Grades are Done!!!

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve blogged. I guess it’s been pretty busy at Woodstock. Mid-term grades were due this week, so I spent a lot of time getting those ready. Megan and I actually had our grades done by Tuesday night (well, actually I did something wrong with mine, but didn’t find out until today…) so we went out to eat to celebrate. We ate at the Four Seasons restaurant in the bazaar. We had momos (semi spicy steamed chicken dumplings), chicken seekh kababs (spicy minced chicken cooked on a skewer) and vegetable kofta (a random assortment of veggies rolled into a ball with something else that held it together and then mustard colored gravy on top). Before we ate we spent some time wandering around the bazaar. Normally when we go shopping we always have some specific item(s) that we need to purchase. But on Tuesday we weren’t planning on buying anything specific – it made it a lot more fun! We spent a fair amount of time at the “everything store” – I don’t know what it’s real name is, but Woodstock people just refer to it as I did. It has the most random assortment of items you could ever find in a store that is smaller than my last apartment at St. Ben’s. We bought two cutting knives, some floating jelly candles, a cool decorative wood bowl, some sweet elephant and turtle candles AND these awesome beads that are super small, but when you soak them in water they expand and look like multi-colored glass beads that you would put in a fish bowl. And they feel really cool – really slippery and squishy. Now we just have to find a fish bowl or something to put them in. They were 25 ruppees per pack – that’s close to 50 cents.
Yesterday, Mandy (PE teacher) and I had our second rugby practice for students! I actually had to come late, because the music department had recital auditions for our next weekly recital. By the time I got down to the Hanson Field the high schoolers were already playing truck and trailer (that’s not what we called it at CSB, but I’ve done that drill before) and looking pretty good. Mandy had them also doing so basic back line plays and then they played touch rugby. We were supposed to end at 6:00, but the kids asked if they could stay and play until 6:15. We haven’t done any tackling yet, although the students were begging to start tackling! Maybe on Monday we’ll introduce it… Although, it’s going to be difficult to play a tackle game, because there is a big area of gravel/small rocks in the center of the field. There are smaller areas of grass on the edges of the field, so we could practice tackling there, but we are going to have to be creative in order to figure out how to play tackle rugby on Hanson Field…
Next weekend is quarter break! That means we don’t have school on Thursday and Friday. A bunch of us are going to go down to Delhi and stay at one of our friend’s houses for the long weekend. Then one day we are going to go to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. It will be nice to get away from campus for a while and experience “real India”. Woodstock is definitely its own little community and you can always tell when you exit Woodstock and enter India – even just going into the bazaar is completely different than being on Woodstock campus. Well, I don’t have any good pictures to put up on this blog – I will bring my camera with me to Delhi and Agra, so in a week I’m sure I will have some amazing pictures!!!

Woodstock Cross Country Race

Today was Woodstock’s school cross country race. The entire school hiked up to the top of the hill to the “racing area” which is really a road called the Chuker (I’m not sure how to spell it) the winds around in a big figure eight. The scenery up there is awesome and once monsoon is over (which should be pretty soon!) you can see all the way to some of the snow capped peaks of the Himalayas.
The elementary school kids went up in the morning, while the rest Woodstock had normal classes. The little kids had a short distance to run ( I don’t know how long it was). Then the middle schoolers went up during the last part of their lunch time and they did not have class for the remainder of the day. I did have a slight problem with this, because several of my inter band kids thought that they did not have band today – which they did. I dragged some of them out of lunch to come and practice, but I coud not find them all. I had to lecture them again, so hopefully everyone will be in attendance on Friday. We also did not have band on Monday due to a shortened school day. The past week or so has been frustrating in the fact that I haven’t been able to really rehearse with this band.
Anyway, then the high school students went up to the top of the hill during the last period of the day to run their races. They had four groups, 9th/10th grade girls, 9th/10th grade boys, 11th/12th grade girls and 11/12th grade boys. I think I mentioned before that each student and staff member is placed into a house for sports. The races from the entire day are put together to determine the cross country house winner. It was fun to see all of the students in their different colored shirts and face paint etc. Merlins are red (Megan and I are Merlins), Eagles are blue and Condors are green. Each student gets at least 3 points for finishing the race and then I think it was the first 10 places get more points for their house. Staff can run too, although no matter what we only get one point for our house. Megan and I were going to run with the 11th/12th grade girls, but then the Phy Ed teacher convinced her to run with the boys instead, because they had a longer distance. I decided to stick to my original plan of running the shorter one with the girls – I am NOT a long distance runner, I never have been and I never will…
It was pretty fun, although it’s a lot different running up at a high altitude vs. running in MN. After the races were over, a bunch of teachers decided to go eat at Char Dukan (in Hindi, that means “4 stores”). On one side of the figure eight road there are four little café places and it is a popular place for staff and students to go, especially on the weekends. We went there, but it was really busy, so Megan and I decided to walk back. We both had to go back to school before coming home, so we thought (well Megan thought) it would be a good idea to go the short cut way called the “zig zag” path that we came up with all the students. Well after about 20-30 minutes of hiking up and down random paths, we realized we had no idea how to get back to school from there. So we went back up to the top of the mountain and took the longer path that we were familiar with. I have never been good at directions, I still get lost every time I try to go to Sell’s house.