It has been a while since my last post. Things have been rather crazy the last month and I'm not sure what I would have said, or rather what I wouldn't have said if I had the time to write it down for you.
This is the last full week of classes before the Christmas holidays. I started the week in a bit of a mad rush but today being a snow day puts the nail in the coffin of what I was going to salvage of my great Christmas Concert Masterpiece. My adorable students will be singing Jingle Bells, complete with bells and I'm quite impressed with them on it. On top of that I had reworked a cute version of the Littlest Christmas Tree for the primary grades to do. I was fully aware it would be a lot of work but I miss drama class sometimes so I was excited about it. Unfortunately, the other class decided in the first practice that they had no interest in it and it wouldn't work. And with today being a snow day thanks to heavy winds and a bit of snow (to be followed this afternoon with plus 3 and rain) I think we'll just scrap the whole thing. I have learnt that the only thing I will gain from taking everything on myself is stress and I have had enough of that. On the up side this gives me more time for the other million things I need to do in the next week!
School over the past month has been quite the rollercoaster. Our principal left the village the beginning of the month, the new one won't be here until after Christmas. We have been without principal, we've had a replacement from the board, and now we have a supply from our own staff for the week. We had to shut down school twice last week because we had no water and the water truck was broken, today we have a bit of a storm outside so no school, last week we also had a ped day so it's like we haven't really been in school lately. Now that Christmas is coming everything is quite busy though and I hope that the next 8 sleeps go quickly because I am at the point where I just want to be home with my family and friend who know me best and love me anyway! There has been too much drama for such a small group of people and I'm not particularly fond of drama. If the year continues to be such a mess I'm not sure if I want to stay another though returning to work in a grocery store is NOT an option so I'm not sure what else I would do.
My students are doing well for the most part. Over the past few weeks we've established a good routine and they have improved in a lot of ways. I've had improved attendance from the two girls and my grade 4 who was developing an attitude when his cousin was around has become his sweet self again now that his cousin has not been attending school. Not to say my classroom is full of little angels, only a few weeks ago I had a biting issue involving Aloupa's teeth and my leg to be followed by a hurricane in my class the week after resulting in the Christmas vocab words dying a painful death and the fire alarm being pulled. As of now there is nothing in his desk and I plan to keep it that way.
I have decided, even after the disaster that was the pumpkin carving that I am going to have my class Christmas party on Friday at my house. I've decided this because my students think it's about the most exciting thing going to go to a teacher's house. Also, we want to bake cookies and so we will be needing a bigger kitchen than the little one at school so we have opted for a cookie baking, pizza eating Christmas party at my house... I may regret this one later but I hope not.
Saturday we are having a Christmas party for ourselves. I was quite excited about it but I'm kind of over it now, to the point that I think I may need to talk myself into getting dressed for it on Saturday. I would much rather be on an airplane out of Aupaluk instead. I'm at the point of making lists, packing and planning for home!
There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home....
