EE I EE I O

Perhaps unsurprisingly, much of the new vocabulary I've picked up deals with discipline. The teachers here do not mess around when they yell at their students. Maybe I'm forgetting something, but I don't think I was ever sent to the corner and told to face the wall. Nor was I sent into the hallway only to be told to move away from the door because the teacher didn't want to see my face. Again, it's entirely possible that I'm just blocking this from memory. "Tu te calme!" is one of the phrases I hear multiple times throughout the day. I tried this on my sister while she was here. She didn't like it, per se. On some days, I feel bad for the kids, but on others, not so much. Yesterday was a complete and total circus: 2 of my little kids got pushed down the stairs (by the same kid - a new guy who already told me he knows a "gros mot en anglais." Yup, a 7 year old dropped the f-bomb on me!), many tears were spilled, recess was more like a general wrestling hour, and one of my older kids got BIT. The offender even drew blood! I hope he's not rabid...I'll let you know if anyone starts foaming at the mouth during Sports Day.

The good news is, with all the crazy energy pumping through my students, I was able to turn English class into calisthenics hour. If you didn't think Old MacDonald could be choreographed into a makeshift step aerobics routine, you were mistaken. Throwing a "moo" here or there and "moo moos" everywhere is exhausting stuff. The kids think it's funny when I jump around, but I don't really know what the teacher makes of it. It's really too late at this point to start worrying about that stuff, though.