"F" I'll give you a word for that, freedom... "D," I'll give you a word for that, dirty diapers.... "C" I'll give you a word for that, choking

Small Stars continue to amaze me.

Sunday morning I subbed in at Beijing 2 while a few other teachers at my school with empty time slots took over my own classes. My first small star class of the morning was lovely, but the second was awful! I had been warned that it was a rough class, but Laura told me later that they didn't give me the full details upfront so I wouldn't have the chance to say "no." Turns out, Beijing 2 has their own set(!) of violent ones! It was a rough class. One mother sat through the entire class just to make sure her own child didn't get hurt. It was awful. I couldn't keep any of the students engaged at all for more than a minute and a half.

Last night, I taught one of my small star classes that only has three students. One little boy really is not ready to be in the class and he looks like he is about to fall asleep, which I don't blame him for... a 7:15 start time for a class is late for a little five year old! There is one girl in the class that is just right on track, both socially and academically, and then there is Percy. Percy probably has a better vocabulary bank than I did at 10! I don't think he knows what the words mean in English or even Chinese, but he can spit them out! He got super mad in the first stage of the class for not letting him go first with an activity. He was upset through most of the class which quickly grew weary for everyone in the room, including Aminata who was observing me. Towards the end of most of small star classes I review the name and sound of the letters they have studied and show a flashcard that has a picture of something that starts with the letter in question. We were going through the letters and Percy kept on saying, "Letter," I'll give you a word for that... and it would be something pretty fantastic. While the other two children said "Pencil" Percy said "Pollution." While the children said "Mel (the EF bird friend of Roddy)" Percy said "Mind-Bending." It was so odd listening to the two different levels of English that I lost it and started giggling even though I didn't want to, which, of course, egged Percy on! Aminata was just stone faced through all of Percy's craziness!

Last night, after the Percy episode, we all went out to celebrate Nick's last week. His last day is Friday, but last night was the best night for everyone to stay out. We took over four tables at the Korean BBQ place and overwhelmed the nice staff with our order. We had fun sharing Nick stories and toasting Nick about his year at EF and with us. Half of us ended up going to KTV and singing out hearts out. It was a fun night out.