On Being a Mom & Stuff: Part 3

Checking out the hedge to see if any stray cats are hiding away. 

I've been stewing around part three. I have a couple of ideas swarming each other and trying to get to the forefront. Which, in my mind, just leads to a lot of confusion, and I keep yelling at my brain, "What are you trying to say?!" It never quite gets through. I think I could blame this on mom-brain. Or maybe  that I save all my serious thinking until the middle of the night.

Coming off the ideas in Part 1 and Part 2, my words for this next segment would be disobedience and mercy. I had struggled with anger and rebellion, not wanting to do what I felt I should do. I had struggled with surrendering my desires, plans, and identities to Christ. (not going to lie, still struggle with these things). And then my anger, my disobedience, my selfishness, and my idolatry caught up with me.

Like I sort of mentioned before, work started to get really hard. For lots of little reasons, and lots of big ones too. It was hard to get out of bed--not just because of the intense fatigue via pregnancy--but because I dreaded going to work. I dreaded opening my email box to the plethora of notes complaining about one petty issue after the other. I don't think people were trying to beat me down, but that's what was happening. My assistant was having health issues and so couldn't always be at work. Even when she was, she couldn't do much on her feet. I felt like I was doing a job-and-a-half to compensate. And then there was Treasure Island which is another full time job.

It was an exhausting season, and really, I have no idea how I got through that. I would like to share more specific stories, but this is probably not the time or place to that. Maybe in the future I'll be able to do that.

Without getting into all the grimy details....

I can sum it up for you: God removed the joy. 

Where was the joy? Where had it disappeared to?

Why, it was right around the corner, my dear friend.

It was where it always was; at the very center of His will. 

I felt His discipline in my life.

It wasn't like He was smacking me on the head with a cane and saying, "repent! repent or be chastised, sinner!"

It was more like He was saying, "I made you for a purpose: to worship and obey me. Now, get over here and worship and obey me. This is where you will be safe, and where you will find rest. This is where joy is and fulfillment. This is where you are a whole person. Ok, beloved, you can stay over there and get smacked around like a wet noodle. Or you can run over to me and I'll take care of everything. Your choice."

So eventually, I got tired of being a punching bag and realized that God was right.

He disciplined me out of love. He wanted me for Himself. He wanted to restore our relationship and to be reconciled with each other. He wanted us to be together, not separated by anger and bitterness. He wanted my obedience, not my selfish whining.

Thankfully, I'm not one for doing things the hard way. Because of His generous mercy, He brought me back. This is when I finally came to terms with what was changing. "I don't know why this is happening now, but I'm good with it, ok God?" I wish I could say that the year magically got better after that acceptance and surrender.

But, not necessarily. I mean, He gave me strength to get through it. He probably protected me from even worse things happening. But yeah, it was a tough year. And on the last afternoon of my last day of teaching at that school.....I thought.....it is good.

It is good to be finished.
Thank you for letting me finish.

I saved some documents that I thought I might use in the future (which I haven't) on my flash drive. Grabbed my book bag. Walked out the door. Got in the van. Went home.

There was no fanfare. No goodbye party. No group hug. No accolades. No best wishes card. No songs of adulation. It was over. And it was good.

I struggled a little with this. Although there was relief and peace at being finished, I thought that it was the most anti-climatic ending of my life. Usually when you close a major chapter in your life, you expect a big bang or something. At least some fireworks or something. Some tears? Some pats on the back?

Nope. Nada.

And I had to be fine with that. After all the fighting with myself, the fighting to survive the year, the fighting with God....I thought that surely there would be some resounding trumpets from heaven that announced I had done the right thing, that I had done a good job at it, and that I was moving on just as I should.

Like I said. There weren't any trumpets around.

Just one more reminder of how we have to die to ourselves. Teaching was never about me. It was just something that God had me do for a few years, and that was good, but now it was over, and that was good too.

When I write about this, I still remember how I yearned for a legacy. I don't think I wish for that anymore, but I still can taste its flavor so poignantly. Perhaps it is the last step of surrendering a false identity: the desire for a legacy.

 My students that year had been obsessed with looking at old year books. Every time we went up to the library, they would pull out the old year books and look over every page meticulously. They would stare at the faces of children who were long gone, kids that they never met, and wonder who they were. They would point at places or events they could identify. They would laugh at head-shots of teachers that were still there after a decade of working in China.

I could see it so clearly in the students as they poured over the yearbooks, because I saw in myself too.

Who will remember me when I'm gone?
What difference have I made here?
What is the mark that I will leave on this place?
On these precious children?
On my colleagues?

