Believe it or not, all the Indians over here celebrate Valentines day just like we do in America. It's not quite as big as it is in America, but still... Rakhi, the teenage Bengali girl we're living with, took Jocey into something she described as a "Valentines store" where they had figurines of cupids and couples in wedding attire. Rakhi was trying to pick something out for her Valentine and kept on asking Jocey "what do you think of this one?" Of course she couldn't tell her the truth which was that they were all so cliche they made her want to vomit.

Anyway though, on Valentines Day I had my third and fourth grade class and so I had them make Valentines in English. It was a huge hit. The kids got really into it and after school they were all running around showing their Valentines to each other. In terms of school, however, I think my favorite day this week would have to be Friday. On Fridays jocey and I have all four of our classes and we play games and have assessments. I finally got it through the skulls of my first graders that "k" says "kuh" not "ssssssssss" and my second graders can now write their names :) my third graders have been working on the verb "to have" and family so friday they all picked out cards with numbers on them to split them into pretend "families." We assigned a mother and father in each and dressed the father up in sunglasses and the mother with a scarf and they all had to talk about their families. SO. MUCH. FUN. Possibly even more fun was what we did with the fourth graders afterwards. We've been doing a unit on clothes and so I essentially brought my suit case and we had a fashion show. why yes, there is a girl wearing my EFY t-shirt in the picture, and Jocey's jogging shorts, and a girl wearing my pink dress... :P I'm feeling good because though the spelling still needs some work, the majority of them can comfortably form sentences now "I wear a hat and shorts. I have three younger sisters" etc.

Of course, we've been having a lot of fun with night school as well. Linea has been teaching some of the older kids in ninth and tenth grade how to use a computer and on Valentines day she brought in my computer and revealed to them the glory which is i-tunes. The result? A full scale Rascal Flatts dance party. AWWWWWWWWW YEAH :D Usually Jocey and I work with a group of sixth graders in the evening, though on Wednesday night we split up and I took a group of two eighth grade girls. "Two people?," I thought, "well that's smaller than I'm used to. But hey, I can make it work." Well, turns out I didn't need to make it work anyways. Somehow throughout the course of the lesson more kidss just started filtering into the room. By the end there were at least fifteen or twenty of us sitting in a circle. Linea and Jocey berate me for "bringing a crowd with me" wherever I go. I guess I can't really contradict them anymore.

I still made sure to see my sixth graders that night though. As I was leaving I saw a giant frog hopping next to my bike. Not really thinking I stooped down and caught it. I guess I'm like some kind of bird, mindlessly attacking my prey... So then I was standing there with this giant frog in my hands thinking "now what?" so I had a little bit of show and tell with the sixth graders :D the girls mostly screamed, but all the boys thought it was the neatest thing hahaha

My night of strange animals continued when I got home and I was sitting in my room when Linea screamed pointing at the door. There was a giant spider there, about the size of the palm of my hand. Thank goodness we got Dad to come in and exterminate it with a pack of tissues. Our hero. You're probably sick of reading at this point so I'll wrap up: I miss you all, and India is fabulous :)
P.S. - Jocey has been getting and eating coconuts recently. I wish she wouldn't eat the skins though, I'm really hoping to hollow one out and bring it home for Monty Python reenactments...