Friday, February 21, 2014

Today I got a lot more honey-melon for breakfast.  And it was jeans day, so it had the makings of a good day from the very beginning.  Today was quiz day for the 9^th Graders and Jeopardy for the 10^th Graders.  I got to play a review game with the 9^th Graders before their quiz.  The game was basically candy-land, only with a snake-like figure on the board.  The teams got to roll the dice for each question they got correct.  Afterwards, they took the quiz, graded it, and had free time.  During their free time, a couple of the kids were playing volleyball with a balloon.  That gave me a great idea for a review game.  I could have a representative from each team play one-on-one volleyball with a balloon and the winner of each point would be given the chance to answer a question for a point.  After the 10^th Graders finished their warm-up, I had my computer hooked up to the projector.  I ran a Colonialism Jeopardy game.  Unfortunately, we ran out of time, so its’ fun level could only be so high.  After school we had a meeting, the first part of which was actually pretty cool.  One of the teachers talked about a chapter in a book that the school is assigning a chapter to each faculty member to talk about.  This one was about how to be a favorite teacher.  We also got a little bit more information about a soccer tournament that the school is hosting in a week and a half.  The rest consisted of bickering about trivial things like whether grade level meetings should be during lunch or after-school.  It concluded with instructions about turnitin.com, instructions that were in Spanish, about something I’ve been using since 9^th grade, and something that I couldn’t even access anyway.  On the bright side, Katie’s parents had gotten in to the country once we were done with the meeting, so a happy Katie is a fun Katie.  We walked around Santa Ana and went to dinner with them at a place called “The Old West.”  It was probably the most Americanized food that I’ve had since I’ve been here.  Then I found out that I passed my OPTE, which means that I am one step closer to becoming certified.  I finished the night off by Skyping my parents and brother Jordan.  That was Skype date number three with them.  Look out world, I’m on pace to hit double digits by AprilJ  We’re off to Manuel Antonio bright and early in the morning tomorrow.