I spent four hours today and four-plus yesterday making the schedule for 22 classrooms, encompassing about 1200 students and 30 teachers. It was a fun logic puzzle, but as logic puzzles are hard to do with other people asking why you're making every move and staring at you the whole time, it was tiring.
But that's been the crux of the work this week. And now I know I have 6 turmas, about 330 students, of 10th grade Biology. I'm giving them exam preparation, I am the chief of Biology during the day session, I will be the director of one of those 6 turmas, and more importantly, none (repeat: NONE) of this is written in stone. I couldn't have asked for a better schedule and responsibilities, but it will most likely change.
I think the journal writing has fallen off lately due to a combination of factors. One is that nothing that new is going on (this is the second time around, after all), I have better outlets for stress relief and casual conversation, and I'm not taking a drug that makes me hyper-emotional. Other than that...
The kids have been overly obnoxious as of late, but I'm keeping that in check with being overly strict. They stole the handle to our outside tap, rendering it practically useless. I have little hope of getting it back, but here's hoping.
Changana is getting going again with Alfredo's lessons to Nanosh. Now he starts to initiate Changana conversations that I finish off. It'll be really fun when we end up speaking to each other in Changana - what a cool secret language to have.
I'm planning on giving my 10th graders quite a bit of work to do, mainly because I know they are capable of so much. Annie and I discussed a partnership between Vukoxa and some of my students where they volunteer their time to help out elderly caretakers who are unable to do certain things like cook, etc. I'm also going to try and get them to plant and take care of some donated plants at school. In addition, every trimester they'll have a small group project teaching the rest of their turma one subject that is necessary to know for the exams. Hopefully, this will make exam studying that much easier.
Peace
John
