Monday

Today is Monday, and it has been a very productive day so far. This makes me think that this is going to be a good, productive week. It's always nice to start Monday off on the right foot.

To start, off, my ankle is feeling much better, so I went on a bike ride up to the local waterfall (15 minutes there, 15 minutes back) with my friend Crystal. There's something about starting the day off with a bike ride that makes me so happy (I know, I should choose a better word than "happy" here, but nothing else seems quite right). Even last summer when I would often ride my bike between Coeur d'Alene and Post Falls (about an hour ride), I was always glad that I took the time to ride my bike and always felt better and my mind clearer because of it.

Next, I came home and had some Seattle's Best Cinnabon coffee and homemade granola. What a perfectly lovely way to start the day.

After a bit of thinking and planning what I would do with my reading group today (three kids whose literacy is still emerging), I met up with them and had a great lesson which doubled as a fulfillment of an assignment for my Emergent Literacy class. :) Last week the kids went to an English camp where they learned about Jonah and the Whale, so today we read the story in a great book I brought over for the kids, full of silly rhymes, and then I had them draw puppets and retell the story one at a time. They were all surprisingly engaged for the entire lesson! I planned to do a letter bingo game with them because I figure this would go quickly, but they seemed to really enjoy it. I love it when a lesson goes better than expected.

Every day, Monday through Friday--unless something else is planned--I've been doing reading groups at ten and open kindy at eleven. The kids have really been enjoying coming up to the office and playing in the kindy room. The best part about it is I don't have to do much--they find things to play with, make, build, etc., and I simply get to hang out with them. So, after reading group with the three kids, most of the other kids came up and played for a while. I love watching the kids get creative and make various things solely based on their imaginations. It reminds me of when I was a kid; give me a piece of cardboard and some art supplies, and I was a happy camper.

After this we had our weekly Monday meeting with all the staff. I announced my departure date (May 14th), and told everyone that I was going to Australia to visit my "fan" (Thai for boyfriend/girlfriend). One of the Thai staff, Moi, who understands a fair amount of English but will never speak it, responded, "bai tee Australia gap pat lom, luh?" Translation: "You're going to Australia with the fan (the kind that blows air on you), huh?" haha. I got a good laugh out of this. I love those moments when humor traverses language barriers and we are able to share a genuine laugh together.