Poop-uh and Independence!

Today in science we were studying the life cycle of a butterfly and my students kept pronouncing the word "pupa" as "poop-uh." It really probably isn't that funny at all but my immature sense of humor that laughs when people make farting noises and when people fall down made it really hard for me not to burst out laughing at those kids. I kept correcting them because its a hard word to say but they could not get past the fact that the word looks like it should be read "poop-uh" and carried on with their cutie selves. Luckily my kids think its pretty great when I laugh and they don't take it too personally because I always reassure them that I am laughing because they are just so funny. 

My kids also took the science portion of the MAP (measure of academic progress) test this morning. It took almost an hour and half for all the kiddos to finish so it totally messed with the rest of the school day, including the kids missing Spanish and technology. Some of the questions these kids had to answer were so ridiculous. A huge percentage of them were worded so poorly that it will be impossible to determine whether the students missed the problem because they don't know science or because they didn't understand the English being used. One of my students had the following question on his test:

What would most likely be measured with a ruler?

a. The length of a football field

b. A pencil

c. The distance from your house to school

d. The distance to the moon

e. The length of a semi truck

My student, of course, said the distance to the moon. ARGH! Well, at least this test will help me decide what my kids do and do not know to an extent and it has already told me that we have a lot of work to do with rulers.

I ran a 15K today (on a treadmill, I know it doesn't really count) at the gym about 4 miles from our house. Though its a pathetic victory, I was incredibly proud of myself for going to the gym by myself, paying for the session, calling a cab, and telling the cab driver where I live all. by. myself. It felt so great to be independent and self-sufficient for once and I am so much more confident now knowing that I can do this on my own. The better my Spanish gets, the cooler things I'll be able to do. I am going to continue lessons with the Art teacher at school, Walter, if he lets me. And Aubrey and I are going to try to speak Spanish at home after school at least three days a week. We did it yesterday and I learned some cool things but I'm sure its a pain in the butt for Aubrey to teach me when she teaches little ones all day. We'll see. Maybe by the end of my two years here I'll be able to write a blog post in Spanish :)

Okay, I'm off to bed! Hope all is well!