Sleeping duck, spring trees, post-rain jog, and student note

1. Walking home through Campo Grande, equipped with my smallish and now bent umbrella that successfully keeps half the rain off, I noticed two ducks standing near a puddle, incidentally without umbrellas. They stood there looking as if they had never been cozier (maybe perhaps if they had been sitting down). The rain lightly pelted their backs, but this seemed to soothe them. One closed its eyes in drowsiness.

2. The bony hand trees (part of the banana tree family? I think?) of Valladolid have now, after 6 months of no leaves nor foliage, begun to sprout green. It makes the city look like an entirely different place.

3. After my Friday classes and sporadic morning downpours, a dry sunny patch of weather sailed into town approximately when my week ended and my weekend began. Since I've finally shaken my cold, I decided to go for a jog on the river trail. I ran into 2 other people, but other than that, it was a solitary journey. I like the feeling of taking advantage of the city when everyone else is home for siesta.

4. I can see 9 year old Celia writing a note over the span of a week. She's been drawing a picture and today I saw that my name was on it. It's not really unusual for young children to draw pictures for their foreign teachers, but this is the first one I've seen this year. Then in the middle of the lesson, she told me to close my eyes. Needing to keep some type of authority, I told her that I'd close my eyes at the end of class when we were finished with the activity. I knew what she was getting at the whole time, but when I finally did close my eyes, she slipped the picture into my bag. When I looked at it, I was surprised by how nice it felt to receive a portrait of myself from my student. I didn't have devil horns coming out of my head or a sneering expression like some past students have drawn. I looked happy and nice.

Entertainer, brothers, and a night in

1. As a result of chaotic management and parents of private school students, my colleagues and I now teach on Fridays and are working over-time. This will however mean that we'll have less classes for the month of June. One of my Friday classes just happens to begin at 8:30 in the morning which is tough when I teach until 10:05 the previous night. Today I walk in and I'm tired, my nine year old students are tired, and they have circles under their eyes. They almost resemble old, docile dogs who are content to sit in an armchair all day by the fire. The perk of teaching at this hour is that they are fresh. I'm their first teacher of the day and they all sit in the front row looking up at me expectantly, tiredly. I have to start their day and mine as well.

2. I explain to one nine year old Spanish boy that "Bros." in Super Mario Bros. means "Brothers." I see him diligently taking note of this in his exercise book. He writes "Hermanos" and crosses off the last half of the word.

3. I've got two movies, a pack of chocolate covered almonds, and overly excited to stay in tonight in order to miss the windy rainy weather.