What is Obama's last name?

Yep, my co-teacher yesterday asked me what Obama's last name is. The class had learned a QA during her solo-class with them that asked "Who is the president of _________." We always fill in the ROC and the USA.

I informed her, and all of my kids, that he is President Barack Obama and that "Obama" is in fact his last name. That whole first name/last name thing really screws people up sometimes.

My classes went pretty well yesterday. I actually kind of like teaching at Dar-Nan. It's a simpler school, but that's OK. I like that, as far as my regular classes though, I have a pretty good spread. I'm at two schools that are in areas with less money than most and then I'm at two schools where most of the kids' parents are kind of loaded compared to the average.

Actually, I'm at either Dar-Nan or Dar-Chu four out of six days this week.

Also, it's fun to just walk around out there. There is a little market right down the street from both Dar-Nan and Dar-Chu. I love to just walk around and look at everything. I can't wait until the day when I can actually stop and talk to the people who have stands at the market. Then I can really learn more about what's going on there.

Maybe I'll take some pictures out at the market at Dar-Chu today.

I think I have a few more ideas for my news camp. Also Anita asked me if I would like to take another news camp that might be opening up on Saturdays. That will really fill up my Saturday schedule, but that's OK. I need the money, not to mention it sucks having that big four-hour gap in the middle of my day.

I think if they put it during that time then I'll say yes. I don't want it to be after my 6 p.m. class though. That would make for a super long and annoying day.

Plan for today: Yoga, lesson plans, Dar-Chu to sub two of Megan's classes since she's in Thailand (and I'm obviously super jealous), then making up some materials for that news camp so that hopefully this Friday goes better.

How do you spell your name?

I subbed one class today and I started my first regular class today.

It looks like my main school is out in Dar-Chu which seems to be a poorer area. It's not terrible, I don't think. The school is kind of small, but the kids are super sweet.

I subbed a class of really young kids. They were probably all about 5 or 6 years old.

For review, we went over how to spell each of their names. When I first got here, Megan gave me this tub that had 15 different colors of play-dough in it. I gave each kid a little thing of play-dough and told them each to spell their names with it.

It was so adorable!

I didn't have my camera with me (go figure) but my co-teacher let me take pictures with her camera. She's going to e-mail them to me later, so I will post them then.

I told the co-teacher, Stacy, that I just learned to write a couple of Chinese characters today and I have to do them for homework. She was really excited about it and encouraged me to work on it during break.

I started writing them on the board and this little girl, Jade, came over and started helping me.

I told her I was trying to write the word "Wo," which is "I" and she just started writing away and I copied her stroke pattern. I know what the character looks like, but it's sometimes hard to remember which order to do everything in. Sometimes it just makes sense, but sometimes it doesn't really seem like it should matter. It all looks like the same character in the end.

Anyway, Jade and I spent the whole break writing, "Wo shi Mei Guo ren." (I am American.)

I kind of hope I can pick up that class when Dawn leaves. I think she's supposed to leave in a month or so anyway.

My class wasn't as fun, but it was mostly logistics and getting to know each other.

We didn't have a ton of time for games, but I started off class with the name game. I love playing the name game. We came up with some funny things to help remember, too.

Ken Kangaroo, Big Janice Jellyfish, Jacky Jacket, Edison Elephant, Ruby Rabbit, Alice Apple, Little Janice Jump, Sandy Sun, Aaron Apple Pie, Jim Gem, Sophia Snake.

I can already tell that Ken is going to be a little frustrating to work with. He sits right up at the front of class, but he's not very engaged. He spent the entire class drawing, tapping his feet, rocking back in his chair or burping.

It was gross.

He's not stupid by all means. He knew the answers to questions when I made him answer, he just doesn't exactly volunteer himself and he doesn't do his homework.

The rest of the kids are kind of quiet. I think that might have something to do with their last foreign teacher leaving without saying, "Bye."

I let them all ask questions about me and I told them where I'm from. I think I'll probably encourage more later, of course. Hopefully, once they get use to me, they will volunteer more participation and be a little louder.

I start my next regular class tomorrow. Hopefully it's fun!