Fireworks!!

So many languages! Many of you know I travelled for Chinese New Year.
- Arabic in Guangzhou: During my first layover, I chatted with a guy from Jordan and 2 guys from Egypt, just about the political stability of Egypt and what it's like now.
- Mexican Spanish in Munich: Oh you bet I was eavesdropping!
- French flight attendants on Air France: One guy totally reminded me of Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast. It was hard not to crack up when talking to him.
- Chinese of course. I actually learned a lot just from listening to the announcements, and knowing which words to expect. I'm also putting together many of the Chinese characters, even though I only know about 20, I'm finding them everywhere! I'm so proud :)
- Lima Spanish from Munich to Paris: The two guys next to me were traveling together to Lima, imagine my delight! We talked the whole flight! The dad spoke German and Spanish, and the son spoke English and German. So no matter what conversation we had, only 2 people could participate. The dad would get confused though, and ask me questions in German, and his son questions in Spanish. It cracked us up :)

Chinese New Year: Even though I wasn't here, it still happened!
- First, it's good to know that it is the year of the dragon. My year! I'm a dragon! Supposedly, if you're a good luck person and it's your special year, then you'll have extra good luck! But the same works in reverse, if you typically have bad luck, and it's your year, you will have extra bad luck. I'm considering myself a lucky person. Bring on the extra good luck! :)
- Of course, apparently that is the belief held in Western China. Last night I was educated. In the region where I'm actually living, the people hold different superstitions. For year of the dragon people, you are expected to have red touching your skin at all times. Of course there were many jokes about getting a red tattoo, a prominent one on my face, but I guess the most common practice is just to buy a years worth of red underwear. Hmmmmmm.
- On New Years Day, it's everyone's birthday! Everyone turns a year older on New Years Day. Celebrating on your actual birthday is only for us Westerners. So I guess that makes sense why there are sooooo many darn firworks. Everyone is celebrating. (Fun tidbit: For the Koreans, they actually count your age from conception, so typically when you're born, you're already 9 months old!)
- Also, my friend who lives on the 22nd floor (I'm on the 12th) filmed the fireworks celebration just before midnight on New Year's Eve. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE7qRFuqAZg&feature=autoshare Pretty spectacular! Of course the fireworks are pretty constant on a regular basis anyways, but this is definitely overkill. But hey, I guess if it's everyone in the entire country's birthday, by all means, celebrate!

In the classroom:
- Things are finally back to normal. I have all 4 of my elves back, and we don't have another vacation for 2 months. I feel like I can finally get some work done and make some real progress!
- For the 2 weeks of school between Christmas and Chinese New Year, I only had 2 students, and the difference in their ability to speak and understand English is ASTOUNDING. My other 2 students went to their home countries for 6 weeks, and they came back with almost zero English. It's weird to be right back where I started with 2 of them, and leaps and bounds ahead with the other 2. GO GO differentiated instruction!!!

At nap time, most of my elves can fall asleep in about 10 minutes. But I have one who is very restless, and takes at least 20 before he's ready to at least lay down calmly. Today, I sat on his bed laid my head in my arms and closed my eyes, modeling of course!
Elf: "What are you doing?"
Me: "I'm closing my eyes. When I close my eyes, I fall asleep."
Elf: "Oh."
As I watched, my elf laid back down, and closed his eyes. About 2 minutes later, I peeked my eyes open, and my little elf was sound asleep :) Who knew that's all that needed to happen?