Weekends off rock!

(written on monday but i forgot to post it!)

Although our school week was a short one it took FOREVER to get through! The kids were exhausted and burnt out from a sugar overdose after the 1/2 term break and so were definately not on their best behaviour this week! There were a few times where I had to count to 10 (and once to 20) to calm myself down. on top of all that the annual board meeting was scheduled for this thursday. this added a little more pressure to the teachers to keep the students inline; of course the kids seem to pick up on our tension and use it against us by acting the worst they've ever been! i think we had a record number of 'marches' and 'paddles' that day. so when friday afternoon came round i was definately ready for my afternoon off! i spent the first 1/2 of it baking bread and cookies to get use some of my frustration productively! after baking i decided that a swim was in order and did laps for the next 30 mins. It was then time for my Lunda lesson. it's a good thing Steward is patient with me b/c my brain was so fried i couldn't concentrate! i have to remember that this is probably how my students feel sometimes. i have never been that great with picking up languages (unlike my brother chris) so i have to really work at it. i try and learn 3-5 new phrases each week and put them to use on Sundays at church. Unfortunately this week, nothing seemed to stick in my brain. Lina and i have declared Friday night to be our 'movie night' so we relaxed with some tea and cookies and vegged in front of the laptop screen. if you're reading this and are trying to think of something to send over in a package it would be nice to get some new videos over here (we don't mind if they're the original copy or not ;) ) as i didn't think to bring mine with me and Lina's collection hasn't made it over from the states yet.
The worst part about having Friday afternoon/evening off is that i often forget i still have to teach in the morning. yes, our students go to school on saturday until noon. i managed to make it through saturday morning, despite one of my students throwing up in the classroom. :P yuck! this is one thing i don't handle so well, and was SO tempted to get one of the students to call someone to clean it up. however, the Lord gave me the strength to get it cleaned up and finish teaching the lesson etc. as this was my weekend off i was officially 'off duty' after lunch. the weather has been quite hot the last few days so those of us who were off (2 men and 5 women [and 3 dogs]) decided to take our afternoon tea at "Z Cottage", so we all piled into the land cruiser and headed out for a picnic and some fun. it was great! the river is SO high right now and the current was increadibly strong. we made a game out of trying to see who could swim to these rocks in the middle of the river. it was crazy tiring! we'd be swimming and swimming and look up and realize we hadn't gone anywhere! as soon as you gave up you'd the river would rush you back to where you started from! we did eventually get to the rocks and even beyond a bit but it was an incredible work out trying to "wade" upstream. we also got 'massages' sitting under the litte waterfall, but again it was a strain to keep yourself in the same place and not be swept downstream! once we were all throughly exhausted and waterlogged we brought out our picnic baskets and had some yummy treats with our coffee/tea/lemonaid. it was great to just lie on the beach and read and not have to think of little ones running around etc. we had some great laughs but soon our time was up and we had to head back to the school. the rest of the day was spent relaxing and watching a video. life couldn't get better then this :)