note -- since this totally isn’t already one... -- they’ve planted some bamboo shoots in front of the train station. i want to go cut one down so i can have a bamboo pointer... and maybe a walking stick too. i don’t think they’d notice.)

these rulers aren’t exactly what you’d call... sturdy. they’re plastic. they’re a meter long (just over a yard for the metrically challenged...), and really thin. (ok... not like SUPER thin... but still. thin.) this makes them ideal for flexing. you know... like a saw. (they’re not that thin...)

well... i was doing just that -- flexing -- when the stupid ruler decides to go off and break! (at approximately 3 decimeters -- that’s 30 centimeters, or just under a foot, for the metrically challenged). break i tell you! snapped in two...

naturally the classroom, half filled with 9 year olds, was very quickly completely filled with “ooooo”s and gasps and various forms of giggling.

and... of course... the next question asked (which was on subject -- this is very rare... but happened quickly in this particular instance) was: “how do you say, ‘mark broke the ruler’ in english?”

silly, silly children.

they didn’t let this go very easily. i was trying to be all nonchalant about the whole thing... but they just wouldn’t let it go.

silly, silly children.

i continued the lesson, and as it was getting time to leave (which meant that the kids went out to recess, and i waited for my next class to get back from recess), one of the boys offered to tell the teacher that he had broken the ruler while being a turd in class.

i couldn’t let that happen... he’s usually a very well behaved child. perhaps if it had been one of the actual turds... maybe. so instead, i wrote a note and left it with the carcass on the teacher’s desk. she came up to me after school and said that it was no big deal... happens all the time.

i’m not sure i completely believed her... but then, i forget this is france: kids are terrible here. wow. i would have been shot, strangled or otherwise dismembered by my mother SEVERAL times over, by the age of six and a half, if i had ever thought of being that daemonic!

besides... the gov’t pays for it all anyway... so who cares, right?

I REMEMBERED! i told you i would!

SO! at long last i have rediscovered the amazing thing i was going to tell you all!

now...i'm just giving a warning...

TURN OFF YOUR VIVID IMAGINATIONS AND TAKE THIS STORY FOR SIMPLY WHAT IT IS! DO NOT DWELL.

got that?

so i don't remember quite clearly how i came about this discovery...but! i thought it was hilarious all the same...granted...i was there when it first happened and also haven't been waiting for a good month or so to figure out what it is...so yeah...anywho i hope i don't let you down...

so...i have alot of hair....A LOT! it is really thick and i shed everywhere! mark is always laughing at me and the large clumps of hair that we have to pull out of the drain after each of my showers...and the numberless hairs that he pulls off of my coat during sacrament meeting in church....( you would think that i'd be bald by now....but no...it's still as thick as ever....:] )

well we woke one morning and started getting ready for the day...mark was getting ready to get in the shower when (like always) he found one of my hairs on his chest....so he grabbed it to toss from himself as he got in the shower ( probably thinking the shower didn't need to be tortured while he was in it ) and was very surprised when he found that it was not one of my head hairs....no, no, no, no, no...but that it was attached!...to him!

YES! my dear friends...mark has a hair on his chest that is a good 3-4 inches long!

i think i laughed quite generously for the rest of the day...:]

good times...

i love my husband...

i decided to spare you all the pain of pictures....however...maybe if you ask nicely...:}

fun, fun, fun

over the holiday season, there was a nice little rash of entertainment that took place. the feasting and merriment has already been discussed elsewhere on this blog.

the current post is to make note of the games that were played. most notably, uno. (u-no?) twice we played games, twice we played uno. once, it was the normal version. the second time, it was uno-wizz. i don’t know if you’re familiar with this verision. behold:



oh, it’s fun. the wheel-of-fortune feature makes it all sorts of interesting.

the other game that we played was topword. i think this exists in the states... it seems like i’ve seen it. basically, three-dimensional scrabble. (sweet...)




yeah... i like. but i’ll tell you one thing: if you think it’s challenging to play scrabble and other word games in your own language... try it in one you’ve only spoken for a few years. ay!

never prouder to be dutch

on the way to and from work, i have to cross a rather large bridge. on the bellerive-sur-allier side of said bridge, i cross the street.

there is often a bit of traffic on this stretch of road, and sometimes it makes the crossing more treacherous than at other times.

the other day, as i approach the crossing in question, i see a nice older lady (with a frightening leopard print coat) trying to get across the street. she succeeds in calming traffic before i get to the crosswalk, and so i simply follow behind her.

reaching the other side, i say to her (in french, of course), “this crossing can be a real pain, can’t it.”

“yes, they need to install a red light for the pedestrians.”

“yeah... with a button and the whole works.” (i floundered a bit on the word button in this context, which i believe lead to her next comment...)

“are you from holland?”

