Fights and Russians

These past two weeks have been quite eventful. Last weekend I was so tired that on Friday night I went to bed at 9:30 because I couldn't stay awake anymore. I also woke up at seven that Saturday morning which was quite a disappointment after looking forward to being able to sleep in that weekend. Unfortunately it seems my body is getting accostomed to waking up early in the morning. Something I thought would never happen.

Perhaps part of the reason I was so exhausted by Friday last week was in part to the events that came to pass in my classroom. On to the first part of the title of the blog: fights. I have to say I may have been a little naive to believe this, but since I was teaching in a private school I figured the chances of breaking up a fight were slim to none. As I said, I was naive. As I'm teaching a very important lesson on congruent segments, I see out of the corner of my eye a Dasani water bottle being picked up by a student and soon flying through the air at a very fast speed. Next thing I knew it was hitting its target in the face. Bad news. The target of the bottle was soon on his feet and although I tried to stand in his way knowing nothing good could come of him getting any closer to the thrower of the bottle, he got around me and soon his fists were making contact with the thrower. Next thing I knew I was grabbing his arms and pulling him off the other student. In some miracle of a motion I pushed the boxer in front of me while opening the door to the classroom and guiding him out of the room. I don't know if the thrower thought his actions were acceptable because I had to inform him that he also was making a trip to the dean's office. He was soon following behind and we were walking to the dean's office. The only words coming out of my mouth were "unacceptable, this is unacceptable." I was in shock. In shock that a fight broke out in my classroom especially in my normally best behaved class and that I was able to break up a fight. I even had one student calling me the fight referee not a title that I would like to continue fulfilling. It must not have hindered the students that much since the class had an average score of a 93 percent on their test the following week. Thankfully they've moved on. Hopefully there will be no more fights.

After a long week, we were invited by one of the other high school math teachers to her home for lunch on Sunday after church. We were happy to have a free meal (we never turn down a free meal). This teacher is from Armenia and is actually a robotic engineer turned math teacher. Needless to say, she is a genius. She picked us up from church and took us to her apartment where we met her mother (I didn't know she lived with her mother). It was one of the most unique experiences of my life where I found myself in the Dominican Republic eating crepes with two Russians and the only language that all four of us had in common was Spanish. It was so interesting to hear from her mother tell about her life growing up in Russia under Communism and how the system worked in Armenia and how it still is impacting the people. We felt very welcomed and very full (her mother kept putting food in front of me and saying "eat" it didn't seem like a suggestion) by the time we left.

This week hasn't been nearly eventful. For one, I haven't had any fights in the classroom this week. My roomate's husband flew into the country on Wednesday for a couple days. We all went out to dinner Wednesday and Thursday with administration and other teachers from the school and then on Friday my roomate and her husband left to go to the beach for the weekend leaving me in my very large apartment all by myself for the weekend. Everyone kept asking me what I was going to do all alone all weekend and I kept telling them "sleep." I have really enjoyed my weekend alone. If you know me well, you know that I really enjoy my alone time. I was able to get a lot of grading done and relax. I ventured out to the local bakery to get some food making sure to carry my keys between my fingers just in case an attacker was nearby, but God protected me and I didn't have to use my keys other than to get into my apartment.