Explosions!!!

This has been a VERY strange week…and its only Wednesday!

I started off the week thinking I was going to die, generally not the best foot to start out the week on. At 3:30am I was awakened by the sound of distant gunfire. This in and of itself is not so strange, in fact it’s a common occurrence, but this one was quickly followed by a very loud BANG. This sounded more like an explosion than gunfire, and was much closer to the house than the gunfire. The explosions and gunfire continued intermittently for the next three hours, sometimes closer, sometimes further away. Needless to say I was terrified. I lay in bed, certain that at any moment I would here the whistle of an incoming mortar before abruptly exploding. It really sounded like The Revolution was here.

Around 5, spurred on by a particularly close and violent bang, Jeff, Lacey, and myself emerged from our respective rooms simultaneously, all of us looking quite disheveled. It seemed we had all had similar mornings, and as another burst of something sounded (we all thought it was automatic gunfire), we all crouched down to duck and cover.

We finally found out that all the noise was in fact fireworks and celebratory gunfire, being let off at the hospital which is at the end of our street. Apparently it was Dia de San Francisco (the Day of Saint Francis) after whom the hospital is named, and thus a special day for them to recognize. Ironically, San Francisco is the patron saint of living things, peace, harmony, and cute little fuzzy creatures. So why on earth did they celebrate by making loud explosions and firing guns at THREE IN THE MORNING?!?

Tuesday found my blood pressure rising for another reason. After completely failing to clean the activities room on Monday, class 8A were to be punished during my Art class by having to clean all the school hallways. Not only did they take this to be an opportunity to visit their friends in other classes, but also to join the groundskeeper in chopping down trees with a machete. As I ran back and forth trying to make them work, three of the boys found their way onto the school roof. I even found several students who had helped to clean the previous day and were thus exempt from cleaning, helping to sweep the halls. When questioned as to why they were out here sweeping rather than in the classroom working on their art project, they responded that they would rather sweep than be in my art class.

To round out the day, two of the girls in my next class asked me if I was on a diet because I was fat.

I wish I HAD been blown up on Monday morning.

So Wednesday is finally here, and I have made it over the crest of the mountain that is my week. It can only go downhill from here. I think the apocalypse may be upon us because 7A, my little “angels”, decided to get out their pitchforks and horns today, while the dreaded 8B got through my activities class, not just working, but WANTING to work!

7A decided that today was not a good day for science, despite the fact that I actually had a lesson plan this time. They were just as monstrous in activities, and even Nemesis was giving me attitude. Talk in the teacher’s lounge has it that Nemesis has a new boyfriend, and he is being a bad influenced on her. I know this boy. He is in 8B. I hate him. He is that terrifying and infuriating combination of very smart, doesn’t care about school, and MAJOR attitude. Why do girls always go for he bad boys?

Meanwhile I am now afraid to turn my back on 8B in activities. Not because of what they might do to each other with the hot glue gun, but what they might create while using it. We are doing re-cycled material projects (a.k.a. cheap materials projects), and I swear every time I look the other way some random collection of bottles and cans is transformed into a new, imaginative sculpture or device. Even Dunia was working! The kids were so into their work the classroom was almost quiet; an eerie, unnatural sound in that class. One kid made a helicopter, another a sort of air cannon our of half a bottle and a balloon. A group of three girls are building a small floating island (no, I am not joking, they really are building a model island), and Dunia came up to me at the end of class wielding a Dalek! I didn’t even know they got Dr. Who down here.

Cleanup was a problem, not because they wanted to just leave, but because they wouldn’t STOP working! I had to chase students out of the classroom after the bell had rung. I’m afraid of what they’ll produce when we have a full 80 minutes instead of the 40 we had today.

Maybe I will get blown up this week after all?