(no subject)
The whole Junior-Youth and Children's Class end of the year event went well.
The first people who arrived were kids, and I jumped up and recruited them to help me move all the chairs out as soon as it was getting close for the event to actually start. (If you name an event's starting time here, expect them to come anywhere within a one or two hour range of the given time.) We moved a few benches and a zillion chairs out, until we had enough that in the end we had at least forty people comfortably seated on the driveway-porch.
The junior youth told a few stories first, reciting quotes they had memorized that essencially summed up their stories' morals. After about half of them had gone up on the front steps (which had a wide area and served as a sort of stage,) the children went up and did a brief drama about what I think was a vietnamese folktale. The story was basically that of a farmer and his son going through a series of events, alternating between good and bad, with the old man saying 'this looks good/bad, but could actually be bad/good, and we should wait and see.' A few of the key actors were missing through the first playthrough, and when they arrived an hour late we did the thing again. It was just as well; the first time around the children hadn't spoken very loudly, and the second time they were with actors whose voices carried more.
After that some arts and crafts that both groups had been doing were handed out, some of these being specially dedicated for tomorrow's mother's day, and then the rest of the junior youth went up and told their stories. Two kids had a bad case of stage-fright; one was my nephew, who didn't speak spanish but had memorized his quote in it anyway. He told his story very nervously, and while translating I fleshed the story out a tiny bit, rephrasing sentences that might not have been entirely clear when directly translated. He told his quote very well, though. He'd defenitely been practicing, and I'm kinda proud of him. The second kid was a boy who'd arrived at the youth group only about three weeks ago. He told his story clearly, but sometimes when he'd pause a bit too long I'd need to supply a tidbit from it to keep him going. When time came for his quote, he'd forgotten how it began. (Luckily one of the girls in the group was near the book we'd been using, and she whipped it out and found the quote and gave him the first part. He was fine after that.) When he finished his story he practically fled from the steps back to his seat. I made sure to give both him and my nephew an extra smile and thumbs up afterwards.
Then we all had cake. When everyone had more or less finished and they were all outside doing I-don't-know-what, I put the kitchen back together as quickly and efficiently as I could before heading outside to help out. Most everyone had gone off to the soccer pitch by then, so I was able to start putting the chairs away, getting a skinny but strong kid from the children's class to help me with the benches.
Afterwards a Peace Corp worker in our neighborhood came over. She chatted with us a bit before heading off to the computer room to check her email (we have a few old computers there for that particular purpose), and she stayed for dinner, and then dessert. Much Kung-fu Panda and chocolate chip cookies and icecream was had.
Then, setting a record for how many movies I've watched in one day all year, I watched Treasure Planet while I watercolored. I've drawn something that has a really tricky light-source, and I used so much paint trying to achieve the level of darkness I wanted that it was tricky making sure nothing got messed up. All I did was the background, and tomorrow I'll do the subjects.
I don't think I'm going to Taekwondo tomorrow. My sister's not coming because we can't get a babysitter for my youngest nephew due to mother's day, which means I don't have a ride to town from her. There was that tournament on Saturday, too, which could have meant that there wouldn't be class that day anyway. I'll call the teacher sometime tomorrow afternoon and ask if there was going to be, and if there is I'll probably just tell him I can't come.
I'm hoping that this whole Tang-So-Do class that I might eventually join works out; if it does, it's barely a twenty minute ride, /and/ I could probably start having supper before eight-thirty every day of the week, instead of just weekends and days that start with 'T'.
I looked up some stuff about internship today. Everything I saw looked like it might need me to actually live in the US for it to work. That's kinda discouraging, but I'm still looking at stuff; maybe I could look for something at NASA that can be done through correspondence. If I find an opportunity too incredible to pass up on, maybe I can even find a way to stay in the US for a few months. After all, internships don't last very long, compared to other things. We'll see.
Peace out!