Full Moon

Growing up in a teacher's household, I would often hear my parents or other faculty comment on the relationship to a full moon and the behavior of their students. I never really put any thought into that. Until today, that is. After today, I fully understand the connection.

To spare you a long story that just gets me frustrated, I'll put it this way: some days are just better than others. My classes had tests today and I learned that test environments are not the same in Albanian classrooms as they are in American classrooms. At least, I'm assuming that, since it's the more positive approach. Otherwise I would have to say my students were unusually talkative and disruptive today.

And my later class had some very unruly visitors. There is a group of boys that live in the apartments around church who are quite rowdy. It's the same group that sort of bothers our Activity Nights. Well they were back tonight and caused a good five to ten minutes of immature rebellious punk behavior. Four of them just busted right into the middle of my class. It took three of my students to get them to leave. One of them kicked over the garbage can so it spilled all over the place. Then when we locked them out, they knocked on the glass door. When I still ignored them, they pulled down the gate which caused a loud and terrible noise. Think nails down a chalkboard plus screeching metal. They didn't stop there. They went next door to the hallway area and yelled through the fans/vents in the wall.

When that class was over, I was happy to get home! lol You win some, you lose some, right? ;) The good news is that these kind of days are few and far between. There are the usual disruptions to class--parents coming in, general talking among students, and knocks at the door--but today was out of the ordinary. It's nice to think that I probably won't have this kind of day again for awhile. :)

I'm excited for Friday though. It's my birthday! :) I'll be 25, which sounds so old to me because I can't believe it. But it's said that age is just a number. And guess what? I don't mind 25. It will be a year of new and exciting things. I've gotten a few cards in the mail but I haven't opened them yet. As a kid, it was always the tradition in our house that we had to wait until our actual birthday to open cards. I stuck to this tradition in college and I'll carry it on overseas as well. :) It just adds to the excitement! Plus, I love surprises and each note inside a card is a surprise!

I'm going to make my "famous" cookies to take to Activity Night that night as a birthday treat. I think people will like them. I haven't received any complaints yet! (Mom, Dad, and David, I know you're jealous! lol) So we'll have cookies for treats and we'll play games. It's a game night. We have Skip-Bo, Uno, Guess Who, Cards, Spelldown (similar to Scrabble), Boggle, and I think we'll use the whiteboard for Hangman. Plus, I'll print some mazes and things like that from the Internet. I think it will be enough to occupy the time. They might have some ideas for games as well.

Other than that, I have one last thing: I promised pictures from Danja's birthday party, so here they are. Remember to click on the link, then on the name of the album. You shouldn't have problems, but if you do, let me know. If you are asked to create a facebook account or to sign in before viewing the pictures, something went wrong or you clicked on the wrong words, so try again. Enjoy!

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=125600102&k=X212Z5SSP4ZM5FCGYK23RW