Pink Lemonade <body> <body>

Happy Halloween!
Friday, October 28, 2011
♦ 10/28/2011 10:11:00 AM 1 comments

We've spent about two months discussing and several long weeks planning and preparing for Halloween at the Berhan Language Institute, and finally last night we were able to decorate and pull it all together. Today was our big activity, and I think it is safe to say that there were some very memorable things for the kids (good memories and bad memories; some of them cried because they got scared so badly). It was a LOT of work, and, despite my fears and worries, it was a really fun day (also despite the fact that most of us were running off of little to no sleep). Last night around 8:30, once classes were over and all the kids had gone home, we started decorating the entire first and second floors of the school. We didn't finish decorating until a bit after midnight, and I don't think we had our bedroom lights off until after 1 am. Then we had to be back downstairs, in costume, by 8:30 this morning.






Nerd Jessica

Spongebob Jenny

Mummy Sara and Pirate Kylie

Mr. Veronica (with Kylie and Maggie in the background)

Mysterious Kaylee

Veronica, Sara, Jessica, Kylie, Kaylee, Christina, Heather, me, Kendra

This time the same people as the picture previous (minus me) plus Jenny

Cut-throat Kylie's got a pretty nice ring to it, don't you think?

Kendra with some of the MK kids

More Mk'ers

Christina and Nica. Oh, man, this picture makes me laugh.

The bloody bandages hanging in front of the first floor kitchen


We were all super tired when we got up, but the fishing didn't take any energy (I sat behind a cardboard wall/door and just clipped things on to the end of a fishing pole; Gerald did all the talking and stuff with the kids on the other side), and the afternoon kids liked the slimy noodles. The AK kids LOVED it, and they loved seeing me (I didn't look scary yet). I scared Tim pretty bad. He went to pull out an "eye" from the noodles, and I had my hand under it (covered with noodles) and knocked it into the air, screaming, as he went to touch it. Then HE went screaming and ran back to his desk. I wasn't able to get pictures of ALL the AK kids, but I did manage to catch a few of them on... digital memory card (I was going to say "film," but who uses film any more?).


The fishing "door" that took up five hours of my life to make. Even Frances told me she liked the fish, and that's a Big Deal! I didn't like the way it looked last night when I finally called it quits, but, looking at it today? It does look pretty good. I hope they keep it for next time! (I only did fishing for the babies and MK; Jenny was the fisher for the afternoon classes.)

Jack and me before Afternoon rotations started 

The slimy noodles with a slimy mouse, some spiders, and eyes mixed in. There were a few other nasty random things, too (like a tomato that was almost totally demolished by the time evening classes were done with this and a bunch of grapes, also of which many were unrecognizable as fruit by the end).

Some of the decor of my classroom. Nica was in charge of designing/decorating this room, and I think she did a fabulous job!

Oscar saw the red-eye thinger on my camera light up and stopped digging long enough to smile at the camera. I love this kid!

Mia. She was not phased even a little bit by anything disgusting in here. She just dug right in, found what I told her to find, and went back to her seat. This kid has only 2 facial expressions: this one, and crying (which I've only actually seen her do twice; Jack and Sam cry a hundred times more than she does).

Vincent

Tiffany (shaking some noodles off her hand)

Kevin

Coco

Jay


Me, Candice, and... a girl I don't know.

Me, another girl I don't know, and Nick
 Ok, the deal with the mystery children. Nick and Candice were with this group of kids instead of with the rest of the AK kids. They were my very first slimy noodle rotation, and I really wanted to try to get a picture of/with all my AK kids (but I totally failed with accomplishing this as I missed out taking pictures of an entire group of them; sad hearts). I took the pictures with Nick and Candice first, and then all these other little kids in the group wanted a picture with me, too, so I obliged them.


And this little girl really wanted me to wear my sparkly glasses, so I did.


The evening kids... well, I think most of them liked it OK, but by that time I had a bad headache, I was getting really shaky and dizzy from not eating (there wasn't any time to eat after noon today) and it was hard to get some of the older ones to cooperate. Amanda from my elementary class told me when she came in (the room was dark, by the way; there were only two lights: the bug zapper light and the light coming in through the window from the hall) "Miss Rachel, you don't look like you." I asked her if I looked scary, and she said "A little bit scary" in a voice that said, "You're making me nervous. Can you please not stare at me/stand so close to me?"

Heather and me in our Evening Garb. I actually added a trickle of blood from the stitches on my forehead shortly after this picture was taken

The festivities finished at about 8 pm, and we were completely done cleaning everything up by nine. It's disgusting how long it takes to prepare for something like this and how little time it takes to destroy clean it up.

Meanwhile, I'm seriously looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow and catching up on some much-needed R&R.






Labels: , , , ,


The daily commute
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
♦ 10/19/2011 08:09:00 PM 0 comments

Pinned Image

This is why literally living at work is not too bad. Unless...

TRAFFIC JAM ON THE STAIRS! STAMPEDE!

(can you tell I haven't gotten much sleep lately?)



Lukang
Sunday, October 16, 2011
♦ 10/16/2011 02:25:00 AM 1 comments

*Note: I've been made aware that my archives are having... issues. This, I hope, will be resolved in the near-ish future. Until then, I'm sorry if you miss a post.

So, yesterday (Saturday), some of us took the train to Changhua to meet Bree and Jessica Stoker (they teach at the ILP school there), who then showed us the way to Lukang.

Lukang is one of the older villages in Taiwan. When we got there, we went down Old Market Street and just wandered around shopping for the day.







(I want a door like this some day)










Labels: , ,



about

"I think I know how it is to be grown up; it's when you feel how someone feels that isn't you." -Frances Griffiths

Katria's Creations
Katria's Photo a Week

My Day Zero Goals

Home



Visitors



links

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Mormon.org
My Media Library
Strong Bad
The Weekly Svithe




& more








my past

12.2005
01.2006
02.2006
03.2006
04.2006
05.2006
06.2006
07.2006
08.2006
09.2006
10.2006
11.2006
12.2006
01.2007
02.2007
03.2007
04.2007
05.2007
06.2007
07.2007
08.2007
09.2007
10.2007
11.2007
12.2007
01.2008
02.2008
03.2008
04.2008
05.2008
06.2008
07.2008
08.2008
09.2008
10.2008
11.2008
12.2008
01.2009
02.2009
03.2009
04.2009
05.2009
06.2009
07.2009
08.2009
09.2009
10.2009
11.2009
12.2009
01.2010
02.2010
03.2010
04.2010
05.2010
06.2010
07.2010
08.2010
09.2010
10.2010
11.2010
12.2010
01.2011
02.2011
03.2011
04.2011
05.2011
06.2011
07.2011
08.2011
09.2011
10.2011
11.2011
12.2011
01.2012
03.2012
04.2012
05.2012
06.2012
07.2012
08.2012
09.2012
01.2013
03.2013
04.2013
05.2013
06.2013
08.2013
10.2013

template credits

layout: + +
fonts: +
brushes: + +
image: +






<