Class Day

Wednesday.  My class day.  I actually got a phone call last night asking if I could come in to work today for a six hour shift because they needed people.  I wanted to, but of course I couldn't because one class is from 8:30 to 12:30 and the other is 4-6.

In my morning class it was a girl's birthday.  So the teacher had us sing Happy Birthday to her in each language that was spoken in our classroom.  Because we have a lot of foreign people in my class.  We ended up having Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin (the Chinese people I know actually call their own language Chinese, not Mandarin I've noticed), Korean and kind of Japanese.  I say kind of Japanese because we have a group of Japanese kids, but they said that in Japan they sing the Happy Birthday song in English.  I'm not sure if they were just getting out of having to sing it or if that's true. :)  It was awesome, though.

The Asian group in the corner always completely blows away the rest of the class with assignments.  I can now personally attest to the fact that Asian kids are crazy smart.  With each of our class/group assignments they just go so far above and beyond on things I wouldn't have ever imagined doing.  For example we had an activity where we needed to produce as many paper snowflakes as we could in a given amount of time with a set amount of paper and scissors.  Our group figured out our design, and made an assembly line to keep things going and did, what I thought, was pretty well.  We did in fact do a good job.  The Asian group however, used internet research in less than five minutes figuring out designs online that were very efficient and then retrieved extra sets of scissors and came out with this elaborate design practically with glitter.  Unbelievable.  I conceded defeat from that point on with any and all competition from that group.  And that's just one example.  With another assignment the average score of the class was 200-300 points (you wanted as few as possible).  Our group did second best on that one actually getting a score of 133.  The Asians?  96.

How do they do it!?

So far this semester, ever since our first class only three of the five members of my group have been in class each day.  One dropped today.  We should be fine though.  Our first real assignment is due in two weeks.

Then I had a break and I went to my 4pm class.  Disney Heritage.  Definitely one of the best classes ever.  Our teacher is awesome, too.  He basically spent almost the first hour of class just talking about his life.  Which would normally be kind of weird, except that we all clung on to each word he said because he's had such an awesome life.  His experience with Disney is so cool.  Plus he showed us about his trip to Marceline, Missouri.  Which I've decided I am definitely going to have to visit someday.  Just sayin'.

Anyway, in other news our washing machines have been updated.  We used to have washers where you got a card and put money on the special laundry card and then used that laundry card in the machines.  Now they've gotten newer, nicer machines.  These machines are credit card operated.  You put your laundry in and then there's a credit card machine on the wall and you put your card in and it automatically charges you.  If the machine breaks, malfunctions, or doesn't turn on, or if you choose not to use it, it will (supposedly) automatically refund you the dollar.  Pretty awesome.  Plus they're the high efficiency machines and they do the thing where is magically weighs how much laundry you have and determines just how dirty it is and uses just the right amount of time and washing.  But then that means the time on the machines changes.  So you can actually set up the machines so it text messages you when it's done, and you can look online to see what machines are available.  Super, super cool.  Kinda scary for me to be depending so much on technology, but still.  Very cool.