Today, I woke up to my alarm at 7:15 AM and ended up snoozing until 8:30. After waking up, I did my daily rounds online by checking GMail, Facebook, and tumblr. Since there wasn’t too much new on any of those websites, I finally got out of bed to brush my teeth and shower using the sweetie pie shower gel that I bought from Rona at Lush. The reason I was waking up early was to prepare for my rotations for work, even though I would not have to be there until 1:45. I needed to print certain pictures and since my printer takes forever to print now for some reason, I wanted to give enough time for that to happen. 

Somehow, I ended up more distracted by going on tumblr again and checking out links from posts by The Daily What. I decided to just print out the pictures I needed from Staples since it would be faster and I would have more time to do other things with the rest of my morning. One of those things included watching episodes of Friends that I had on my DVR. It was the episodes where Monica and Chandler had the home visit and where they talked to the mother who they wanted to adopt a baby from. I also tried to figure out how to play basic chords for the song Kookaburra on my ukulele since I was going to be teaching the kids about Australia in class today. After microwaving some food to eat and finishing it up, I got dressed in my STAR shirt and left for Staples.

At Staples, I got seven different pictures printed out including five different Australian animals, a map of Australia, and Australia’s flag. I also got my EPG for the day’s lesson printed out as well. Since I needed construction paper, I made a quick stop to buy some at Target. I parked on the second floor, because I was in a hurry, but it was oddly full, even though there is no direct entrance to Target on that floor. 

Once I was able to buy construction paper, I finally got onto the 405 and then the 101 to reach the elementary school that I work at. I found street parking early, so I decided to just wait there and play Plants vs Zombies on my iPhone for a while. Eventually, I got out of the car and headed for the STAR classroom, where my co-workers and I meet to start working.

When the kids finally got out of class, I went to talk to the first graders, who is the group with the kids I know the most. They were really talkative and I ended up reading a book about squids because one of them asked me to read it to him and his friends. I went back to the classroom to set up for my rotation while all the kids in all the grade levels went to the bathrooms.

The first group I got was some of the first graders and the second graders. Already, I knew this would be tough because the kids thought they were going to sports first and then found out that they were scheduled for sports at the end of the day. Thus, many of them were bitter and did not want to be in my class. It was horrible. Some of the boys were complaining and I was just trying to get through everything in my EPG. I wanted to make passports that we would use each lesson, but they were restless, so I continued to the Australia lesson where things got a little better. I had some students act out the five different Australian animals and they were all eager to volunteer.

Since they were still restless, I thought it would be a good idea to go outside and play a game using these Australian animals. It wasn’t. It was just more chaotic. I ended the rotation feeling like I wanted to just crawl into a hole and bury myself. But I still had three more rotations to go.

First graders. SO MUCH BETTER. There were still a few who were restless, but I really loved working with them. Maybe it’s just because I talk to them the most and some of them already kinda like me. I decided to scrap the passport idea and just start off directly with Australia, so that helped. Since we had more time, I brought out the ukulele and taught them how to sing Kookaburra. It was so awesome.

Kindergarteners. This one was really good too, but there were less of them since parents had picked up a few of the kids already. We did the same thing as the first graders and they seemed to like it a lot too. After them were the 3rd to 5th graders who also seemed to have fun. I was just so happy that things started to work out. I guess I should have expected my first rotation to go bad since it was my first time teaching for STAR ever. After learning what worked and what didn’t, the class got so much better and the kids had more fun.

So a two things I just want to point out. One, when the kids sang Kookaburra and when they did their animal impressions, it was incredibly cute! Two, a lot of them think states and cities are countries, which was amusing as well. I asked what countries people have been to and got answers like Idaho and Studio City. I need to remember what age group I’m working with.

After the rotations were over, my co-workers and I had a meeting about next week since we were going to start Winter Camp for the students. We just went over basic rules since we were going to be at another school, but it was over by 7 and I made the drive through traffic back home.

It was an exhausting day so I checked the kitchen for food. My little brother made red velvet cream puffs, so I had one. I went back to my bed and turned on the TV while I did my online rounds again. I was thinking about watching The X Factor but realized that I didn’t really care about any of the contestants anymore, so I just put on some SpongeBob. I tried to figure out what else to do, but I was tired, so I decided, to screw everything and just take a nap.

I woke up at around 9 or 10 and went back online. Nothing much was happening, but I did end up writing another article for BakitWhy about the new dean at Lewis & Clark College. Yay for Pilipinos in higher ed management. After finishing the article, I decided to finally get to writing this post.

So yeah, it’s really not coherent because my mind is still hella drained after today, but I really did not want to put too much thought into this. Sure, I did end up writing a lot, but, to be fair, I had a lot of experience with posts like this on xanga.

Anyway, I guess that’s it!

[Last Year: December 14, 2010]