Friday, November 24, 2006

This morning I woke up early, like I have been lately, and started using the computer at 6:30 and was able to use it for a good 2 hours before I had to get ready, because I was going to Penilla again and didn’t have to be ready until 9:15. Penilla was good, but not quiiite as good as last time we went. I’m pretty proud of the fact that I’m probably the only one of the group (aside from maaaybe Holly) who has figured out exactly how to get there and even know several ways. We were with the gruppa mic (little group) today, where Maria and Catalin from Dacie 3rd floor are. They were so cute! I’d say the age range was anywhere from 1 and ½ or 2 to 5. When we first got there they were in the play room with the ball pit and I kind of wasn’t sure what to do. They were already all playing, they were all kind of scared of me, aside for Maria and Catalin who were playing with Shannon anyway, and I was scared of them too, so I just reverted to my old trusted friend, tickling. It worked better than anything else I could think of would, but I still kind of looked like an idiot. Luckily the play room was almost over though, so soon we were off to a different room with desks. The teacher had all the kids sit down in a circle and taught them Christmas poems, while Shannon and I sat at her desk and wrote American children’s songs for them to learn. We decided to throw in a couple of children’s church songs too, just for good measure and because we couldn’t think of any other ones J. While we were sitting there writing the songs, we’d occasionally look over and gaze at the little circle of kids and be like, “*sigh,* they’re so cute!” This was especially satisfying because Shannon’s mom had a daycare and she used to be totally not like that and take pride in the fact that she wasn’t one of those girls and there she was going right along with it too! Well, after a while we finished with the songs and went and sat with them for a while before we all went back to the desks to paint! The kids were learning about the color orange, so they were given a piece of white paper and they were supposed to paint it all orange. I never knew there were so many ways to paint a page orange. The kid I was sitting next to had a very specific method. He would dip the paint brush in the paint and then paint in a very concentrated area, probably the size of a 50 cent piece and then, though his brush was still completely filled with paint, he’d redip it and put a tiny bit more on. He was obsessed with getting every little piece of white on the areas that were already mostly orange, but didn’t seem to much care about the huge spaces of white. He was definitely the last one done. I loved it. Child after my own heart. I think his name is David and I noticed that he and this other kid named Paul tend to still together like superglue. Paul is one of the youngest kids (maybe 2) and he’s probably the cutest one (strictly looks wise), but pretty petulant. He’s wary and moody and shy. David on the other hand is really even tempered and has kind of a quiet strength to him. So, even though Paul has the strooonger personality, he’d really be nothing without David, who basically watches over and protects him. You know you’ve been working with kids too long when you talk like that. Provo is going to be such alien land to me! People are going to be like, um what are you doing? Eh, I’m over it. Ce sa faci (what can you do)? So, anyway, while we were painting, the teacher was helping this one really little boy do his painting, but she’d occasionally help someone else too. Well, one of the times, she went to go help someone else and by the time she came back, this little kid had paint just aaaaaall over his face. It was hilarious! Painting with babies – never a good idea if you like everything to be clean! Well, after painting we got all the kids changed into basically their snow clothes, even though Shannon and I were outside in our t-shirts and were absolutely fine. I started off swinging with Maria, then after a while the other kids came out, including Catalina from Dacie 7th, and I swung with her too. I’d been hoping to see Georgiana from Dacie 7th too, because I don’t think she’ll be at Dacie from now on, but she wasn’t there because she was with her new mom. After a while we went and did a bunch of other things too (half of them involving tickling of course). My favorite playground moment was this. I’d started chasing Catalina and tickling her and in the process I’d tickle any other kid in the immediate vicinity too. So, after a while I was just running around tickling all kinds of kids. Well, at one point Catalina was running up the hill and I go to chase after her and I look back and there are probably like 7 laughing, screaming little 4 years olds chasing me. It was soooo cute! Another interesting observance I happened upon while I was there was that Andre (the more verbal of the 2 wheelchair boys) is like, the cool kid on campus. All the kids always want to play with him and he just leads them around in his little wheelchair. I don’t blame them, he’s pretty personable, and I think it’s great! I mean, how fabulous of a place is it where the kid in the wheelchair is actually cool? Later on, I was stationed at the see saw for quite some time. I don’t remember how exactly I procured the job, but somehow I came to be in charge of it. A kid would come up and I’d ask them if they wanted to get on it and they would always say yes. So, then I’d put them in the seat and strap them in and manually operate it (because, well, kids aren’t all the same size and they definitely aren’t all highly functioning enough to push the ground and get the thing going by themselves). Claudio, the down syndrome kid was in it the whole time because, well, let’s face it, down syndrome kids are usually kind of off in their own world and are generally content with most anything, and so since he was content to sit in the chair, I