Will I be just a picture in a yearbook?
Does it even matter?

until next time........just think about it.

Running away, towards freedom and deep ditches and such. 

Fundraising, Flowers, & Funnies

One thing that I will miss a lot about teaching is the random laughs I get while grading students' work. Mostly, I find grading to be extremely monotonous and have to force myself to get through it. My attention span is very short when it comes to grading. But once in a while, some piece of work will surprise me--I love this kind of entertainment!

You may have to click on the images if you want to read them--I'm not sure if it will be possible or not, but I either find the next few pictures either very endearing or hilarious.

Here is a an essay about a treasure that has been buried by a character the student invented. Without being given the idea by anyone else, she decided to write in pirate lingo!

Some other buried treasure maps and essays....

I thought the name this student invented was cute...."Scabbard Jones"....

Grading one memory verse after another can be grueling...read this one carefully...the word "ministers" has been spelled in an interesting way.

This little boy is very dramatic. Here is his journal entry about not liking to sharpen pencils. He is an English Language Learner--first year in an English speaking school.

Answer #3 is answer the question, "How do you use electricity?" The textbook wasn't very clear, but I think it mean, "How do you use electricity in your life?" I think his answer is funny. So matter-of-fact. It reminds me of my brother, Tommy.

During our urban communities unit, I never once remember mentioning night clubs. Maybe it's a lost in translation thing....

As part of earth day, the elementary students painted planters and then planted flowers in them. These flower boxes were later put on the window sills of our school to help "beautify" our dreary exterior.

I'm getting really good at taking pictures around school without including any students' faces.

Now for the real story!

We read a book called, "Rent a Third Grader" in my language arts class. The book itself is mediocre and uninteresting, in my opinion, however there is a neat opportunity for fundraising projects that can be emulated in real life. Last year, we raised money for a foster baby's formula. This year, we decided to raise money for the Red Cross in Japan. I made fundraising notebooks for my students, where they could record the work they did to earn money, write their common goals which they developed together as class, and track the total money collected. They also used these notebooks for brainstorming, poster proposals, and reflections. We were doing so well--after a week and a half, they had earned just a tad over 200 kuai by doing odd jobs and chores in their communities. The next step was our bake sale. Ironically, I made three pretty big mistakes that could have hindered the sale in a big way. It's ironic because in the book, "Rent a Third Grader", the characters are always falling into bad luck.

Mistake #1: I forgot to send the letter home that was to inform all the elementary students about our bake sale on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Mistake #2: I forgot to buy brownie mixes over the weekend, and on Tuesday night they were all sold out. So....no brownies!

Mistake #3: I forgot the large bowl of cookie dough that I had made Tuesday night (to replace the brownies) in my fridge...so no cookies!

Wednesday seemed like it would not be a good day for the sale. I had brought mixing bowls, measuring cups, baking pans, pot holders, and spatulas, but had forgotten the doughs and batters. I had forgotten to inform our customers about our little sale....I even announced in the morning staff meeting that we would postpone the sale until the next day.

However, my students impressed me by arriving to school with shopping bags, ziplocs, and picnic coolers filled with baked goods that they had made at home on their own! Wow! We were still able to have our bake and craft sale on Wednesday because the students happened to be more prepared and responsible than their teacher. Have I trained them well or am I losing my mind?

Here's some of the pile of food that the students brought. One girl even brought a brownie mix, which was perfect, since I had brought everything (even the oil!) but now mix.

We got to work, and worked from 8:30-10:30 on making posters, book marks, greeting cards, and other little crafts so that we would be ready for lunch recess and the bake sale that we planned to have during that time.

Here are some poster proposals that won and were copied onto larger posters.

Our first bake sale day, which I thought would be a failure, had an awesome turn out! We had lots of food: banana bread, fruit kabobs with drizzled chocolate, brownies, rice krispies, and pop corn. And we had a lot of crafts to share too!

I was so thankful for my students! I began the morning with confessing and apologizing for my three mistakes. I thought I was going to have to tell them we would have to postpone the sale, which I knew would disappoint their excited hearts...but they pulled through! :)

Cute bookmarks that they created.

Part of a poster....since I can't share pictures of the actual kids, this student's rendering of what the bake sale looked like will have to do.

Even though no one really knew about the sale, the kids still made about 300 kuai! That's quite a lot actually! That left us with a little over 500 kuai--the third graders are trying to reach their goal of 1,500 kuai.

Later that day, a lady bug kept following one particular student around. It was very humorous. So we wrote some sentences about the lady bug and corrected them with proper punctuation.

