Oh sorry guys, I didn't post in over a month

• I guess I should tell people what's happening with my life and there's no better way than starting with naughty students
• I had to kick one kid out of my class because he spit on another kid and when I asked him why he spit on the other kid he said, "because he spit on me" and me, being the great human being that I am, said, "well next time don't spit so loud and you won't get caught" to which when I realized my error further said, "and always remember the second person always gets caught so next time you tell me when the other kid spits on you"
• I'm better at saying off-the-cuff remarks (which is a big problem for new teachers) so instead of saying, "I'm going to kill you" in a playful manner when a student bothers me I now say, "I'm going to eat you" when a student bothers me because I feel I should say something they 100% understand as opposed to just 80% (verbs are always important to understand)
• I was playing hangman with my first grade kids and they had two choices, guess a letter or guess the word, and no matter how many times I told them it would probably be a better strategy to first guess a letter and then guess the word, they always felt like it was the last play of the Super Bowl and their team would lose if they didn't guess right. So I put in a new rule that the students must first guess two letters then guess the word
• Bruce: "Alright, guess a letter"
• 1st grade Chinese student: "Bear"
• Bruce: "...is bear a letter?"
• 1st grade Chinese student: "No...Circle"
• Bruce: "I'm going to eat you"
• 1st grade Chinese student: "什么意思？ (what does that mean?)"
• Bruce: "It means you lose"
• But now I know it's not just my problem or a problem with me
• I first thought, "oh man, it must be my bad Chinese" or "oh man, it must be I'm a bad teacher", but now I know it's just that kids aren't born brilliant and it's your job to fix it
• I was watching kids out on the basketball court do their morning exercises (1st-6th grade students) and a Chinese teacher (who I know speaks pretty good Chinese) was telling students how to perform a complicated exercise which consisted of the following two excruciatingly mind-boggling steps
• Reach your hands up in the air
• Touch your toes
• I think about half the kids got it after 3 tries and about 80% after try #5
• That made me feel like maybe I'm not such a bad teacher after all

• Shui Wei Arts Festival
•  Our school puts on an annual arts festival and it was really awesome, also because I got to be a judge

• Oh and in case I die in the coming months, I died in one of the following places while on winter vacation (it's for about a month and traveling in Asia while based in southern China is absolutely fantastically cheap-it's less than 100 USD to get to some places)
• South Korea
• Borneo
• Indonesia
• Singapore
• Malaysia
• Cambodia
• Angkor Wat
• Thailand