Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Today was significantly more exciting.  I started the day off with probably the best omelet I’ve ever had.  The bus ride even seemed shorter than normal, getting us to school by 7:00.  We were talking about Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great today.  I spent the morning prepping an activity over the 1649 Russian Law Code that I was exposed to in my lovely Russia to 1865 course in the fall.  McCall called me a nerd because I was getting all excited about how fascinating the laws were.  I’m a sucker for interesting primary source documents.  In the classes themselves, we started the class off with a map activity over territorial expansion.  They struggled with it a little bit, so I had a great time going around and helping them out.  I saw several light bulbs click, which was an awesome part of my day!  Afterwards, we read through the chapter.  And by we, I mean I read the chapter aloud and asked questions.  I got to pronounce words like the “boyars” and “Visily” to the class.  Finally, I got to have them analyze the Russian Law Code and answer whether or not they thought the laws were fair.  I had them focus on laws related to whether or not the death penalty should be enforced because there were many discrepancies.  Some of those kids really got into the debate about the laws’ fairness; moreso than I could have hoped for.  That was the first lesson in which I felt like I had the spotlight and I had a blast going through it.  Funny story interruption:  I had a student ask what bonus was, only instead he asked what a “boner was.”  I may not have kept a straight face.  English as a Second Language kids can be entertaining.  Tonight was Parent Night for the high schoolers, so Katie and I had to hang out until the first part of that at 6:00.  It was interesting to see all the different parents.  Pan-American is definitely a private school.  When I got home, Liliana cooked up a steak with a bunch of differently cooked onions.  She likes to cook onions.  It was really good, but I think I might have onion breath tomorrow.  I’ll let you know.