was content to leave him! He just sat there and chewed on his hat the whole time and I’m still not so sure he was even aware that he was going up and down. Well, after that we all went back inside and took everyone out of their jackets and hats and shoes and washed their hands and had gluing time! The teacher cut all their orange pages into strips and, the kids ripped the strips into smaller pieces and then they were supposed to glue them into a shape that resembled a flower. After that, they were shown how to draw a stem (Maria, who I was helping, chose to draw about 5 stems) and then they glued on a leaf as well. It was high art. After that, all the kids had a little bit of time to just play with toys and then it was time for lunch and we left. We had to go home before going to the hospital, because I was going to try to get my glasses prescription and I needed to print off my prescription at Podul and Shannon had a bunch of things to do at home before going to the hospital too. After we got home, I decided I just wasn’t going to go to the hospital, because I just wasn’t feeling it and I’ve decided that I think I tap out at going 4 times a week, especially since I go to Dacie on Tuesdays and Thursdays too. You know what bothers me? Part of the reason why I don’t go to the hospital is because I have so much homework to do and not really any time to do it, what with Dancu, Dacie, the orphanage, church stuff and everything else. So it bothers me that the homework I have actually really interferes with the experience and actually takes my focus off the kids. Shouldn’t it compliment it? I mean, I just feel like I can’t do both and so neither of them get my full attention. Anyway, so I stayed home and was actually incredibly productive. It’s always horrible when I stay home from something and am not productive anyway. I looked for an apartment online and made sooo much headway. I now have a list of probably 15 apartments that I’d be ok with staying in if everything works out the right way, so now I’ve just started emailing them, starting with the ones I like best, until I find one that works out. The one on the top of my list is a town home at a place called Campus Lane. It’s aaaabsolutely adorable and looks really nice. I would have a master private room (woot!) and possibly my own bathroom (don’t remember). The place even has a washer and dryer and I think it might be more than one level! On top of it, it’s pretty close to campus and is south of campus (which I wanted) at 582 N 500E. As far as I know it costs either $295 or $300 a month not counting utilities, which is way good for such a nice place. I cannot even express how happy I would be if I could get this place. I mean, the place I live and how pretty and clean it is has a huuuuge affect on how happy and optimistic I am and I’ve always wanted to live in a cute town house. Plus, I’ve had enough problems with roommates that I think I deserve to have a private room for once. And it’ll make it so much easier for me to be not stressed and be able to focus on school. Back to the original topic, another reason why the computer time was great was that I was listening to the classic Christmas music station on launch cast! Anyway, so at 7 we all went to the missionary fireside put on by the soras. I dressed up all nice in my nice pants and such because, well, I like dressing up on Friday nights, especially when I wear scrubs all week. For the missionary fireside we all made gingerbread houses. We were separated into groups of 3 or so and given supplies and left to go to work. My group was Marina, Madalina and I, with Marina being the chief architect. Our house was the boooomb. It was really pretty and orderly and creative. We made a bush out of this green glob of marshmallow and even made it look like it had Christmas lights on it! I was pretty impressed with everyone elses though too. Like, I don’t even have a favorite. And it made me so happy that Sora Lydia’s was pink! She’s so great. Oh, and as a shout out, I love Madalina too! What a sweet girl! Mmm….yay for outreach girls! The missionaries were really funny the whole night because they were all so happy and just going around taking pictures of everyone and everything. Like, at one point I looked over at Dubling and he was just standing there looking around with this HUGE grin on his face and I was like, “hey Dubling, ya happy?” and he’s like, “Uh huh!” Favorite part of the night though was with Toomie. He’s a total greeny, is from England (has a killer accent) and looooves Justin Timberlake and other rock and pop people a liiiiittle too much. So, someone was saying something to him in Romanian and he had noooo clue what they were saying and so one of the bilinguals translated for him and he just looks back at the person that had been talking to him and in a very Elder Toomie kind of a way that I really can’t explain through words he points to them, winks and just goes “da.” Like, wow, it was just such an Elder Toomie moment. And one of the other girls told me a funny story about Hackett. I guess Toomie was talking to a bunch of girls because, well, he’s just entertaining (it’s great, because I loooove to watch him, but am not attracted to him at all) and Hackett comes in and is like, “ooh, look at Elder Toomie, talking to all the girls!” Then, understandably, everyone was kind of awkward and quiet and Shannon goes, “good job Hackett, Sorensen has officially worn off on you.” And he’s like, “yeah, but not completely or else I would’ve then said ‘don’t blush!’” Ah, I love Hackett, and I love that he totally sees how awkward Sorensen is like we do. I totally plan on hanging out with him in Provo when I get home because he gets home in December too! But again, not attracted to him either! Woot! So, after a while I got a little bit of a headache and we left, all 5 of us together. By the time we’d gotten home my headache was pretty darn bad and so I just had to go straight to bed.