KikaBennet

"Teacher! You have a really big head!"

*points to zit on chin*

I think most long fic writers go through this, but as I was heading to work/school this morning, I literally forgot this couple is only canon in my mind and it gave me bittersweet residual emotions.

"Stop dancing and go potty!"

"She doesn't want you to touch her eye"

"The monster ate Teacher Jared" (because Teacher Jared told my kids there was a monster in one of the classrooms)

"You have stinky feet"

"Put your shoes back on. I don't want to smell your stinky feet"

"Stop taking sticky things off the wall"

"That's not ours. Leave it on the wall"

"Stop touching his face"

Doesn't ever want to wear pink

Doesn't want pink decor in our apartment

Doesn't want to visit cutesie pink cafes

Bad Bunny (My husband's new lord and savior): *wears pink*

In the US I taught kindergarten (five and six), grade one (six and seven), and grade 3 (demon hell spawn).

In Spain, I tutored a five and seven year old sibling set.

Here in China, I am teaching English kindergarten to three year olds and it really brings me back to my university days when I taught preschool. I've come to realize that preschool is a universal experience because half of the time I'm pretending to be one hundred percent invested in monster trucks, dinosaurs, sharks, and Peppa Pig and the other half I'm saying things like "STOP DANCING AND GO POTTY" and "She doesn't want you to touch her eyes".

It really and truly has been a great experience. Beijing is a beautiful and bustling city and the people here have been nothing short of amazing. If I could take my classroom team teachers (I refuse to call them 'assistants' because we teach these little potatoes as a team dammit) with me, I one hundred percent would.

I will be returning to Europe in the fall because even though I love China, my husband cannot work here and he's starting to fall into that depressive funk that I did when I couldn't find work in Spain and all of the days just sort of blend together and time has no meaning, but it really and truly has been a fantastic experience.

Things I love about China:

So cheap. Everything is affordable and even after seven months, it's surreal to me how cheap it is to order food or a car

People are so friendly and helpful

So much diversity in personality here. You'll find hipsters, goths, fashionistas, artsy types...

Winter. I finally got to experience a real winter. WITH SNOW.

My asthma inhaler costs less than 2 euro and I don't need a prescription to get it

Things I don't love about China:

No good Mexican food, but to be fair, Spain didn't have it either

Cannot flush paper down the toilet

Cannot drink the tap water

Old people spit EVERYWHERE

Smoggy days can be hell on people like me with asthma

Considering the writing was wonky and all around I think the head writer was obsessed with American Horror Story toward the end making it a lot darker and going from us seeing Ian’s desire to have his own life, wanting to be Cole’s father and genuinely loving Olivia and wanting to settle down for her to making him a psychotic killing spree murderer in a matter of episodes...are we to assume had they not made that drastic turn b/c they had planned for Ian to be the real guy and Jason the alter all along, were we supposed to start rooting for Ian? And-hear me out- wouldn’t it have technically been possible for Jason and Ian to co-exist since Jason was the one that had the good name (and legal name apparently), job, and money? And then since Ian was aware that Olivia slept with both of them, couldn’t they just be Cole’s father? Daddy Jason and Daddy Ian? It seems like they were literally starting to scratch the surface of Ian willing to sacrifice his criminal behavior to be with Olivia and have a son (and he seemed genuinely interested in being Cole’s father and he also struck a deal with Jason on that one episode to behave and not to drugs and get a full night sleep so Jason could operate on that little girl)  until he finds out via Olivia that Jason and Ruben are working to kill him. 

I’m not saying this would have made the show be any less of a train wreck, but I’m just tying to figure out what they getting at before this extreme turn in horror movie style.

“A mom cheetah is called a ‘worker cheetah’ and a dad cheetah is called a ‘leprechaun’ and a baby cheetah is called a ‘lowercase cheetah’ “

“ Did you know that all women have nipples? It’s so they can be a mom later”

“You know cookies are done when they jump out of the oven”

“No I’m not telling you how to bake dinosaur cookies. ONLY DINOSAURS. You need a white egg first”

“I DID wash my hands. I got up from the table-THAT TABLE RIGHT THERE- and went into the restroom-THAT RESTROOM RIGHT THERE- and turned on the sink-do you want me to show you which sink?”

“Sometimes my sister is mean to me so I take all of her books and put them in the closet and then lock the closet”

“I want to be a belly button for Halloween”

“I wish I was a pie”

“You can’t come to my house because you might have the coronavirus. So you definitely can’t come to my house and spit”

“My name stars with a Y. At the end”

“No! I don’t have two dogs! Two cats! They’re just big and my mom thinks they’re dogs!”

“Will you tell James he has to wear this cape because he is the only boy in our center?”

“His name isn’t Theo. It’s Theonopolis”

“Did you know my dad died yesterday? He’s fine today though”

“My mom said I could sign up for dance class. She sent the dance teacher a note last yesterday”

“Are we going to watch those Australian people again?”

