Greetings!
In one week from this time I will already be on a plane headed towards Hawaii! I can't wait. Tomorrow is the last day day with kids, and it's Honor's Day. So, that will start at 10 am. With each class going down to the church for their awards...I was told only do 6 awards in the church. And I've been told that some classes will also sing, but they aren't supposed to. I mean think about it...there are 14 classes. If every class takes 10 minutes, we are looking at this taking over 2 hours! So, they said only 6 for presentation time. It doesn't mean we can't do more in class. I came up with 6~actually I had a boy and girl tie for highest GPA for the year and 2 improved the same amount of GPA from the beginning of the year. I also have a fabulous drawer in class, so an artistic ability award goes to her. And the happiest cleaner goes to a girl that loves to clean. She will actually take the broom from someone to sweep the classroom, even when it's not her turn to sweep!!! And she does it happily! So, I think she deserves an award. Don't you?
Anyway. I just found out today that I am not actually off at all before I leave. Apparently, we still get to work even at 7:30 each morning!!! Ugh! What's up with that? I have no idea. I guess they work all summer, so when he said "vacation days" are next week, he was implying that meant we continued through this week...full days! Well, I'm just about done with everything. I have attendance to do for report cards. Then, I guess I will spend some time cleaning my classroom. Because when I'm finished with all my stuff, I get to help everyone else that isn't finished with their stuff. If I knew that before hand, I would not have worked so diligently getting all my stuff done,"Thinking wow, the more I get done now, the sooner I will get off on Tuesday after the kids leave!" So I worked so diligently on finishing all my stuff, just so I can help the others that didn't work so diligently and waited until the last minute to do their things. The principal said don't wait until Monday afternoon to work on awards...cuz something may happen~power goes out, printer stops working. Well, at least 3-4 people were working on them when I was in the office about 2:30 or so. I got mine printed and all on Friday!!! I was planning on finishing up my packing on Wednesday, since I thought I had it off. I knew Thursday and Friday would be kind of crazy because of the graduations being in the afternoon. Interesting to say the least. 
Then, this evening we had a funeral to go to. It is quite different from the states. One being they keep the body in a casket with class on it in their home for about 7 days, unless it's going to a different place. Another thing that is different here, I noticed is the men sit in chairs, while the ladies sit on the floor...even elderly ladies sit on the floor. Then at the end when they are done speaking, it is time for us to go around and shake the hands of the relatives. By the casket is a basket. At all funerals we give one dollar to the family. Well, we were sitting there waiting...and no one was moving. We were waiting on the men do go through and shake hands first. Families do not sit together nor greet the grieving family together. In fact, for the most part husbands and wives do not sit together in church (they don't even sit on the same bench) or Sunday School or anything. It took me some time to figure out who was married...and then I got help from Mrs. Buck on exactly who was married. 
Well, I guess that is it for now. Talk to you soon! Come on next week! Get here already, will you?
Sarah