A Bit of a Holiday

Tunisia!

Christmas Day this year was a bit...adventurous. We went spelunking. Yes, cave exploring. And it served as a bit of a bonding experience between us and bat poop.

Hiking with Emily up to the cave. All was well.

Here is our cave attack crowd...minus one...he had to take the picture. By the time we got to this point, we were pretty much covered in bat crap.

But the cavern at the bottom was definitely worth it.

I don't have the pictures of us rappelling up and down the cave. Maybe those can come later.

Day trip #2 took us to some Roman ruins further in the country.

Found an attractive Roman guy. Kinda like Santa, except older...and headless.

Hung out with each other in a dead doorway.

Absorbing the views

Chillin' out with a dead stadium

The beautiful views again.

And just generally awesome Roman stuff.

I'm ok with this Christmas. I mean, it's not hanging out with family, but we had a good time.

WWF in British Literature

We're talking about Beowulf in class. Ya know, the classic 'foundation of British literature' story of a super-man who kills dragons, zombies and the zombie's mom. I like this story. Parents think it's nice, clean literature that will develop their child into an upstanding citizen, and then I get to teach all the violence, blood, guts, and appendage ripping horror to these wide-eyed missionary kids.

I hit the jackpot this year with this little piece of magic: Beowulf vs. "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. Let's take these two guys and pit them against each other and see what happens. Before I read this I had to explain what WWF is and who "Stone Cold" Steve Austin is. Too bad internet was down and I couldn't show a YouTube video!

I keep wondering to myself how much to expose these kids to. In my mind, if I can open their eyes to something here, in this safe classroom, then all the better for them when they return to their home countries. Therefore, I have no problem tossing a picture of this scary wrestler dude standing in a ring in nothing but his man-panties for all my kids to see. I take time to explain a piledriver and body-scissors (the kids kinda gaped at me a little when I asked if any of them wanted to show us how they were really done) so they can see how ridiculous it all is.

Something I struggle with is knowing where the line is. At what point am I explaining and exposing them to too much? Is there a line? My kids in the states catch almost all of Shakespeare's sexual humor, and my kids here catch almost none of it. Do they need to know? Am I doing them a disservice by leaving them in the dark about this? I don't want them to leave naive, but I don't want to over expose them either ... I'll leave all the over-exposing to "Stone-Cold."

What do you think?

Your __________ looks good!

The words echoed across the dorm as I stepped out of my apartment. The voice, that of a strong, 17-year-old African young man,

"Aunt Cindyyyyy!!!! You look so buff!"

Now, I understand that in African culture, this is a high compliment. However, this child plans to attend college in the US. It is time for a lesson on complimenting girls.

So gather the non-Americans who plan to go to school in America and dig-in to a very confusing conversation riddled with a million questions.

Me: Asyncrite, you can't say that to girls. US girls want to be told they are skinny and pretty.

Yun-In (Korean): But what if that is a lie? I don't want to lie if she is not pretty or skinny!

Me: Well, that is where silence comes in. Either give a positive compliment or don't say anything.

Asyncrite (Beninois): So what can I say to compliment girls?

Me: Well, we have this handy phrase in English of 'You(r)____________look(s) good!'

It's great and can be used for almost all situations.

You look good.

Your shoes look good.

Your hair looks good.

Yun-In: Your fat looks good.

Well, we might have to practice this one...