day in the life: 10-3

I only have one class in the morning, the rest of the morning I spend doing school focused work.

But first we recess. Ma’am Hazel always buys my meryenda. At first I offered like crazy to buy it, or buy my own. She buys meryenda. I’m finally getting over the guilt, and try really hard to like some of the choices she makes. Usually we have hot cakes (which are like thick crepes, with butter and sugar), ice candy (think popsicle in a plastic bag, no stick), and banana-que. It use to be we had turon also, which is a personal favorite, but this year they have not made it a lot. Sometimes she’ll buy pansit. Which is awkward. Pansit is one of my favorite foods, but I really don’t like my schools’ pansit. They put the nasty pink hot dogs in it, and teeny-tiny shrimp still in the shell with the super long antennae still attached. Not my favorite at all, but she knows I like pansit. Sometimes we eat in the classroom, which I like, we discuss what it was like for her to grow up in Mindanao or we discuss lesson topics for the week.  Sometimes we eat in the canteen, which I also like, we get to sit with the other teachers and just talk away.

After recess I go talk to Ma’am Vivian for a bit and do some library stuff or go home to work on some lesson things. If I really have no idea what to do for the lesson I’ll go to the where the Internet is and do some research.

Then I go home and eat lunch. Nothing fancy, usually tuna fish and crackers or a fried PB and J or oatmeal. Depending on the day and how hot it is I’ll take a quick nap or read and hope for an afternoon shower to come.

If the shower does come I go to school around 2:30, if not I’ll go back to school between 1:00 and 2:30. I never know when Ma’am will come back from lunch or what she will be working on. We discuss lesson topics and usually I learn that that lesson I worked on during break will not be taught that day (or probably ever) and instead we’ll probably teach Grade 6 something that is very similar to what we taught Grade 5. I’ll buy us sodas if it is super hot. We wait for the teacher to come tell us it is our turn around 2:35 and we talk with her for about half an hour (our class starts at 2:40).

Then I put out the hint to go to class by going to class, subtle I know.