Frustrating.

Warning this is a ranting post:
Ugh. This has been one of the hardest weeks here to date! All of this competition nonsense stresses me out and then you get 52 different stories of what is going on and what you are supposed to be doing.  This is usually ok but when it has to do with writing a dozen different speeches in a weeks time and getting three third graders to memorize them in a week it can get kind of irritating!
So here's the story. Nonglak come to me about a month ago and says there is some competition in a month, here are these three girls, write a speech for them about their "Life Story."  Sure, fine, whatever. We have now been practicing said speech for about a month now and the competition is supposedly in a week. (I am still not sure) Then another teacher, Teacher Tiantong, comes up to me and says, ok there is another competition in Phrae on the 23rd and this one is about their family, write a speech about that, three minutes, these two girls cuz the other one isn't as good (:-(), k great. Nonglak has come up and said ok so speech about family and story for the 23rd competition? Wait so they are for the same competition or different? Either way I need to write a whole new speech and have them memorize it in a WEEK! And the students are still trying to memorize the first one!!!! We don't have to teach next week and will just practice the speeches with our students, but who knows if that is really true! It changes every minute until just before it happens, meanwhile Mel and I are left piecing together stories of what different people are telling us. And you can't really ask questions because between everyone here they know a handful of words of English and will just answer you with a nod and a "mmmm." It can get frustrating.  And they told us that the 6th grade boy that Mel is teaching has won like every year! No pressure! So if they don't win, it is our fault! I was so stressed I started crying at lunch yesterday with Mel...:-(
Hard week. On the other hand, teaching is actually going really well. I was in the middle of teaching my 5/4 class yesterday when like five of my 6/7 boys kept walking by and looking into my class and waving at me. I waved them in and they came in and played the game with us and sat through the class even though they just had my class yesterday and had this exact lesson.  It was really cool and fun, I teared up a little....lol
 Then I got home and had an awesome care package waiting for me from Ali, full of chocolate, skittles and bracelets for lung cancer, which again made me cry...I think I just needed to cry out my stress!
As I am sitting here writing this Nonglak hands me a paper and the headline says "Impromptu Speech."  Then there are three bullet points with -My Story, -My Family, and -My School. She said just before the students will give the speech they will draw and get one of these three topics so I will need to have these three speech topics prepared for them....Oh Buddha give me strength.