Let Me Explain....

 I’ve been writing a lot less this time in Africa. Sorry self, sorry everyone. But if I can make any concessions and excuses they are as follows:

-School has picked up. We’re getting closer and closer to exam time (where essentially schools shut down and the kids only test) so I’ve been needing to get a lot of business in order. My classes are really far behind- partially due to constantly thinking I can get more done in a class than is realistic and partially due to behavior issues. My kids are precious angels and simultaneously devil children. I love them to pieces, but a few of them make it really hard sometimes. I had to walk out of class on Tuesday and count to 10 I was so angry. I hoped this would have the same effect as the few times my mother got so fed up with my brother, sister, and me that she got in the car and drove away. Back then, I knew I was in for PAIN when either her or my dad came home. That wasn't wasn't really the achieved effect when I entered the classroom though, and I just got even madder.  But, my co-teacher had my back like a champ. She followed both my classes to their next class and told them they couldn't come back to English class that week until they wrote me a letter of apology. PREACH TEACH!!!! I'll have to throw some pictures of these letters up here, as they are pretty great. Although, most of the kids who wrote them were the ones who didn't actually misbehave and I felt bad. 

-I have a routine now. While I usually hate knowing exactly what my day is going to be like before it happens, it's kinda nice this time around. Things have fallen into a system, and since I'm me, I'm usually out of the house by 6:45am and back 12 hours later. Long days. 

-My laptop got stolen out of the locked trunk of my car. I should be more mad about the loss of pictures, months of learner's marks, super important saved information, and just pure annoyance, but....what can you do? I've just got to buy a second hand PC and get back on that blog train. It's just dumb because that computer was almost 10 years old, couldn't even run Google Chrome, and was basically just powered by the sands of time. So, basically, South African gangsters got a crap ton of pictures of drunk college kids in costumes, lesson plans, and obsolete computer parts and I got a really limited Christmas list this year.

-I’m “studying” for the GREs. By that I mean I’m actually serious about it now and am constantly filled with anxiety and a lack of self worth because I can't solve math problems I could do in high school. Well, actually, my giant GRE study book also got stolen out of my car....so I've taken a short sabbatical. The theft of the book might actually be more infuriating than the laptop cause I KNOW ain't no one else looking at that shit.

-My friends (I have some now!) like to hang out and chill. I’m good at chilling. I like chilling. So I have been chilling.

-The #GirlSquad American Fortess (a.k.a- our house) tends to enter into a state of antics after 7pm. Somewhere between cooking dinner, organizing for the next day, and yelling at Nana, we find ourselves YouTubing classic American folk songs, talking about teaching, complain about something, laughing at everything, and sometimes being generally unproductive. Well, I'm unproductive and easily distracted. Izora and Lizzy get things done, I instagram and sometimes think whiskey and tequila go together (...they don't). When I was in the Namibian village, it was much easier to talk about yourself over the internet when you have no one else to talk to.

-I've been coming up with cool challenges for my learners. I teach Art Club on Saturdays now and I try to prompt and promote creative and critical thinking with cool assignments. I'm still waiting to see some return on investments here as I don't always explain things the best.

-both Adele and Beyonce have new albums. I mean, that's just rude. How am I supposed to get anything done?

So, please accept my apology in the form of this video of morning assembly!