Tempo de Frio and Provincial Exams

Winter is here.  Finally.  It arrived yesterday, bringing a chilly morning and a whole day of rain.  Yessssssss.  Not only do I have rain water to drink for weeks now but I'm not hot anymore!! This is wonderful.

I've been proctoring provincial exams for a few days.  I controllar'd 2 exams on Tuesday morning and one on Wednesday morning for a colleague   Tests are extremely boring at their best and excruciatingly infuriating at their worst.  Proctoring exams for Other People's Turmas is definitely testing-at-its-worst.  I'm small, I'm white, I'm funny looking, I don't speak Portuguese well. And then, to be a Substitute?  Yes, this is a recipe for disaster.  Honestly I would get less abuse if I ACTUALLY had a big target painted on my back and got led blindfolded into the middle of some sort of elementary school riot involving rotten tomatoes or something.  I'd prefer that.  Instead I get thrown into classrooms of 10th grade kids who DON'T WANT TO TAKE A TEST and who now have to take it with this STRANGE WHITE PERSON who doesn't know the rules.  

Tuesday was the worst.  My first turma was horrible.  They wouldn't stop talking.  I moved them around, I gave some zeros. They didn't care.  At the end of the test they started screaming when I told them they had to stay seated until I collected all the tests.  They tried to sneak out.  I yelled at them to come back in.  They wouldn't sit down still.  I shut the door and stared at them until they were moderately quiet.  At this point, another professor came in to see what the problem was.  I told him that I just asked them to sit down and that they obviously were GIGANTIC JERKS.  Ugh.  This other professor told them they were being jerks and then he and I turned to leave.  Then these kids started cheering.  Other Professor turned quickly on his heel and doled out the BEST punishment ever.  Mandatory enxada-ing of the front yard.  Serves them right.

I have to say, usually I can manage my classes. And I've NEVER needed to be bailed out before.  Honestly it was that bad.  I was starting to get a homicidal twitch in my eye every time I heard them snicker at me, or repeat what I had said in a mocking tone or blatantly cheat.  

My other tests went better. (I don't even want to imagine what Worse would be like?)  On Wednesday morning I walked into the class to proctor another 10th grade exam and most of the kids quieted down except for a few boys in the back. It's ALWAYS the boys who sit in the back corner...in every turma.  So I walked back there and asked if maybe he hadn't seen me standing at the front of the room?  He said "Oh, no...sorry..I didn't see you" 

Only 2 more days of testing now then I'll spend all weekend grading.  All I have to do next week is return the tests and give the kids their Trimester grades. Easy!

LOOK I GOT MAIL!!!

This is what happens when we open our packages.

I saw this kid on my walk home.  He's a little bro of one of my students.  Now he knows Seattle is in America.

Vito and JR try on some glasses from my Christmas Package (which I received on April 1st, fyi)

The best thing has happened to my breakfasts.  I discovered Instant Banana Flavored Breakfast Xima at the Red Store