Pandemic vs. Epidemic
No, I don't really know the difference (and I have not yet pulled out a dictionary), but these are the two words I heard over and over today. Last week, all of our classes were visibly smaller. Instead of 10-13 to a class, some classes were as small as 4 students. But you know the saying, "The show must go on." And so we did. But today (Monday), when I went to school, three of our English teachers were out sick. Usually this means that we have to figure out a way to cover all the classes they would normally teach, but, since the numbers were so low, we just ended up combining classes to make almost normal size classes. Around lunch time, my boss came to tell me that Narnia had cancelled school for the rest of the week. In Slovakia, there is a law that if 20% of your school population is out sick, you can cancel school. Well, on Monday, there was only 50% of the kids in school (and about that many teachers), so they cancelled school!
Hip, hip, hooray!
I felt like one of the kids I was so excited. I do have to go to school, but can focus on things like long term planning, organizing my cabinet (office) and getting caught up on things. And I can come in an hour later and leave an hour earlier. So, while words like pandemic and epidemic usually cause me to feel a sense of dread, today, they brought nothing but joy.
29 January 2007
27 January 2007
Baking Day
It has been a while since I wrote and part of the reason is that life has fallen into a routine after Christmas and it seems like I am super busy. That said, I wanted to write something fun, but couldn't quite figure out what. So, I am going to write about Baking Day, that we had before Christmas.
To bake or not to bake...
Baking day is inappropriately named, if you ask me, since there is not actual baking going on. The premise is that the students will bake treats for the Christmas House program. The goodies will then be purchased for a small price and the school will benefit. So, Jayne, the head of Narnia's English department, is in charge of the baking day for the English department. However, she admits that she is really not a baker (or cook for that matter). So, I am given the task of coming up with four different no-bake recipes that we can make with first through fourth graders, using ingredients we can find here. Why no-bake, you ask? Well, because we have no ovens or stoves to use. Only one microwave. And for those of you who have made no-bake recipes, you know that you have to melt things (butter or chocolate usually) for all your recipes. Well, I am not daunted (yet!) by my task. I scour different websites looking for recipes and finally find 3 (Jayne has 1 recipe): rice crispy treats, haystacks and mini cheesecakes. Everything is fine until the Friday before when one of the teachers asks me to help her make a shopping list so that we can make sure we have all the ingredients. I have to explain each ingredient, and when she says they don't have that (i.e. - chow mien noodles), I have to give her a substitute (such as ramon noodles). So far so good, I think. But... as the saying goes, don't count your chickens before they hatch. Come Monday morning, I am faced with all the ingredients. Instead of crispy rice, there is puffed rice, instead of coco crispies, there are coco puffs. And the marshmallows! They are half white, half bright (neon) pink! And they are fruity flavored. Great! But again,... the show must go on. So, I look at our recipes. They all have cups and ounces measurements, while all of our ingredients are in grams and milliliters! So, I have to hastily convert things (going by sight and feel mostly). Then I realize that we have no measuring cups or spoons. So, we borrow some spoons from the kitchen and find some little plastic drinking cups which are about a cup and a 1/3, we guess.
Well, here goes nothing, I think, as the first group of students comes parading down to make rice crispy treats. It goes fairly well, although, with only one microwave and three batches of marshmallows to melt, it takes way too long. So, we send Erika (the 2nd grade English teacher) off to see if she can find another one. We finally borrow one from a neighboring organization, and with two microwave's, things are in full swing. The first group made rice crispy treats from puffed rice and I took a taste as I was putting them in the pan. Gross! They are called rice crispy treats (not puffed rice treats) for a reason. But they have a nice neon pink color, so at least the kids will think they look good. The second batch we use coco puffs and they look even worse. Brown cereal coated with hot pink goo.... Anyone want to try?
All in all the day goes well. Everything we make has a small problem or two, but nothing too bad. We have to wash all our bowls and utensils in between every project, and it seems like we just finish cleaning when the next group comes, but I like staying busy, so it's all good.
My favorite recipe we made was the miniature cheesecakes. We had all the right ingredients, so they turned out good and they were fairly easy to make. The fun came when we had to mix the whipping cream and cream cheese together. I had brought our mixer from home (which I had used before). However, when I turned it on, it started spattering little drops of cream everywhere. Soon, I was covered in little white dots, as were the kids who were standing close to the bowl. Ester, the 3rd grade English teacher, saw my problem and came up with a solution. She took the big role of plastic wrap that we had and started wrapping me up in it! She started at my waist and went halfway to my knees. I was laughing to hard to convince her to stop... and besides, it was working. The dots were on the plastic wrap, not me! The kids thought this was hilarious and soon half of the class, boys and girls, were wrapped up in plastic wrap. (Side note - the cheesecakes were delicious!)