???

i must say i take that as a compliment.

i’ve not met an overwhelming number of dutch in my day (and how many of them were actually from holland i can’t say, but that’s irrelevant), but all of them... yes, i believe i can say, without exception, ALL of them have spoken impeccable english -- nearly flawless and with hardly any accent. and they usually speak 3 or 4 other languages too (if not more... i knew a chap who claimed 15 or so). i don’t know what they feed their children, but... i’ve heard it attributed to the fact that all of the cartoons (and i assume other television programs) that are broadcast are done so in the language they were produced in. and honestly, how big of a broadcasting (especially film...) industry can the netherlands have? not to mention that are SO many people that speak dutch. it’s kinda like how all swedes, norwegians, fins, danes and icelanders (?) speak english too.

so, yeah... it made a nice little swell in my ego that day.

socially inept

so, yesterday i brought my friend katie home with me from school (she is one of the english assistants and she is from maryland :]) because she wanted to borrow our duffel bag for her trip to greece this vacation. (she figured that since she had a dance class at about seven she might as well just walk home with me and get the bag as opposed to having me bring it to school...) we gave her the duffel bag and made her eat something since i knew she would be too tired to make herself anything after she got home from her dance class...

she wasn’t so sure how to get to her dance class from our house so mark and i decided to walk with her so she wouldn’t get lost. as we were leaving, the man who lives in the apartment below us decided that he needed to come out and yell at us for being too loud...

(now, okay...mark at i aren’t the quietest people in the world its true. however, we actually try very hard to be quiet for this man. for the first month or so that we lived here we didn’t even think about how loud we were being...however when the concierge told us that the man below us had complained that we were too loud we started going to great efforts to be as quiet as possible for him. we take our shoes of the moment we come in, we try not to talk much louder than a whisper, we keep our music quiet, and we do all that we can not to slam the cupboards and doors to much. that should be good enough right? maybe in the U.S. it would be....but this is france....and they can get some pretty ornery old people in this country.)

so katie and i got to the apartment at about 5:30 and we left the apartment at 6:30 to get katie to her dance class by 7. we hadn’t really been much louder than normal and really most of it was just because katie didn’t know where the squeaky boards are in our apartment...

we were talking as we were going down the stairs and out came the man as we got to his floor...i saw him and as i was about to say “bon soir” noticed that 1. he didn’t look very happy and 2. he had absolutely nothing covering his bottom half. no pants...no underwear...( yes ladies and gentlemen...this man was only wearing a shirt and it was not nearly as long as i would have preferred it.) noticing these two facts i stifled my disgust (and slight laughter) and continued walking down the stairs as he proceeded to get mark’s attention and chew mark out for us being too loud (which may i mention was rather loud itself....) mark informed him that we always tried to be quiet and that we didn’t have wings so we couldn’t very well fly about the apartment. (the floor squeaks if you look at it...) the man then decided to tell mark that we obviously didn’t put enough effort into it or else he would never hear us and would live happily without being disturbed. mark tried to reason with him saying that we have to walk around to make meals and that in all honesty we aren’t home a lot anyway so he should be content that he doesn’t have to listen to us all day. again the man said that we don’t try hard enough and mark asked the man if he wanted to see what it would be like if we didn’t try at all to be quiet...the man had nothing to say for a bit and then proceeded to yell some more and mark just told him to have a good night and we walked away....

this is slightly frustrating and rather entertaining to me....the man is ridiculous....he wants us to make no sound at all (and if we do he smacks the ceiling with his broom or squawks up at us) but he feels no shame in yelling at the top of his voice in the hallway or in hitting his ceiling to get us to shut-up or yelling up at us....the things we do (walking...on squeaky boards...occasionally slamming a cupboard accidentally) only bother him...however i’m certain that the people that live next to him can hear him yell if we can hear him 1 floor up....and when he hits the ceiling he smacks it with all his might....the guy that lives next door to us hasn’t ever complained about us being too loud....

i don’t know.....the point is i’m really not sure how to reason with the man...and mark just wants to hit the old man upside that head he’s so frustrated....

how do you please people who expect you to be able to fly....?



also...why does highschool have to be so ... awkward....and why was i silly enough to be in it again? if it was hard the first time...it’s hard now that i’m married....i never was very good at being cool....and i’m still not...and i’m just so much better at being a loner...i dunno...i have some really good friends but nothing like what i had back home....and i really just want someone that can be my best friend that i can talk to about anything and they would laugh when i was funny or stupid...and i just want to be myself....i mean i guess thats what mark is now...but....he’s not at school with me....sigh....i’m just socially inept....and i can never think of anything interesting to talk about....i want to be done with school here....maybe i will feel better after the vacation....3 weeks should do me good.....

basically...i miss all you friends and family back home and the freedom i feel when i am around you....i love you all.......

hope all is well

praying for you always. :]

wow...

