summer sneezes and shrieks

I hate allergies. You wake up with drool and snot clogged in your nose, you sneeze continuously, your head swells with pain as each sneeze gets more intense.

Nothing smells good, or bad for that matter, because you can't smell anything anyway. Taste is pretty much the same. Your eyes are red and puffy and you are exhausted. You threaten yourself with self-imposed punishments if you even rub your eyes for one second, but you cannot help your hands which just happen to gravitate upwards. Ok, i'm done my ranting now. I just wish it would go away.

Hmmm.... so after a lovely lovely long weekend in hot and humid Hong Kong (made longer by the fact that we JUST missed our flight back; long story and unecessary to elaborate because it will only result in my embarassment) we are back home. Swam on Lamma island, saw a theatre show (poems put to drama and improv), ate way too much out-of-this-world food, drank ice mochas every day, shopped for 2 solid days which is very unlike Matt or I, however we did stock up on books, dvd's, summer wear, etc.

I'm spending 3 afternoons a week now at the local Bilingual Kindergarten now. Besides teaching 3 separate classes of 2-6 year olds English, I will also be instructing the teachers themselves. I've just started this week, but already i'm hooked on the kids. How can something so TINY make such loud shrieks? Yesterday, one little girl in a pretty frilly white dress basically stood in the corner all day and screamed her head off. It wasn't even like a wail, it was a perfectly pitched scream that never wavered, only slightly vibratoed, which makes it even more deafning i think.

One kid wore a small towel around his neck the whole day as he was suffering from acute nose dribbling (a fellow allergy victim perhaps). Another 3 clung to my 2 legs like dogs, I'm glad they haven't considered the concept of tickling me at the same time yet. One girl turned up in her party costume: this bright yellow tutu with bleached stockings and her hair done up in some weird bun thing, sparkles and all. Her parents must've been so proud of their little princess ballerina, but honestly, how practical is that outfit for a 3 year old whose only goal of the day should be to feed herself in the mouth and not on her clothes?

As cute, playful and care-free as these kiddies are, their attention spans are something of a wonder to me. One kid would accidentally trip over another kid's feet, land right on his face and start wailing with huge tears running down his face. As soon as one of the teachers would attempt to comfort him, he would get up and start running around again, his tears drying up instantly.

I've worked with primary students and youth, but this age group is new to me. They require a lot of different activities baack-to-back, no more than a few minutes long. They need discipline as much as they need hugs and kisses, although when one kid knows that he/she did something wrong, you can tell how immensely guilty they feel by that lingering look in their eyes which are trying to avert your evil glares. One of the beauties of such young children is their inability to outright lie (yet).

Music is something that kids respond well to. This morning we were running around franctically in the carpeted classroom, i'm not sure why but there we were (me included), running at full speed in circles and zig zags and figure eights in a closed area.

A bit crazy and dangerous upon thought, but then the teacher puts on The Carpenters and starts to stride slowly, arms outstretched, in a big circle, walking in time to "... every sha-la-la, every whoa-ooh-whoa-ooh...". Everyone followed suit (me included). Amazing. It was like witnessing little human robots in training.