So, all in all, it was a successful, productive and hilariously fun day. While I don't recommend baking with one hundred children in one day, it makes for some great stories and plenty of laughter. I only wish that all of you could have come to the Christmas house and sampled our wonderful treats.
To bake or not to bake...
Baking day is inappropriately named, if you ask me, since there is not actual baking going on. The premise is that the students will bake treats for the Christmas House program. The goodies will then be purchased for a small price and the school will benefit. So, Jayne, the head of Narnia's English department, is in charge of the baking day for the English department. However, she admits that she is really not a baker (or cook for that matter). So, I am given the task of coming up with four different no-bake recipes that we can make with first through fourth graders, using ingredients we can find here. Why no-bake, you ask? Well, because we have no ovens or stoves to use. Only one microwave. And for those of you who have made no-bake recipes, you know that you have to melt things (butter or chocolate usually) for all your recipes. Well, I am not daunted (yet!) by my task. I scour different websites looking for recipes and finally find 3 (Jayne has 1 recipe): rice crispy treats, haystacks and mini cheesecakes. Everything is fine until the Friday before when one of the teachers asks me to help her make a shopping list so that we can make sure we have all the ingredients. I have to explain each ingredient, and when she says they don't have that (i.e. - chow mien noodles), I have to give her a substitute (such as ramon noodles). So far so good, I think. But... as the saying goes, don't count your chickens before they hatch. Come Monday morning, I am faced with all the ingredients. Instead of crispy rice, there is puffed rice, instead of coco crispies, there are coco puffs. And the marshmallows! They are half white, half bright (neon) pink! And they are fruity flavored. Great! But again,... the show must go on. So, I look at our recipes. They all have cups and ounces measurements, while all of our ingredients are in grams and milliliters! So, I have to hastily convert things (going by sight and feel mostly). Then I realize that we have no measuring cups or spoons. So, we borrow some spoons from the kitchen and find some little plastic drinking cups which are about a cup and a 1/3, we guess.
Well, here goes nothing, I think, as the first group of students comes parading down to make rice crispy treats. It goes fairly well, although, with only one microwave and three batches of marshmallows to melt, it takes way too long. So, we send Erika (the 2nd grade English teacher) off to see if she can find another one. We finally borrow one from a neighboring organization, and with two microwave's, things are in full swing. The first group made rice crispy treats from puffed rice and I took a taste as I was putting them in the pan. Gross! They are called rice crispy treats (not puffed rice treats) for a reason. But they have a nice neon pink color, so at least the kids will think they look good. The second batch we use coco puffs and they look even worse. Brown cereal coated with hot pink goo.... Anyone want to try?
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| TeachOvers |
All in all the day goes well. Everything we make has a small problem or two, but nothing too bad. We have to wash all our bowls and utensils in between every project, and it seems like we just finish cleaning when the next group comes, but I like staying busy, so it's all good.
My favorite recipe we made was the miniature cheesecakes. We had all the right ingredients, so they turned out good and they were fairly easy to make. The fun came when we had to mix the whipping cream and cream cheese together. I had brought our mixer from home (which I had used before). However, when I turned it on, it started spattering little drops of cream everywhere. Soon, I was covered in little white dots, as were the kids who were standing close to the bowl. Ester, the 3rd grade English teacher, saw my problem and came up with a solution. She took the big role of plastic wrap that we had and started wrapping me up in it! She started at my waist and went halfway to my knees. I was laughing to hard to convince her to stop... and besides, it was working. The dots were on the plastic wrap, not me! The kids thought this was hilarious and soon half of the class, boys and girls, were wrapped up in plastic wrap. (Side note - the cheesecakes were delicious!)
So, all in all, it was a successful, productive and hilariously fun day. While I don't recommend baking with one hundred children in one day, it makes for some great stories and plenty of laughter. I only wish that all of you could have come to the Christmas house and sampled our wonderful treats.
24 January 2007
SNEŽENIE!
Snow! Finally, after a non-white Christmas, we have had our first snowfall of 2007. (We had snow in November, while we were in East Slovakia, so this is also my first Bratislava nowfall). As we left for work yesterday, Karin said that it was raining so we should take umbrellas. But, as we came out our front door we realized that it was snow falling, not rain. Big white flakes. They didn't stick much - just to car windows mostly. But there was just enough for one student to make a snowball and throw it at my office window and for another student to make a miniture snowman on the back of a car! Fun, fun, fun!
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