Austrian Gems

My favorite graffiti in Salzburg.  It brightens my day every time I see it.

Side note: the text of this post was written on Friday, but the site was overloaded or my internet was bad or something so I couldn't post it.  Side side note: happy Mother's Day Mom!!! I love you!

Lately I have been reading the Book of Awesome online, which has helped me appreciate the smaller things in life.  Teaching is a job full of little victories: sometimes you're the hero, sometimes you're the villain, and sometimes you have to fall into the background (even if you don't want to).  I've had my fair share of good and bad days; some days have extreme highs and extreme lows together.  Wednesday of this week was one of those days where I feel like a hamster in a cage, and no matter how hard I work I feel like I've gotten nowhere.  Compare that to today, where an awesome idea dawned on me in the shower that allowed me to take the normally boring topic of 'Job interviews' and turn it into something worth doing again.  Instead of holding normal job interviews, I had them pretend like it was a blind dating television show.  Even better was the fact that the students came up with their own ridiculous jobs and personalities - we had people interviewing for the job of Obama's butler, undertaker, boss of a chocolate factory and NASCAR driver.  The answers were spontaneous and incredibly creative: one of the girls who wanted to be an undertaker claimed she would be good at the job because she had a sixth sense and could communicate with dead people, another boy who wanted to be a NASCAR driver said his experience was in driving quickly away from the police.

My kids surprise me on a regular basis.  A few weeks ago for April Fool's day, all of the fourth class from one of my Catholic schools traded with the entire fourth class from the girls' school nearby.  The teacher was pretty upset, but they had cleared it with both headmasters so she couldn't do anything about it.  You've got to admit that it's pretty creative!

There was the time that one of the boys in my class tried to list different natural disasters, including volcanic eruptions.  What he said, though, was volcanic erections.  He turned bright red when he was called out on it (by me, by the teacher, and by his classmates).  It was pretty funny.

 There was the group of boys who won the ultimate prize of American candy - Reeses - except when they bit into them they hated them so much that they had to spit the candy out.  I wish I had captured their faces on camera.  Peanut butter and chocolate together is an incredibly unfamiliar flavor combination to these kids.

I had a kid 100% honestly tell me that he would never live in America because the state doesn't take care of us in ways like providing health care.  It caught me off guard.  This kid is 16 years old.

And lastly, I recently had someone tell me that they spent the holidays planting 'semen' in their yard.  They meant seeds.  I guess they're similar....still it's not a mistake that is good to make!

Hope these little gems brightened your day!

Coffee at my favorite coffee shop in town - Cafe Alchemie.  Another thing that always brings a smile to my face.