and what a foolish young girl was I, to fall in love with an irish boy

I have recently taken up a fascination with creating foods that should be shunned by anyone hoping to avoid Type 2 Diabetes, Heart Failure, and possibly cancer. I've been told repeatedly by one of my roommates that she can't wait until she doesn't live with me anymore. Ouch.

Today's Life Lesson: Don't go grocery shopping when you're hungry. Maybe everybody else already naturally understands this, but I do it constantly (stupid Vons next door). Today I came home with 2 tomatoes, 2 apples, a package of Polish sausages, a ready made potato soup, and a giant (16) package of corn dogs. Usually it's worse. Luckily, my bad memory kicked into survival instinct, and I completely forgot to get the foot long raspberry pastry I wanted.

I have never bought corn dogs before.

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The children's definitions and sentences have been pretty amusing lately. Mostly because they're finally using dictionary definitions (hurray!), but they still have no idea what the words mean. So, now the word is perfectly defined on one sentence, and completely butchered in the next.

Exhibit One:

Seon's notebook:

Definition: Phobia - a persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it.
Sentence Example: His name was from a phobia, so everyone was scared of him.

I duly changed it to a sentence about clown phobias (everybody should know they exist.)

Dylan's notebook:

Definition: Groan - To voice a deep, inarticulate sound, as of pain, grief, or displeasure.

Sentence Example: I once had a groan at a hotel.

This was changed to "I groaned when my brother jumped on me." (I often enjoy reading the replacement sentences.)

A few of the younger kids have gotten sneaky, and every time they're supposed to write a sentence about a word that is a noun, they write "I have never seen a ----- before." I am under instructions to squash these attempts, but I do find them clever.
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My favorite moment today was with Andrew, an adorably nerdy (his GPA is 4.15) 12-year-old who makes me smile (and who wished me happy pi day on the 14th. 3.14...) He had written a bunch of poems which he wanted me to examine. A line from one of the punny ones went something like:

"The zodiac of a friend of mine is crabs...
Or does he have a disease?"

That got to me:)

And then of course, there was Jake, my chubby 10-year-old with the large cheeks. I heard some noise and looked over to where he was spastically leaping into the air, shaking his head from side to side and giggling manically. In one hand, he had a sheet of paper which he waved about before he started ripping it apart and flinging the pieces to the floor. I couldn't help laughing before telling him to calm down and pick the pieces of paper up.

It turns out that before his little dance, he had grabbed the piece of paper, shouting "This is Brian's weenie!" Of course my laughter encouraged everybody, and soon after, Daniel (age 9?) grabbed a piece of paper and announced that it was someone else's weenie before destroying it.

I guess I just didn't see that coming.

_____

I have also discovered that I am a major sucker. The kids have discovered this too. They will be obnoxious for 30 minutes and then calm down right before the head of the center comes back. This is because she is crazy strict, yells at them in Korean, and knows their parents personally. (Not to make her sound evil – the kids are completely unruly when left alone.) Anyways, because they act up whenever she isn't around, she has told the other tutors and me to keep a "List" of naughty kids to give to her.

So basically all of 6-year-olds are on the list within five minutes of me arriving, and then I have no power over them, except allowing them to get off the list if they behave. The problem with this is that the list loses its power – they act up, calm down, and then act up again knowing that in the last few minutes they can be good and get off the list. How do they know this? Because it's me. The moment any kid calms down, acts fairly contrite, or – the worst – flashes me a charming smile (they are all adorable), I completely melt and forget all about their past deviant behavior (if I do remember a bit, I figure that surely they deserve another chance). And, in an instant, they slip off the list.

Yes, you are correct. I am the ideal candidate for an abusive relationship. My ability to forget, combined with my tendency to defend anything that breathes, will probably eventually produce the following conversation:

Concerned friend: You need to leave, Siobhan.
Me: Oh, but I'm sure he didn't mean to hit me with the hammer. And he's only violent when he's sober...
Concerned friend: Well okay. By the way, thanks for lending me that $3,000. I'm probably not going to be able to pay you back as soon as I thought.

Ah well, we will see. They really are cute kids.