What a year. What a bizarre year. I’ve gone through so much stuff and still continuing to go through it-but I keep telling myself that good and bad things have happened and good things are still coming. I took a massive break from social media of all kind during quarantine because while I was working virtually I felt I might get suckered into a virtual style reality which is really bad for me.

I’ve tried to keep up with friends and you’d think during quarantine it’d be easier, but it’s actually harder. 

Started the new school year and I have to say this is where things kind of suck. I’ve taught kindergarten for four years now almost and this is the first year I haven’t been attached to my class. I don’t know if it’s because we have to wear masks and there are no field trips, no changing classrooms, ect ect, but I’m just not attached to this particular group of kids. Individually, I really like them. There’s a little girl in my class who apparently had a difficult time in school prior to kinder, but I absolutely love her. It’s made me feel kind of bad I haven’t been the excited, stoked teacher I normally am. That being said, I put in my notice and this will be my last school year-last semester actually- I’m resigning in January. I’ll miss the kids, but if I stayed, I’d meet the kids who would be starting in the fall and talk myself out of it. 

It’s not even just the kids in my class, but their parents. There is no physical contact with the parents-everything is through an app and I’ve gotten a few parents who are so rude and ungrateful and just want want want that I’ve given up on working with them. The administration isn’t great either. I don’t really care for the new director or higher up staff and I feel like they honestly have no idea what they’re doing.

My grandfather died too-which I mean, that happens. Old people are on borrowed time, but it was a ticking time bomb for my family because my mom was living in his house and now it belongs to someone else and she already lives in another reality where everything is supposed to fall into place for her at all times so now that this is happening she’s devastated and hates everyone. We never know what she’s going to do so we’re all just kind of holding our breaths on that number.

I’m planning on moving with a friend in the spring out of state which will be scary but also kind of exciting and I’m ready for it.

Before the move, I’ve budgeted and planned very carefully to use a month to travel. My first stop is to go and pester @thisstableground (I keep checking my flight receipt nervously just waiting for Covid 20 to come around and ruint 2021) because that was my original plan before covid and that was my entire Christmas plan, but given my circumstances now, I have more time, even if it’s not the time I planned on going. It just sucks waiting.

Overall, covid sucks. I feel like everyone is kind of on this bland, uncreative, uneasy plane of existence right now. I feel like time isn’t even a thing at this point. It’s just being rushed and then waiting. 

Some other stuff happened that I won’t go into, but I’m barely, barely poking into the internet world again. I was going to wait until January but wanted to make sure people were still alive. I also missed memes. 

So I teach kindergarten (typically a kid’s first ‘real’ year of school) and starting school in this time of uncertainty and chaos has been just that-uncertainty and chaos, and there’s no happy person involved-not a parent, teacher, faculty member, or student.

Here’s all of the things that have been nixed from the school year:

- Field trips

- Class parties

- Music class

- Gymnastics

- Class performances

- Red Robin activities (this is when one class sets up an art or science project and the other classes rotate through the building to do the projects-the kids love it) 

- Trick or Treating at school

- Visitors (we usually get someone from the local aquarium or nature center or something every once in a while)

Not only that, parents aren’t allowed in the building anymore. I only know the parents of my students through an app so it’s not very personable. I have three students who opted for virtual learning but because of filming and consent of other students, I can’t livestream or film my lessons so I have to have a completely different method of teaching for the kids doing virtual learning-which sucks because these kids are just names on a roster. I have no clue who they are or where they are academically. 

I feel like these kids starting their first year of school kind of had that really exciting portion ripped away from them and I hope they don’t think this is what school will be like forever.I have one child in my class whose parents want her to wear a mask and she is the only one and has had two breakdowns because she’s not allowed to take it off except to eat or when we’re playing outside (by the way-we typically rotate between four play areas-bikes, playground, sand, and open grass-now we’re only allowed in the grass) and I feel so terrible for this student because I can’t do anything except remind her to keep her mask on. 

I have to wear a mask (as does all staff) and it’s not so terrible, but a while back one of my students was staring at me for a long time and finally asked, “Are you smiling? I can’t tell” and it’s little things like that that add to this long list of ‘this sucks’.

I dipped back into the Shameless fandom because everything is so depressing and touchy right now. Cancelled Culture is basically one big hypocrisy fest in my opinion and a witch hunt and once Lin Manuel Miranda’s name got thrown in the mix I decided I had to take a step back from that kind of fandom and went back to Shameless where everything has been a dumpster fire from the beginning. 

Other than that, things are alright. First day of school today. I enjoy my new class so far. My classroom is decorated with countries from around the world poster that took me about two days to make since we are all quarantined to where we are. The kinderweirdos don’t have to have wear masks but I do-it’s not so bad once you’re used to it.