Ladies and Gentlemen,

it's official. I have survived my first term of teaching! Today is day one of what is essentially my summer vacation.

And what an exciting note the first term ended on. First, this weekend was opening weekend of Nan's famous boat races. There was a giant fair along the river with bounce houses, cotton candy, and really cheap shoe places where I bought 2 pairs of Converses (1 high-top, 1 low) for about US$12 total. And the races were pretty exciting too, though we weren't sure what color our village was wearing so we didn't know who to root for. I'm going to try to upload a video at some point.

Then Monday was a school day, but I received not one but TWO packages - one from AV and one from MGalla. Here's a blurry picture where my head looks unusually large that proves that AV's copious stamp licking was not in vain.



In MGalla's package was a wonderful note, complete with hellos from Willie and Melahn, and a glorious gift.



In case you can't tell, that is a pin of Zac Efron, the star of High School Musical and High School Musical 2: Sing It All or Nothing!. Pins are actually pretty common here. A lot of people wear pins in the same spot as I've got mine in my photo. They are always pins of the princess. I'm considering wearing my pin and convincing as many people as possible that Zac Efron is the prince of America.


Then, on Tuesday, 5/1 threw me a surprise birthday party!! It was wonderful. Luckily, 5th graders are terrible at keeping secrets, so I came prepared with my camera.



They decorated the entire blackboard.



And they gave me presents.



LOTS of presents.



Then, Aj. Wandee told them to give me a hug and they ambushed me.



Last, here's me as drawn by Yim.



It's a pretty accurate representation, don't you think?