Quick Update?

So I'm going for quick here but considering it's been a month and a half, who knows...but really, it has to be quick. Because I'm tired. Because I have mono :( Yes, mono. Who knows where it came from or how I got it, but I've had it for a few weeks and it has sucked as much as people say it does. Thankfully, I was able to take time off from work and work shorter days and so I'm finally getting better I think. Which is good because I'm headed to Boston this coming weekend to meet up with a whole lot of Fairfielders and the following weekend I leave for WALES to visit my sister who's studying abroad! So I didn't really have a choice but to get better, as you can see.

Other than that, things have been pretty normal. This past week was school break for the kids so we did some special activities including 2 sledding field trips, one of which I went on. I'll have to post pictures soon - the kids were in heaven! (They were all Burundian refugees who have been sledding before but I doubt very often, at least on a hill this big with real sleds haha.) However, in the mornings the CYO ran a mini refugee academy like we did in October. It was for refugee kids ages 5-18 who just came to US to help them see what school is like and practice basic ESL, etc. to prepare them to start school. I only taught Wed-Fri but of course I was given the 5-7 year old group, and they were crazy! I had 11-13 kids each day and NONE of them spoke ANY English!! (The group consisted of 3 Iraqis, 2 Burundians, 3 Burmese, 3 Somalis, 1 Sudanese and 1 Bhutanese...so they couldn't communicate with each other for the most part either!) And Friday I wasn't even given a volunteer...it was just me and them! Needless to say, we didn't accomplish much. I think most of them can answer What is your name? (I can't take credit for that though..I think they learned that on Mon or Tues.) But that's about it. And they can sing the ABC's a thousand times in a row and count to 20. We learned colors, shapes, body parts (head, shoulders, knees and toes, anyone?) and how to cut and glue haha. But I think all they retained was ABC's and numbers and one kid thought everything was an apple (b/c A is for apple so he knew that word) and every letter was an A. But whatever, their teachers will teach them, right? And one day I had to put that same kid in time-out because he kept hitting kids when they wanted to use his toys and he wouldn't listen to me for the rest of the day to show me how upset he was (b/c obviously he had no idea why I held him in a chair for a whole minute b/c he doesn't speak any English...ugh). But of course it's another one of my once in a lifetime experiences I can add to my list here...b/c when else will I have the chance to lead a classroom of 13 non-English speaking 5-7 year olds?

I haven't seen my teens in over 2 weeks b/c I either cancelled program or someone else ran it for me while I've been taking time off. I hope they don't hate me or think I hate them or stop showing up because they're upset with me haha. We'll find out on Tuesday.

Final news before bed...I may have already written this in here, can't remember. I applied to the Master's in Social Work program at Southern Connecticut State University for the fall. I decided that social work is really what I want to do. I had always considered it before, but after working with all these crazy challenging kids this year, I've noticed more and more that they desperately need one-on-one help and attention and I desperately wish I could give it to them, but as a group leader I can't. This is what ultimately pushed my decision away from teaching and officially to social work. I'm really excited about deciding on something I want to do finally and I really do think this is the path for me. But I don't find out for awhile if I got in. And if I didn't, I'll just find some position that will give me more experience before applying again next year. Either way, I'll almost definitely be living back at home, which isn' t too exciting, but it's free so whatever.

That's all for now...hopefully I'll get back to updating regularly. Sorry to anyone who's been wondering what happened to me...