Thursday's bake sale was more ambitious. I finally sent the letter home to all the elementary students announcing the purpose of the sale and how all items being sold were made by third graders and being sold for 2-5 kuai. We continued making crafts and we baked up a storm! I didn't get a picture of it, but we had two ovens in our classroom, baking non stop for almost three hours!

Cute little paper bird some girls were working on making for the sale.

Setting up while our students ate. My TI and I had a stressful job trying to make all the goodies fit on the table and shooing all the elementary students away--"Go outside or else you don't get to buy anything!" became the overarching threat.

Lots more food. Three kinds of cookies, cinnamon muffins, cheese cake, cheese sandwiches (a cute little girl made since she doesn't know how to bake anything), rice krispies, dozens of brownies, banana bread, more popcorn....so much food! Even cupcakes...

One of my cute little girls made these cookies and then packaged them very sweetly. She is an only child and her mom has a lot of cute ways of packaging food (she sends me snacks sometimes). It looks very impressive for an 8 year old to make, but I totally believe that she did it on her own! She's that kind of over achieving, incredibly talented students that just melts your heart with sweetness.

The back of her cookie package! Looks so much better than my plastic wrapped cookies.


Ok--so the line today at lunch recess was insanely long! I did take a picture of it because it wrapped around the lobby where we were set up and even went outside a little bit. Some people stood in line for almost 30 minutes! My students were able to raise over 700 kuai on today's sales alone! They now have 1,242 kuai in their treasury! With one day left to sell and another week left to work in their communities, they will for sure reach their fundraising goal!

I hope that through this project, they will learn the important of helping of others in need (even their enemies--since there is some cultural animosity there), and that they can do so much to help the world even if they are young. It has been great to watch them take ownership of this project. I will share the common goals another time, but they sound like official statements that could be posted on company websites. They came up with their ideas and voted on everything very democratically and one their own. What great students I have been blessed with this year. I will miss spending time with them very much.

One girl kept saying over and over again, "I just love crafts....I just love crafts". The boys were singing strange songs about mother's day that they were making up as they made greeting cards. There was one little girl who delighted in helping with the cookies because she had never baked cookies before. What a fun opportunity I was privileged to be a part of!

I will miss teaching.

~julie

Eventful Friday

Yesterday was Friday--and a very fun day at school for me!

1. We had our County Fair during language arts time.

2. I got to help out with the readers theater at chapel time.

3. Third grade went up to middle school for some electricity presentations

4. Lots of specials in the afternoon...and no Chinese lessons for me (which is a definite plus with my pregnancy brain)

It was also a little stressful because we had another outbreak of lice among the elementary students towards the end of the day and everyone had to be checked. I also realized that I was moving from 12 students to 18 students starting on Monday and needed to rearrange my classroom to accommodate the growth. I hadn't thought of how I wanted to change the room before, so at 3:30 I had a little panic attack. I stayed until 8pm to make sure everything was ready for Monday. I guess this paragraph isn't entirely honest. I had planned to stay late anyway (but to work on organizing files). And I already had about 16 students during math, but now the numbers are increasing in all subject areas.

Also, next week is going to be quite crazy with lessons. We're watching "Charlotte's Web" and "The Tale of Despereaux" since we just finished both books. We have five writing projects. We have a big science review and test (and an abnormal science schedule). We have new students in just about every class. I have a new Korean student who is going to be in mainstream--but he wont be able to do any of the language arts lessons that the others will be working on since he didn't read "Charlotte's Web"--so I have to have 75 minutes of separate plans for him...every day...for two weeks. There's also the read-a-thon to help with after school on Friday, and a few new units to start throughout the week. Usually weeks are not this crazy. I had to make a whole schedule for just this week because it is so different than normal and I couldn't visualize what it was going to look like.

Monday is like the first day of school all over again. So many changes!

Here are some pictures from the County Fair. It was a short activity but the kids seemed to be very excited about it. They brought in treats and their prized stuffed animals to exhibit. We played fair-like games and they dressed in the "Sunday best" outfits. We had an "animal competition". They ate a rat's paradise, literally, just like Templeton. If I were to do this again, I would definitely make a limit on sweets. I was shocked at how much they ate while my back was turned! We also awarded some stuffed animals with blue ribbons. It was fun, and cute! Most of them have never been to a county fair before and some had never heard of one before. It's a little hard to emulate a fair in one's classroom--but the kids didn't notice the limitations at all. Before the fair started, I sent them downstairs with our TI to pop the popcorn. While they were gone, I quickly set up the games. When they came back, I handed them their tickets and quickly explained how to play some of the activities. They were all "oohing" and "ahing" as if the classroom had been transformed into a magical place. Really, only minor changes were made--so I loved their enthusiasm.

