Moving versus Movie

I was really looking forward to help with the school move so I passed on an offer to travel to St. Lucia for a meeting. However, accents and my ears being as they are Friday was not “moving” day with a movie for the students to keep them occupied, it was actually just a “movie” day in the afternoon.

So I had a PC video conference Fridays morning instead. The meeting was good, but my attendance in person might have been better for me. Still, it was good enough, and perhaps one less passenger on four short turbo-prop flights cut down in a very small part of the greenhouse gases emitted. (I was called “Mr. Climate Change” yesterday for refusing plastic bags for the pumpkin and plantains I was buying.)

Regardless of the Friday meeting I would not have been teaching in the morning. My classroom was taken over for student medical exams and so we didn’t have classes anyway. We didn’t have classes due to continued contract issues on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Thursday half of the students in my class didn’t come because of a funeral. Attendance was even worse on Friday with only a third, two girls, attending. Not getting much teaching and only four more weeks in the term.

Next week the teachers will be out for at least Monday and Tuesday. And at some point in this semester we are supposed to actually be moving so I’m not going to get through everything that I wanted to cover this term. No one is happy about the situation, but these sort of things also happen in U.S. school districts.

Movie time

Phonics preview before the meeting (And trying to eat lunch)

Take your seats
Big surprise that I was in charge of technical support for the movie. I used my computer to show the movie and we had a projector that was not as bright as I would have liked with the daylight. Still, all things considered, it was fun. The kids enjoyed the movie, How the Grinch stole Christmas, the Jim Carrey version. Some kids half way though wanted to watch a different movie. Some kids said it was boring. Some kids were really into the last part of the movie. (The “some kids” were the same two kids sitting next to me.)

Seriously take a seat

Popcorn

Ok, watching the movie

As I was sitting next to the computer and projector to make sure that the equipment didn’t get knocked over I was close to the kids. And as usual anytime one of those little hands is near my arm I get fingers moving up and down to feel the hairs on my arm. It happens so often that I should start charging money as a school fundraiser.

It happened in Ghana with the students as well. And in Ghana on the bus adults would “accidentally” touch my hair to feel it. They always wanted to know what sort of treatment I used. Good times being the only white person some people had ever directly seen, and touched.

We are still having rain, but of course no freezing temperatures. Sorry for those who have to drive in the snow and sleet. Without the freezing temperatures, I’m still keeping my mosquito bat close at hand, so I guess a balance.

Love always,
John

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