Thursday, November 15, 2012

Geography lesson

I made a whopping $60 Tuesday substituting in a sixth grade social studies class and then spent way too much of it on Chinese food for Joe and me.

One of the eternal questions about Chinese food is why we often buy too much and still not end up feeling full. Joe was watching something, so I ate in the kitchen. I nearly fell off my chair and hardly ate my food as I caught up with the last three episodes of Season 4 of "Breaking Bad." What an incredibly interesting and addictive – and gruesome – show.

But back to reality. The sixth-graders were a well-behaved bunch, in contrast to the rowdy fifth-graders I had last week. We worked on longitude and latitude, taking coordinates and finding the corresponding country on the map.

We had a little fun pronouncing difficult country names such as Papua New Guinea. They found the pronunciation hard to believe.

As a bonus, the teacher left me some Hershey kisses. That made my day

I have been reading about the turmoil in Spain, where Katie is and I am going in a month. Yesterday there were strikes in Spain as part of a coordinated effort in Europe protesting austerity measures. There were also cancellations of flights by the troubled airline Iberia, which I am supposed to take.

Well I just Skyped with Katie and she said all was peaceful. She went to see the demonstration in Seville, where there were throngs of people, many handing out leaflets espousing views of various parties, unlike here where the political landscape is dominated by just the two parties.

She is learning so much, not just in the classroom...and she's having fun!

1 comment:

PJ said...

The teaching sounds great! That's what I plan to do when I'm settled in the Catskills. I want to sub in the grammar school, which is actually walking distance. I don't want to deal with teens yet, except to help them write college essays.

Harry's going to Copenhagen next semester. I agree-living in a different country is an invaluable experience.

I plan to call you soon so we can catch up.