I'M SORRY!!!!!

Ok, so I am getting the hint that some of you are missing your daily fix of "Elaine and Ryan", and I do apologize for that. Julie, just for the record, I am missing my daily Bronwyn fix too...

Also, for the record, I did try desperately to blog on Monday, but the site would not cooperate and would not let me post anything. I was even ready to post some pictures!! So, in my defence, it is not entirely my fault.

I don't actually read my previous posts, so if I ever repeat myself, I'm sorry. I guess if I repeat myself if must be pretty important!!!

It is now Wednesday (ok, one quick side story...Ryan and I were walking to the bus this morning at 6:55, and we were thinking "wow, it's actually 1:55 a.m. in Ontario." Then we kept on with that train of thought and realized that it was 10:55 in B.C.!! While we were well on our way with Sept. 13th, Julie and Randy were still in the 12th, and possibly not even gone to bed yet. It just makes us so much more aware of how big the world is. Ok, I'll go back to my blog...thanks for listening...) and we are into our second week of teaching. And it's hump day, which is always good for helping me realize how quick time goes. I actually have PPA this morning (Planning, Preparation, and Assessment - it's like prep time in Ontario, except instead of 30ish minutes a day we get half a day a week or like Ryan, a whole day every two weeks). I am glad to have the break, if for nothing else than to get caught up with some of the stuff that I have been neglecting. When I am gone from my house before 7am and don't get home til after 7pm, I don't usually want to do much at home. We eat dinner, and veg, and fall asleep. Last night I spent my last hour at school just cleaning off my desk. My classroom doesn't have a very good layout, and it's frustrating for me to try and work at my desk because it is kind of pathetic. I tend to dump loads of stuff on it, and then things get lost or misplaced in my piles of paper. I don't have a filing cabinet yet (well, I do, but it is filled with crap from last year, and I haven't had time to clean it out) so everything is in piles. The piles aren't the problem, it's when the kids start throwing stuff on top and digging down for the pencil sharpener or whatever. Long story short, I need a better system of organization. It can be depressing to walk down the halls and see other classrooms that look cheery and welcoming, and then walk into mine which has mismatched chairs and desks and no space. I was upset the other day (well, mad maybe, frustrated) that some of the bigger kids (year 4 and 5) have smaller desks that we do!! The desks in my classroom take up so much space it is pathetic. I have to rearrange them to suit my classroom, I just haven't found a good way to do it yet. I also want to find a new seating arrangement, but the problem is that I have so many talkers in class that I can't put any of them together!! I can't put two talkers together (for obvious reasons) but I don't want to "punish" the good kids by making them sit with a talker at a desk secluded from everyone else. Does that even make sense? Sometimes I say things and they don't make sense once they are out of my mouth!!

My kids are really cute though. I have one who is autistic, and he likes to get his own way and throw temper tantrums and stuff, but when he is in a good mood he also gives me hugs and says how great of a teacher I am. He also likes to be the leader of the line (which is fine, I can keep my eye on him that way) and he comes straight up and holds my hand. He's got problems for sure, and he drives me up the wall, but he does have his sweet moments too.

There is another boy who is super smart, but a talker, and yesterday I was cross with the kids because they would not listen or stop talking (especially this one) and at the end of the day he came up to me and said "Miss, I really like school...and I really like this class...I am glad the other teacher didn't come to school so you could be our teacher." How can you be mad at something like that? We're working really hard at making sure that they follow the rules, and are listening and not talking. It's hard to know how much to expect from 7 and 8 year olds. I guess I do expect them to sit quietly because I can see that they are capable of it, but I don't want to be too hard on them because they are just kids afterall.

I had one girl come to school yesterday in tears because the day before she had lost her jumper (cardigan) and she was scared to go home because her mom told her that if she didn't come home with it she would smack her. Even though the dad picked her up and assured her that it would be ok, she still cried and was afraid to go home. That's the hardest thing to watch, is a little one crying and genuinely scared of something, especially when it is someone that they should be trusting.

Speaking of little girls crying...Ryan and I went on an adventure on Saturday (or Sunday? they all run together...) to Tesco's. It's sort of like a Walmart/Costco/Zellers I don't know what to call it. We were going up and down every aisle just to see what they had, and suddenly I could hear a little girl (maybe 4) crying and calling for her mom. I couldn't see her, but I could hear her getting louder and more scared. As we walked into the next aisle I could see her frantically running up and down the main aisle looking up each one to see if her mom was there. Meanwhile she had adults passing my her like she wasn't even there. I walked over and knelt down and asked her if she had lost her mom. She nodded yes, and took my hand and I told her I would help her find her mom. Suddenly a lady started yelling from across the store (like, 5 or 6 aisles away) for the girl. She went running, and I could hear the mom say "what? do you want people to think you are lost?!? You just keep running away!" She was so angry, and the little girl was so scared, and I felt bad for her because she got yelled at when she was so scared. As a generalization (not a stereotype), parents in England are so young, and they tend to yell at their kids a lot. It makes me sad as a teacher because I get the leftovers of what they had to deal with that morning. I heard in the staffroom yesterday that Dagenham (the town we work in) has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in all of Essex county, and possibly the country. One of the teachers said that she was on the bus one day and she was the oldest one there (at 27) and the only one without a child.

Ok, I've gone off on a bit of a rant, and I have to get going and get some work done. I hope this suffices for now, and I may even try to get another one up before I head home for the day.

Love you all,