Americano Girls

I thought I would post a quick update so I could, a. get back into the habit of blogging, b. tell you some funny stories and c. (probably most importantly) get in one more blog entry before February. Should we take a poll as to how often I post next month? Winner gets... some tortillas?

Okay, there is a crazy phenomenon going around Inter again that has really thrown me for a loop. Girls in the elementary school have been bringing American Girl dolls to school on a daily basis. First, how did they get American girl dolls here in Guatemala? Second, how do they get clothing for the dolls once they get them? Third, why don't they have Guatemalan girls? Questions aside, the biggest problem about these foot-and-a-half tall dolls walking the halls with my two-and-a-half feet tall students is that the kids are all paranoid that something will happen to their beloved dolls while they are away from them for mere moments. The solution? Babysitters. Students in the other third grade classes will ask their friends to "watch" their AGD (American Girl Doll. I just made up that acronym, BTW (By The Way. Didn't make that one up)) while they go to the bathroom, or while they are in P.E., or even when they forgot their pencil box in Spanish class. I guess you could say its a good thing that these young girls are practicing responsibility and taking ownership of their property but when I have students in my class with FOUR of these dolls on their desks while we are trying to learn, I could care less about responsibility. I have since banned AGB babysitting in my classroom but still can't get over the concept of it in the first place.

For our Language Arts test last week, there was a section about using verbs in the past, present, and future tenses. One of the sentences I wrote was about one of my students "hugging" her American Girl doll, except I didn't write "American" I wrote "Americano." This was a legitimate typo on my part (probably a good sign that I actually am learning Spanish) but my kids just thought it was hilarious. Some of them actually got the question wrong probably because they were so distracted with my error. Blast those dolls!

Today was the due date for our report cards and I feel like I have had a 44 page weight lifted off my shoulders. The report cards are definitely a significant improvement from what we were using in the past but they are also a lot more time consuming. I just hope my students' parents actually look at them, to be honest, because the whole school put a lot of thought into giving more feedback to the families. Luckily, I had help from Claudia and Colin gave me almost instant feedback on my comments so it ended up being a relatively painless process.

One of Makenzie's students shared a hilarious story with her today that I loved so much I told Mak I was going to blog about it. This student recently lost a tooth and after a visit from the Tooth Mouse (yep) he was rewarded with Q.50 (about $6) for his efforts. That sassy Miss Makenzie asked,

"What are you going to buy me with all that money?!"

The student, with a perplexed, almost shocked look on his face, responded with, "I'm not going to spend it! I am going to save it for emergencies."

What kind of emergencies do nine-year-olds have? A sudden and unexpected release of Diary of Wimpy Kid 18? The uncontrollable urge to buy out the entire Shuco supply at school? The chance that someday Justin Bieber will charge Q.50 to hang out with him backstage at his "From rags to riches: I believe in a better Guatemala" tour? The best part is that Makenzie knew to ask how much he had been saving for said "emergencies." The answer: Q875. Big time stud.

Well its late and tomorrow is only Tuesday but it is also the first day of February so I better start this short month on a good note. We have no breaks until the middle of April, a four-day weekend in May, two weeks of school in June, then we're finished! Oh, P.S., my mom has officially purchased her tickets to Guatemala in April for Semana Santa!!! She is going to get in on a Friday, the first day of my vacation, and we are going to spend a whole week traveling with Aubrey and her parents. Then we'll come back to the city and she can hang out in my classroom for a week as well. When I told my kids she was coming, they just screamed. I had to show them on a calendar that we had to wait for many, many Tienda days to pass before she got here but they didn't seem to care. They then asked when everyone else I have ever told them about would be coming "to see us." Oh, how those children have bettered my life :)

Happy February!