The title of this entry is the title of two songs that I cannot hear until 2014. Today was the Christmas Party at the elementary school where I teach so all of the children finally performed these two songs which we have been working on for weeks. The girls made up dances to Jingle Bell Rock similar to the dance from Mean Girls which was hilarious to watch. I think I pronounced the words of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer about a million times, hence my allergy to it. Otherwise it was a nice performance. I was proud of my little students, even the evil ones managed to look cute. I think one of the perks of teaching kids is watching them do something that they have worked hard on and knowing that it is something that will stay with them for life. Its like every moment of every day has the potential to be momentous. For the ones that do worrisome things, like give other kids bloody noses, you hope that something you teach them will stay with them and point them in a straighter path. Some of the kids at my school give bloody noses. It feels like a jungle sometimes.

Anyway, they all managed to pronounce the songs in English fairly well. They had no idea what they were saying of course but they said it which is half the battle of learning a language! Which brings me to one of my favorite moments teaching so far. I was attempting to teach them the verb "to like" and I wrote out all of the conjugations (I like, you like, etc..) I asked one of the kids to pronounce the first conjugation. The little boy, after much reflection and formulation said "I lick". I quickly made a public announcement saying that they needed to be careful with this pronunciation and proceeded to translate "lick" into French. They all exploded with laughter. :p In hindsight, as a bit of revenge for the torture they put me through, I should have let them pronounce "I like" as "I lick". That way some day when they visit an english speaking country they will tell someone "I lick dogs" and will look like a mental person.

I am officially on vacation as of today and am looking forward to Christmas in the states! I wish I were visiting California but it will be nice to be with family at least. I leave for Paris on Thursday and after my GMAT on Friday I have the whole weekend to let loose and have fun! yessssss.

To rewind a bit again, I'm putting up pictures from Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving this year was amazing. My parents came for the whole week of Thanksgiving and Marina came for half the week. We did some sightseeing but also did a lot of preparation for our big Thanksgiving feast of around 15 people. I invited my American friends who would be missing the great day, my French roomates, some French friends, and my old French host parents. The French were so excited, as it was most of their first Thanksgiving! They all took pictures with the 8 pound turkey. It was cool to see how excited they were to be experiencing an American tradition.

I'm not ususally very patriotic but it was a really nice Thanksgiving, where I was proud to be sharing my culture and traditions. I am thankful for a holiday where we remember to be thankful. I had so many of my loved ones around me, I couldn't have asked for anything more.