Outside of ESL classes....

What's up? How's life? Eventful in mostly good ways I hope! Well, my week was a little less eventful...or kinda eventful yet...not fun I guess. Well I got a cold from cold wind+ wet hair combination last Sunday night! Yes it happens that fast for me. And then Tuesday night I woke up with a fever, and it continued on and off, until Thursday morning. Unfortunately I did not get to work the rest of the week. :/ Finally Friday we went to the Doctor and after some samples and blood tests, I found out Saturday that I have a Parasite and a bacterial infection and a cold...yaaayyy...Thankfully this all explains the issues I have been having health-wise and I am now on two different medications and antibiotics and hopefully on the mend! But I do feel much better than I have, and I have been assured I will be back to normal once I'm through with the meds. FUN STUFF HUH!?
Yeah I know it's not super exciting stuff, like last week but it is the non-glamorous side of traveling and I feel like sometimes a balance is necessary ;)

But not to bore you with my sick days.....I will tell you about what I usually do in school after I am done with my lessons! Since my classes only last from 10am -12:30pm, I go upstairs to the older kids (2nd grade+) and basically help students correct their homework, and help them when they get stuck on their work. To my dismay I have become a go to person for basic math... my mom is going to laugh and say: " I TOLD YOU, YOU WERE GOOD AT IT!" Well ....yes mom I have been able to successfully help kids with long-division, geometry, subtractions and multiplications so far (I had to reteach myself the long-divison). And I may have had to correct some of my advice I gave to the kids. But teachers are always learning too! I was helping one of the older boys Mason with his Geometry and he had to find the area and the perimeter for a set of shapes and he wasn't getting the answers quite right. So I had to explain the formulas to him again and I had him show me which sides you add or multiply. After he got the answers corrected for one of the shapes I patted him on the shoulder and barely took 3 steps away when he turns around wide-eyed and goes:" Where are you going?? I still need help!"  A little shocked he really wanted my help, I go: "Oh....um. Okay! Sure!"  (I say shocked because when I didn't quite understand what he was supposed to do he said:" Miss Julia go look at the score key, it will help." .....it did). He's the sweetest boy who is in 8th grade and about a good few inches taller than I am!


Last week I was helping a girl with her vocabulary, because each subject gives the kids new vocabulary for them to learn in English and Spanish, so I was having her explain the meanings of her vocab, and on one of the words she was trying to tell me: "It's what a butterfly is before it gets wings." And I was pretty certain that Cuba was not a caterpillar in Spanish. I told her they were talking about the country, and she was 100% certain I was wrong since I didn't know Spanish. We went back and forth for a few minutes and I ended up grabbing my co-worker Juan, who only speaks Spanish and he told her they were indeed talking about the country.  I may have celebrated that victory a little too much, but man winning an argument with a child is quite the accomplishment sometimes - you parents out there don't lie!!

These kids are awesome! Very intelligent and precious and I am loving working with them!

Love,

Jules