Some animals in their "pens". And the sharp shooter's booth.

Some more animals.

Dropping clothes pins into a jar...really these are such simple activities, but the students go gaga over them.

The cup game---try to guess which cup has the piece of paper underneath and win five tickets!

These were just some of the treats that we ate. More cookies and popcorn came out as well. I ate too much sugar as well. Oof. Friday was a sugar-fest.

The room was ready for the students!

Science

Later that day, we were in Mr. Johnson's classroom where the 8th graders gave some fun presentations to my students. Both 3rd grade and 8th grade were working on an electricity unit. This was a great opportunity for Adam and I to collaborate together. I wish that we had done this more often in the past!

One of the groups that was running a station had a lot of problems. The computer they were using kept crashing, and the lemon/light bulb demo that had planned was not working. There seemed to be a problem with the wires---I felt bad for the students who had planned this presentation. It's always stressful when technical difficulties inhibit teaching/learning.

Adam tried to fix their lemon/light bulb contraption--but to no avail.

Classroom Spaces

Late on Friday night...as ready as I could manage to get before 8pm.

Just a few minor changes, you might not even notice, but to me they feel huge.

I had to remove 5 pieces of furniture and currently don't have a desk chair.

Pieces were shifted around and desks were rotated. I have a whole new table group.

My easel is gone...most sad about that.

In retrospect, I wish that the little whiteboard (which used to rest on my easel) had been hung several inches lower so that it was more in line with window sill. Oh well. The holes that the nails caused are quite gruesome, and moving it lower will just make the wall look worse at this point. The white board is also crooked. I don't know what it is, but our truly awesome maintenance staff often has difficulty hanging bulletin boards/white boards/whatever so that they are level. It's going to drive the OCD in me crazy!

Rather than get rid of my little reading rug, just found a new corner for it.

Still so much to get ready, but that can be done throughout the week. I hope everything will work out smoothly on Monday with all the new transitions.

~julie

This and That

Some pictures from the last month. November was not a good month for blogging. My lap top died in October, and I could give it to our school's tech guy so he can fix it, but I'm just worried that he wont be able to--plus I keep forgetting to bring it to school with me--so I've been sharing a computer with Adam lately.

The next three pictures are from last week when I was helping a friend organize costumes for the elementary Christmas concert--we were left at the school (the bus left without us) accidentally, and so found our self walking in the pitch dark of the industrial roads, finally catching a little rickshaw, riding it to the main road, where we stood for ten minutes or so trying to catch a taxi. I got home and Adam was really worried because he didn't know where I was, and I should have been home a while before.

Some guys who live in Shenyang from Papua New Guinea, telling us about their homeland and culture. The people in PNG are really interesting, and it's hard for me to wrap my mind around it. All three of these men come from such a small place geographically, but they are from different tribes--which means they have different languages and customs. It's mind boggling to hear how many tribes there are in PNG that are still intact and separate from the rest of the tribes.

One of our P.E. teachers is from Fiji--so he presented about his nation at International Day. It is very interesting to hear how he grew up, and the things that people do in Fiji still today. They go spear fishing for their dinner, and live in small huts where the children sleep on mats woven from coconut tree branches. Boys learn to climb coconut treas and weave baskets, and women wear dark charcoal on their body for sunscreen. Such a different culture, it's hard for me to even understand it, but it sounds peaceful and very tropical. Dealing with barracudas, sharks, and tourists....

Getting ready for some solution and suspension experiments.

Creating clay creations to teach about the writing process. Students make something out of clay, then add something, change something, remove something, and change something again. They give it a title, and then pass their plate around to get comments and questions from their peers. This is supposed to be a model for how students should look at their writing process.

I wanted this book for my classroom so badly. I even looked for it at book stores this summer. I remember reading it, and having it read to me by Mrs. Nozime, when I was in elementary school and thinking what a powerful story it is. Plus, Patricia Polacco is one of my favorite authors because her stories are so rich and inspired by true events. Her illustrations are great too. Anyway, one of my student's parents is working on college course right now, and she had to order "Pink and Say" for a project. She knew that I like this book and loaned it to me so that I could read it to my students. Of course, I cried and cried at the end of the story. One of my tough boys, who understands the most about the Civil War also shed a few tears. The pictures are sad.

~julie