Meghan's Visit! and Reading!

Meghan and Michelle came to visit me two weekends ago! It was really fun! There were here from Thursday to Sunday (Oct 7th-10)! Michelle got two huge flower tattoos on her shoulder--so Tucson! Meghan took a test at U of A on Friday and then we had the rest of the weekend for fun! We went to Tucson Meet Yourself, which is a festival of food and music (mostly food!) from around the world! I had Thai food and churros the first day we went and Somalian food the second time! There were lots of foods but some didn't have vegetarian options so I had to be a lil picky!! It was great having them both visit, but also a bit strange! Meghan has known me for so much longer than my roommates (4 years, but still...haha) and she's a friend from the real world, not this new JVC world. But when the two worlds collided I think we still had a good time :)

Now---my life is consumed by these addicting books! I got The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo from the library because I had heard it was good. Well, IT IS!!! I wanted to get the second one, but all copies were checked out! Luckily, Erin's Mom is a fan of the books and sent all three to her daughter! Which meant when Erin was reading the first one, I could read the second! Now, I'm reading the third and final installment (The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest) and Erin is on the 2nd book. WE ARE OBSESSED!! I'm reading it during my lunch break, after school, before I go to bed....all the time! And the books are long too--it's kinda like my obsessions with Harry Potter and Twilight, but Harry Potter is the best of all of them (duh)!

Annyywaayy when I'm not reading I'm teaching and tutoring! I've had a good time mostly with tutoring. I especially like tutoring the two 1st grade girls, Julie and Katarina. Katarina is such a cutie I just want to take her home with me! (Oops--that's a joke...I'm not into kidnapping I swear;) And Mya, the 5th grader I tutor in math is doing really well also. I'm teaching her how to do long division. She's new to the school (like me!) and didn't learn division at her other school. She's very bright and learns quickly, which is a good change of pace from most of the kids I'm tutoring who need extra help for other reasons. I changed my time of tutoring the two 4th graders, Kristofer and Selena, to right before computers. But now they have to miss recess to be tutored, which is kinda good because they aren't missing out on class, but I also feel bad that I'm making them miss recess! Oh well!

We've also been missing the Internet at school for a couple weeks now. The router broke, and I'm trying to come up with creative ways for the kids to use Word and Paint. This week, the middle schoolers are doing something called Musical Computers that I found online. They start a story all the same then add to it, rotate computers, fix what the other person wrote, write some more, rotate again and so on. I had them start with "When I left school yesterday, I saw an alien in the parking lot." The kids had a good time writing and sharing their stories. I heard from both 7th and 8th grade that they had fun and would like to do this again sometime. It also was a good practice for typing skills and learning how to correct spelling and grammar on Word, so it worked out well! It's harder to find something for the younger kids to do without the Internet. They get bored of typing pretty fast. I am having them draw and also use a program I downloaded called Tux Typing. It's a typing game where a penguin eats fish with letters falling from the sky!

So, things are going pretty well here. We're getting to know our other volunteer friends better which is nice as well! Yay friends! And my roommates are super cool people so that's good too! It's great to have people to come home to and talk about my day if I've had a particularly hard time teaching or something! Sharing is caring! It can be fun! ;)