Happy valentine's day and crap like that

I just want to quickly review the highs and lows of my not yet completed day:

1st Period - One of my worst students punched a girl hard in the arm in a not playing fashion, when she turned to accost him, he made a threatening posture and called her a kutchka. He refused to leave my class, telling me in clear English that he didn't understand me and could I please translate.

2nd + 3rd Periods - With my favorite, 8a. In honor of St. Valentine's day, we wrote letters to our valentines. He or she could be fictional, a star, or real. He/She could remain nameless. I have a group of 4 boys in that class who'd like to kill me. They are just rambunctious boys with generally good hearts. I love them to death, but they are quite disturbing. They frequently distract me from teaching like they do eachother from learning. Well, as I was reading their paragraphs one called me to ask how to translate "tup tup." I look at the sentence, "When I see you, my heart goes tup tup inside me." OHHHH HOW PRECIOUS!! The one sitting next to him said something equally sweet (for an 8th grade boy writing in a foreign language), "The first time I saw you, the world stopped." I remarked on the sweetness of this, and he looks at the other boys in the little clickche and said, "taka e." oh. These guys give me hope. Please world, don't corrupt these boys who have feelings and sentimentality. Please, let them maintain a small piece of innocence and love and beauty and romance.

I'm not much of a romantic in the modern sense of the word. I don't really care for wasteful shows of affection just for the sake of it, especially forced ones like Valentine's Day. But between my friend who yesterday reminded me that there are still sensitive, unmanipulative, and caring men in the world, and my boys today who reminded me that boys weren't born stupid, but that the world drains them of all sensitivity, I feel pretty blessed in that Valentine's Day kinda way... At least, as much as I can be as I sit in my messy apartment, alone.

oh, so...

4th P. BREAK!!
5th P. 10b. These kids are smart, but never want to work, except for a small handful. When they wouldn't be quiet long enough for me to tell them about Valentine's Day in the states, I decided that today would be a good day for a listening test. I went overboard and let them listen to the text 4 times. It wasn't really a test, as they talked to each other. I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan of tests, as they encourage a useless style of learning (rote memory and regurgitation of facts). I'm just so tired of them sitting in small groups and, while not really distracting those who want to learn, not doing ANYTHING. When I was in HS and didn't want to pay attention, I at least had to pretend. It took a bit of work and skill to avoid a teacher's disapproving stare. And to be called out in class was a bad thing. It was embarrassing. These kids don't care. It's more like I am distracting them. gr. So today, the kids who care to try kept the others quiet so they could hear the tape. And the noisy ones had to try at least to find someone to copy off of. So I feel I accomplished a bit of something.

6th P. 8b. This class is irritating not because of the students, but because I have them for one hour once a week. Well, I have 3 classes like that, but this class I'm supposed to do project work with. So, a project that should take a couple of days takes us a couple of weeks because we get so little time to work on them. But the kiddos like doing projects, so they do actually work on them at home and what not.

Now I'm going to eat leftovers and celebrate one of today's many holidays. It's Saint Valentine's Day, and Trifon Zarableblah Den. I asked every one of my classes why they celebrate this dude, and no one seems to know why, but they all now how! I reckon I'll participate in a bit of that celebration right here by my lonesome. Y'all enjoy whatever it is you celebrate today for!!