okay... so i'm sitting here doing some internetting at the university. i have a habit of doing that. it keeps me from oversleeping.

i'm in the commons area, by the coffee and food vending machines, when all at once some really crazy sirens start going off. i'm not entirely sure, but i suspect they are fire alarms. so... i wait and see if there's actually anything gonna be done about it. after a minute or so, people start filing toward the doors, so i follow suit.

now for the irony.

upon getting outside, at least 10% -- if not a full quarter -- of the students and faculty reach into their pockets... and start smoking.

new fun in the sidebar

so... there's something new and fun in the sidebar (as indicated by the title of this post).

when we're logged in, you can chat with us direct from the blog!

as long as the little thing isn't grey or red... we're online and available.

try it out next you see us online!

neverland in perpetuity

when do you start to learn responsibility?

i honestly don’t remember. i hate to say it, but i think i’m finally becoming an adult. or perhaps it’s been happening now for a while, and i’ve been unaware.

seriously... i always thought -- or at least i truly hoped -- that i would never become an adult. that i would get older -- yes. that i would learn things that adults learn -- yes. that i would live an adult life -- yes. but i’m not sure that i ever really believed that i would grow up.

that’s not to say that i have -- or that i ever will -- grow up.

what i mean to say is i never really expected to forget what it’s like to be a child. again... not what it’s like to play like a child, act like a child or behave like a child (in some respects, i think i do that better than a lot of kids half my age...), but rather what it’s like to reason as a child.

like understanding responsibility. when do you do that? when does that click in your head? i honestly can’t say that i remember.

granted... i’m a bit different when it comes to things of that nature. (perhaps i’m wrong... you’d have to ask my mother to verify this... but i think i’ve always been a very well behaved child, relative to other children my respective age -- writing papers, book reports and the like aside.) i think i’ve usually caught on to things of this nature a bit faster than others. but still. shouldn’t a child of 11 or 12 years have a decent grasp on the concept of responsibility for their actions?

the thing that brings this up:

today i was with half of the worst class that i teach, in regards to behavior -- and i was with the better half of them. they were acting like a bunch of chimpanzees out on a play date. i couldn’t get them to shut up for more than 30 seconds at a time.

there was for certain one student paying attention... and the others would pop in and out, so that at any given moment i had roughly half of the class with me. i consider that a good thing with this class... so i kept teaching.

over the course of the next 5 minutes, i went from an average of half the class to the one girl paying attention. in the past, at times like this, i stop and i wait. i wait for the class to figure out that i’ve stopped... and to get each other to quiet down.

i’d already done that several times today.

i had two kids that just walked out into the hall because they were tired of the noise, and the headache it was giving them. i tried to reason with them (who are often two of the more noisy ones in this group...) that they could do their part by a) being quiet and b) inciting the others to do they same. they assured me they had tried, but in vain.

so i had an idea.

i had everyone get back into the room, and into their seats, and made one final attempt to quiet them the habitual way. this, as i assumed it would, failed. so i went to the board and started to write something. they figured something was up... but weren’t quite sure what it was... so they hushed a bit, in case it was important, menacing or entertaining. if it was just more lesson, i don’t think they would have cared.

i wrote: silence

i told them: there are enough dictionaries in the back... everyone go and grab one. (i would have assumed at this point they had figured out what was going to happen... but i don’t think most of them understood until AFTER i had explained what was happening... which was after i wrote what they were supposed to do on the board. sometimes they’re really slow...)

i underlined silence and wrote beneath: take out your scratch paper notebook

and then: copy the definition 3x

i had noticed already that the two kinds of dictionaries had different lengths of definition. the one was about four times as long as the other. and one girl (the good one) had gotten a dictionary out of her desk. (her definition was really short...)

they all groaned and complained. especially when the ones that hadn’t totally understood what i wrote (even though it was in french...) figured out they had to do it 3 times. the ones with the bigger definitions in particular were unpleased. “sorry... that’s the way it goes. stick with the dictionary you picked.”

and i made them do it in... silence.

they had a hard time with that. they don’t like silence.

when there were about 10 minutes left, i had them stop. some had finished... most no. i asked them, “what is silence?” they read me their definitions. “what do you like better: learning english, or learning definitions?” it was the first one.

and i made up a new thing with them. from now on, whenever i esteem they are being too noisy or disruptive or inattentive... i start spelling a word in the corner of the board. i can put down one letter... or two. depending on how i’m feeling, and how big of a pain they’re being. once they word is fully spelled out... we stop. they get a dictionary. and i tell them how many times they have to copy the definition.

i think in the future, i’ll make them finish it. probably not the whole thing in class... a bit, but not all. the rest, they’ll have to finish and turn it in to me for the next class period. and if they don’t... more problems will have to come up.

i hate doing this. i hate punishments.

i don’t like getting them... and i don’t like giving them.

why can’t they just grow up?