School Ends

Today, I had a Christmas party at school. My class has been doing something we call "Angels and Earthlings". Each person draws a name and that is their "Earthling". Then the "Angel" buys something for their "Earthling" every few days. So, today each person bought their "Earthling" a nicer Christmas gift today. We also had a lot of food and I am completely stuffed. After school, we stopped by my friend's house and they got us each a coconut off their coconut tree. Her brother used a machete to cut the coconut off the tree and her dad chopped the top off the coconuts so we could get to the jelly, also with a machete. My dad and I each had ours there. They cut a hole in the top and we drank the water out of it. It tasted pretty bitter and not very good, I thought, but it was fun because I got to drink out of a coconut with a straw. Then, they cut it in half. I was lucky, apparently, because I got jelly. So, they ripped off a little part of the coconut shell and I used that as a spoon to scrape out the jelly. The jelly was pretty much the same as the water just more slimy. We brought home Roxy's and one for my mom, too.
~Olivia

I also had a class party. Ours was smaller and less organized, but I enjoyed it anyways. In the morning, I brought 13 red balloons to decorate the class, but by the time the bell rang at 2:30 only 4 remained! For lunch, we ordered pizza, brought chips (of many types), and for dessert had cake and ice cream. Plus there were 2 kinds of soft drink. My teacher also brought a tree, a laptop, a projector and many movies. We ended up watching Superman and Batman; Public Enemies and Star Trek. Me and the two other girls in my class had a gift exchange, but our class's Angels and Earthlings game long ago got squashed. (People say things get squashed when they get canceled.) Today something happened that has not happened to me in a few years. There were more girls in my class than boys!!
~Roxy

While the girls were finishing up school for the year, we have been busy trying to finish up grades. In one of my classes I gave a final exam which meant that I had all the papers from that and was able to grade them. From my other class I have been waiting for final papers which I asked to have turned in by last Friday. However, the students technically have until tomorrow to get in assignments. So, I so far have 3 out of 12. That means I'll either have to work really hard this weekend to grade some from tomorrow or I'll be giving some very low grades to all those who do not turn theirs in.
I've been thinking lately about some of the things Americans say that make Trinis laugh at us. 1. "Americans often eat soup when it's cold outside." We got such funny looks when we relayed that piece of information. If they waited to have cold weather here, they'd never be able to have soup. 2. When asked the obvious question, "What color are oranges?" and we answered, "orange." Here they are bright green or pale yellow. It is orange season. 3. When we tell someone that Americans do not eat pizza covered with in either ketchup, mustard or hot pepper sauce. Sometimes Americans just eat it plain.
~Barb

This has (thankfully) been a less eventful week than last week. In particular, the drive to take the girls to school in the morning has been much shorter. I think many of the schools actually had their end of term tests last week. So a lot of students simply didn't go to school this week, which meant that there was significantly less traffic on the roads. Tomorrow is technically the last day of school for the term. However, the note we received from the principal last week stated in bold capital letters that STUDENTS ARE NOT REQUIRED TO ATTEND on Friday, 11 December. We took that to mean that, while the school will be officially "open," the faculty would really rather not have any students around to supervise that day. I have been happy for the shorter commuting times this week, and am looking forward to having a few weeks off of the morning drive.
~Richard