September 18, 2009

Yeah...it is Friday of the second week of teaching! And, can you believe this, I have my lessons plans all done for the coming week. This could make for a relaxing weekend. Seriously, it may sound like I am glad it is Friday...and, well, I am...but that does not mean I am not enjoying my class. They are sweet kids and hard workers. I love starting the day out teaching a class on Bible and having a short prayer time...very different from when I taught in the public schools.

Along with first and second grade I am teaching art to my class and to the 3-6 graders. I am also teaching...now those of you who know me well will gasp at this...music...to my class. I know that is a bit scary but as I was doing it today I found I was having fun. God does work in mysterious ways. You have to remember I am teaching 6,7 and 8 year olds so they don't know a lot about music...thankfully for their music teacher.

Enough about school. Today I woke up at 5:30, thought it was 6:30...my usual time of arising on school days...and did not discover the mistake until after I had had my coffee...so of course there was no chance of getting back into bed and falling asleep. I was bummed about how tired I would be all day until I realized that since my clock was wrong this morning it was also wrong when I went to bed last night...so I got to bed an hour earlier than I thought I did. I felt much better after this realization. Isn't it funny how our minds work...or at least my mind.

Anyway, it was raining this morning. This doesn't happen often but when it does it can affect more than ones walk or ride to school...since we have to hang out all of our laundry on the clothes line we have discovered it does not dry in the rain...we have to plan when we do laundry around the weather. Luckily by midmorning today the rain had cleared and the sun was out so Mike went home before his first class (which is at 11 AM) and hung out the clothes I had thrown into the washer before we left for school. The really cool thing we have discovered about hanging clothes on the line is...you never need to use a loofa on your skin ...your stiffly dried clothes will do all the exfoliating you'll ever need!

Tonight we plan to go to a Chinese Restaurant (I never could spell that word) that has been highly recommended to us. We are looking forward to this experience in Portugal. One thing we have found with the restaurants here is you pay for everything....rolls, butter, pickles, etc. Anything that is on your table will be an extra charge if you eat it...so beware.

Tomorrow, if the weather is good we are going on a tour of old Lisboa (Lisbon). We have heard the tour is filled with lots of interesting history facts and the viewing of historical sights.

All in all, after almost a month (in four days) of life in Portugal we are settling in. Nina is starting to think of herself as a highschooler instead of a middleschooler...that is helping her confidence. I think she is realizing she actually can do 9th and 10th grade work...with more effort perhaps than she has had to put into school in the past...but she is learning a lot. Of course her favorite teacher is...Mr. Dubois...at least that is what she tells him at home. Kati is working on getting organized...we invested in a folder for each subject after she forgot her homework or thought she lost it three nights in a row...she found it the next day tucked away under something else. It is actually pretty cool to be going to school each morning together. Some days we go home at different times since the girls are taking Portugese after school a couple of days a week and Nina has a Bible study with the high school girls on another day. Soon I will be starting the women's Bible study one day every other week.

One more funny "slant" story before I sign off. Yesterday as we got home from school our neighbor was unloading groceries and dropped a rather large melon of some sort onto the road...the melon began to roll, faster and faster, and when it came to the intersection it actually turned the corner and rolled down another hill...finally coming to rest in many pieces in the middle of a downward slanting street after bouncing off a curb. down the block...it was a funny sight to see and no one even attempted to chase after it. They instinctively knew that once that melon escaped the confines of the bag it was in...it was gone forever!

Bye for now.
Nancy