A good day.

Often times we bitch about the crappy days we have but rarely discuss the good days! Today was a good day for me. Why? I am not exactly sure...it was the same ole same ole, run of the mill, average kind of day. Actually, Thursdays are typically my WORST day of the week...I teach from 9:30am until 12:30pm then have a half hour lunch break then tutor a girl from 1:00pm to 2:00pm then teach again from 2:00pm-6:00pm. Long exhausting day, I tell you. But today my students were chippery little things which lighten my mood. In my OPE level one class we were all sitting in a circle and pretty much just chit chatted girl talk all class (it's a class of 8 girls). And they all spoke English majority of the time, which is a rarity. At one point we were talking about Thai dancing and one girl said she could dance. She got up and starting dancing and the rest of the girls starting singing a Thai song as she was gracefully dancing. Beautiful. Unexpected. Priceless.
Then in one of my basic level classes I have been teaching students how to say 'r' sounding words- rock, right, rate, red, rice (the 'r' and the 'l' sounds are extremely difficult for Thai students, along with the 'sh' and 'ch' sounds, and the 'th' sound too) and one of my lower level students said rock perfectly. I was so happy. When I said 'yes, you got it' she started jumping up and down and hugged me. She was so happy. I was so proud of her. She said she had been practicing. I told her I could tell. It was a great feeling.
Then there is my conversational class of seniors...you know the class I was sooo not happy to teach...oh wow how things have changed. I adore my group of seniors. Some still dont give a shit but then I got a great couple of kids that make up for the slackers. I teach this class four nights a week, 2 hours a night...tonight was the end of week four...I only have two more weeks with them. This week we just had the bomb of classes...from playing psychiatrist on Monday, telling ghost stories on Tuesday, listening to music on Wednesday and today storytelling all class. Those two hours a night have been flying by. I am starting to get nervous at the fact that I have to rank my students from 1 (the best) to 8 (the worst)...I am not looking forward to that part of the job. The grading for the conversational students suck. Its not the regular pass/fail or even A, B, C kind of grading. I have to rate my students from best to worst. More on that later.

Overall today was a good day. I like these kind of days!