Halloween Party

On Friday we had our annual Halloween Party, complete with the scare room, decorations and games. It was a hit. In fact, these parties have become so popular that many kids brought friends and siblings as well, making an hour block with 80 kids in to over a 100. While I like that these parties have become so popular, all the extra kids meant that all the games we had planned became difficult, if not impossible to do (50 kids in a classroom who don't speak a lot of English is just chaos). Some serious improvising managed to get us to the six o'clock block (when the herd thinned out) but needless to say we were all quite tired (six consecutive scare room showings followed by a game with fifty or so 3rd and 4th grades can be exhausting..... and it does wonders for your voice). For anyone not familiar, the scare room is a room we cover over and make pitch black, we then have a few decorations (this years theme was a graveyard). We then lead the kids in and then jump out and scare the hell out of them. Most of them freak out and then lights go on and I take off my mask and they laugh. We had a few cryers, but even they get happy when I take my mask off and give them a candy (but they're terrified until I take it off, even when the lights are on). I should mention it was a yellow and red Mexican wrestling mask Geoff brought me from mexico. However,  the highlight for me was when a few of my middle school students decided they wanted to help me jump out and scare everyone in the scare room. I wasn't sure if the older kids actually enjoy the Halloween party or if they just want to eat candy and watch the Simpsons, but when they were as excited as the little ones and really getting in to it I had my answer, and was happy with it :) However, it ended on a bit of a sour note with the big boss talking to the Korean teachers, and he seemed upset about something (what I don't know). Not sure why it couldn't have waited until Monday but I guess it's not my place to worry about it (and if a few of those kids who came to the party decide to enrol I bet the higher up's will be very happy :)

I'll post pics on facebook later for anyone interested.

After work I was exhausted so the three of us just grabbed a convenience store beer together and then went our separate ways. I was boring and just went home to watch a movie called Seven Years in Tibet. Not a bad film (actually I quite enjoyed most of it) but really took a political tone towards the end and it was, well lets say somewhat one sided in it's views on the Dalai Lama (though I in no way condone Mao Zedong or his fanatics did in 1950-1951, or what the Chinese government has done against the Tibetan culture and people in years since, it should have been mentioned in the interests of fairness that Tibet had been a part of China for almost 400 years at that point, so it was not the invasion comparable to Nazi Germany's actions as the film suggests). Anyway, a great film for the relations between Pitt's character and the Dalai Lama if you are interested in that sort of thing.