Saturday school

Tomorrow is Saturday. We have school tomorrow.

This is one of those Ukrainian things I don't understand. Because next Thursday is International Women's Day, we don't have school on Thursday. Just this week, the administration decided that we wouldn't have school next Friday either, and so on Wednesday, told us that we have school this Saturday.

I'm not sure which is weirder, school on Saturday or the fact that the decision was made last-minute. In the US, we get a little calendar at the beginning of the year with all the days off we'll have, and bad weather is the only thing that changes this.

Odd.

~*~

So I have a boyfriend who can stop a lesson dead in its tracks. My 10th form has been after me for a while to bring in a picture of Jason, and I'd finally remembered today. I told them that at the end of the lesson I'd show it to them, assuming that there would be questions and not wanting to break up the lesson, and we'd have a good finish to the class.

Well, our schedule got changed around today, so Nelya was with the 8th form while I was with the 10th form, and the kids didn't want to work. So they closed their books, refused to do anything (except for Oleksi, my good boy), and demanded to see the picture. Not feeling inclined to let 15-year-olds run my life or my lessons, I said, "Not until the end of the lesson. Please open your books and do exercise 5." They said no, and argued that if I would just show them the picture, they'd be good and go back to work. I know these kids. Highly unlikely. So then they blamed me for wasting time. I waited. Finally, they got back to work, and at the end of the lesson, we had "show-and-tell"--Maryna, my biggest pest, was quite taken with Jason, and people had good questions about how long I was in Ukraine, did I know other Americans here, etc.

~*~

Funny moment: Andrey, my oh-so-worried-about-everything 4th former, when the other kids were being bad, stood up and told them that they were being disobedient, that I was a good teacher, and that they should listen to me. You gotta love a kid like that, even when he asks you multiple times if you'll be in class today and what the homework was.