I turned 24 this year. TWENTY-FOUR! That's a big number! Besides a quarter-life crisis, making sure I wasn't wasting my life, I spent my special day with my wonderful husband and students. That weekend, Austin threw me a birthday party with some of our friends from the local college. Here are some pictures:

First, we had an instructional Ants on a Log making session. They loved it!

Then, we had some birthday charades... this was really fun. We made them up ourselves and chose all kinds of random things, like "a spider eating pizza," "pizza eating a spider," "purple dinosaur," "the man of my dreams," and lots of others.

Sadly, when it was time for cake/brownies, the candles were really cheap and melted upon impact with the warm dessert.

Some people say the best part about a party is the people. They lie. Let's just be honest here, it's the dessert that takes the cake. Austin made a chocolate brownie/cake to be eaten warm with some ice cream (soft-serve ice-cream with oreo pieces mixed in, frozen... yeah, that's cookies and cream ice-cream!!!) It was amazing!

Our friends held the plates in their hands and were so amazed-- "Wow! Cold on one half. Hot on the other half."

I just love him, and from the look on his face, I think it's mutual.

Here's just a quick note about some back to school bloopers... in case you haven't heard. Hope you can get a laugh...

1. I was talking with my students about kickboxing because they asked what exercises I enjoy. I broke the word into parts. For "kick" I naturally decided to kick my foot in the air. However,  in order for all 80! students to see it, I had to kick it high. Unfortunately, my feet were really slippery, and my shoe flew off my foot, bounced off a window, and was caught by a student. Oh, dear!

2. Maybe worse though, I had posted a simple question, "What did you do this summer?"  with the statement base, "This summer I..." for students to try to complete. (This was very difficult for them.) Then I went to students and said, "Okay, let's ask this girl, what did you do this summer?" and "And this boy" and so on, calling on various students as I shuffled through the tight rows of desks. Well, unfortunately, I eventually came to one student  wearing a plain grey t-shirt, no indication of being female, manly facial features, very short hair with bangs cut in the diagonally slanted emo style that all the guys here have, and I said, "And let's ask this boy," at which point all the students shouted, "Girl!" Yeah... it was a girl. I felt so so bad.

These are a couple of shots from the "Multi-purpose Room". Really, there were just two walls to decorate and one window that needed it's burnt orange curtains replaced. This was simple and fast, and cost maybe less than five dollars... we just gift-wrapped some pieces of cardboard and called it a day!

A bamboo mat behind our very soft and cushion-y WOODEN couch. :)

And the little desk that's waiting for me to spend some time with grad school in another month. At least we have a spinn-y chair. That's the only way to study!

 I walk into class with an ovation from my new students.  

“Good Morning! How are you?”

In unison: “Fine, thank you, and you?”

“Oh, I’m great. I’m so excited to meet you.”

A few students: “Nice to mee-ta you.” (I love how English is spoken as a tonal language here…)

Some students: “Can I make-ah friends with you?”

“Nice to meet you too. Of course we can be friends. My name is Bethany.”

Students: “I know, I know. Bessssssssany.” (By this point, it's likely they'd all seen a copy of my passport as a "cultural relic" or something.)

 “Some students say Bessssssany, but no no no, this is not my name.” Students laugh. “It’s BeTHany.” [shout out for the “TH” sound—it’s beautiful!]

A couple of boys: “Sexy, So beautiful!”

“I am from America.”

A few students: “Welcome to our country!” “Ohhh! Ah-mah-rica!”

“I came here one year ago.”

Several students: [consulting each other] “One year? One year ago? What meaning?”

[I translate my previous sentence into their language.]

Students: “Ooh! Do you know our language? So ca-lever!”

“I came here because I wanted to travel. I came here because I wanted to teach. I came here because I wanted to make new friends. “

One boy: “A boy fa-rend?”

“No. I do not need a boyfriend. I came here with my best friend. He is my husband. His name is Austin.”

Students: “Ooooooh!”

One boy: “Is he more be-u-ti-ful than me?

“I think so.”

The boy: “I don’t thin-ka so!”

Now that we’d exhausted the scope of many students’ English, it was time to begin today’s lesson.

To the left, a construction site. To the right, my classroom building. Lovely. Just lovely. Last Thursday there were literally 4 guys outside my window banging on steel.

Here are some more great local products... First: A tupperware container. When we saw it was "HowFun" AND a "Protects the Fresh Box", we knew this was the one we'd been waiting for.

Think you've seen "The Best Movie"? Well, you probably haven't. Austin and I have seen lots of movies, and they're all "The Best Movie," and "The New Viewing." We're sold.

And, in case you had any doubts that this was in fact the best movie, you can rest assured that it's "super new ranking perfect classic collections." What a relief!