First Week Teaching Nightmares

So, even though we have been teaching now for about 6 weeks, I thought I would share a couple of funny stories about our first week of classes. As most of you know, we are here in Japan as English teachers. We work for a small, private eikaiwa or English conversation school. Most of of our students are younger elementary, although we also teach some junior high and adult classes. Kids will be kids, no matter where in the world you are, and -- let's be honest -- sometimes they are gross! So far, we have witnessed nose-picking, scab-picking, gas expelling, and other not-so-sanitary kid behaviors, all during an English lesson.

However, the grossest (is that a word?) thing of all happened to me on my third day of teaching. I had a student puke all over the floor at the end of one of my classes. And guess who had the privilege of cleaning it up? So, I'm down on my hands and knees, mopping up puke, and trying not to throw up myself, and all the time I'm thinking "I never had to do this when I worked at Highland." Church secretaries (or, to be P.C., administrative assistants) do a lot of things, but cleaning up puke is generally not in the job description. It was a real low point for me.

When teaching children, you tend to do a lot of moving around -- singing, dancing, playing games, etc. Rusty, being the big, loveable, energetic guy that he is, probably does more moving around than most. So, he is teaching his very first class, on his very first day, to a group of toddlers, and he sits down crossed legged, and his pants split wide open (WIDE OPEN), right up the crotch (all the way to the upper peninsula). To make matters worse, the toddlers' mothers were all in the class with their children, sitting on the floor (in full veiw of old glory). Needless to say, Rusty was embarassed (only as much as any other guy would be). He had to run out during his break between classes to buy some new pants. Luckily, he was able to find some that were big enough for his American-size posterior! (well, almost)

14 Weeks and Counting

We are now taking bets on whether Baby Campbell is a boy or a girl. Click on "Post a Comment" and leave your guesses there. We went to the doctor again today and had another ultrasound and got to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time. That was totally cool. The baby was moving around quite a bit. We could see its face and its little hand waving in the air.

In this picture, the baby is curled on its side with its back to the camera. The head is on the right, and you can see a tiny hand peeking out at the top.