The Trip

Field trip to Wonderlab today. Yesterday a peep said, "Why do we go there?" I told him that we learn about science at Wonderlab. "What? Wonderlab is a science museum?" The peep seemed totally shocked. One mom volunteered to come along. I told her that her job would be to stay by Little Wonder Peep and watch him like a hawk. She seemed less certain about joining us, but I hope she will. That would be a big relief. It's going to be fun. I'm pretty sure it will be, at any rate.

The Dreams

Thanks to wonderful Sarah M., we have one last podcast up right here. It's about a book called Afghan Dreams, a book of beautiful photos and stories of Afghan kids. Check it out, mah fronds.

The Marathon

Today's the day of the grading marathon. I will grade all day for 26 hours straight.

The Fun

I had fun with my family of origin last weekend. Here's my dad dancing at the restaurant. He's 80 and couldn't be better. When I told my older sister that I was going to Kabul this summer, she got really excited, "You're going to love it! The beaches are great and the snorkelling is incredible. I'd go back to Cabo in a second."
"Not Cabo. Kabul. Afghanistan."
"Well. That's probably really different."

The Days

The days are dwindling down to a precious few, as my dad used to sing.
Not sure I can get everything done.
Am freaking out.
This always happens.
Now I get to have a stomach ache and clenched jaws or the next 2 weeks?
And the old eye twitch has started retwitching lately. Every so often.
Great.

The Crocheting

Don't know why I got so obsessed with buzkashi today. It was mentioned in a book we're reading, but once I learned the basic gist of buzkashi, I took the ball (or the goat) and ran with it and did not stop checking out buzkashi sites all afternoon. Way to obsess and lose valuable time doing other things, self.
At recess, I started the crocheting with 4 kids. Now I have to add a few more at a time. I headed out to the craft shop and stocked up on hooks. I also got a new book for myself. I'm making a dishcloth.

The Learning

Have you ever heard of buzkashi? I just learned about it today. Two teams on horseback fight over a beheaded goat, trying to score by throwing it into a circle. People in Northern Afghanistan play buzkashi.

The Days

I'm not usually much of a counter downer, but we're looking at 18 to go. I hope I can get the stories published. That's going to require one more big push. And I'd like to teach them to crochet as well.
And we have 20 high quality comments on the podcast. Today we're heading to computer lab, so we should make it to 30. All's well and we can continue with regulary programming. Thanks, peeps.

The Work

Sandra Day O Connor says happiness comes from work worth doing. I'm heading back in, to do the worthwhile work. Yesterday was a downer as the peeps were verging on hateful. Could they be angry at me, their teacher, as they struggle through ISTEP testing? Angry perhaps because they see me as the person who let them down and did not teach them how to do the various inane problems in the booklet before them. Perhaps. But on a good note, our podcast is getting some awesome comments. And the rosebreasted grosbeaks have been showing up all week to hog the feeder and to fill me with awe.
You still have to listen to the podcast. And comment. Sorry, but we have 17 more comments to get to our goal of 30. Come on, people. We can do this.

The Podcast

We have another podcast up. It's about the great book Four Feet Two Sandals and you can listen to it right here. I'm going to have to pimp the podcast because we only got 12 comments on our Listen to the Wind production. So, we have 2 comments so far and I think I'll aim for 30 again. I'll now be soliciting comments for the next two weeks. I'll be like PBS and just tell you that the sooner we reach our goal, the sooner we can get back to regular blogging at alittleleeway.

The Nerves

Four graduate students from Afghanistan are going to visit our class today. We're going to interview them. When the peeps helped me generate our question list, they started off with questions like, "What is it like to live when war is happening in your country?" and "Did you ever wear a burka? What do you think of the Taliban?" and "Do you think the U.S. is right to send more troops to Afghanistan?" Then they got into the important items like, "Do you like to fly kites?" and "Do you have any pets?"
I hope they behave well. Cross your fingers for me. I'll be in a really horrid mood if they don't. Yesterday was touchy. One peep kept flipping me off behind my back. I just hope he doesn't do that when our visitors are here. They might get a negative impression of American schools.