Where was WWI fought? And WWII?

Crazy kid quotes/ stories as of late:

Micah and I were sitting in homework room after school one day with Luis (10th grade) and Michael (11th grade), and Luis was supposed to be studying WWI for world history. So, I told him he had to tell me five things about World War I before he could go. He immediately responds, "WWI, that was fought in South America, right?" And I just kind of look at Micah slightly shocked and was like, "Umm.... No...." And Luis is like, "Well, was it WWII then? I thought that was the one started by the Haitians."

Another day, we were having a work day in pre-calculus. So I was walking around answering questions. And I notice Jamie has white stuff all over his face. So, I was like, “What is all over your face? It’s all white and streaky!” And he was like, “Dang! That’s my sunscreen!!! I guess I didn’t rub it in. UGH! I have to go wash my face right now!!!!” And I was like, “Seriously, you can do that after class. Why are you even putting it on in class? You aren’t going to get sunburned in the room….” And he’s like, “I HAVE to go wash it off!!! I can't do pre-calc with a white face!!!" And I just kind of looked at him funny until German responded, "Dude, Miss Scislow ALWAYS has to do math with a white face!"

A couple of my ninth grade boys sag their pants really low on a regular basis. I usually joke about it to get them to pull them up rather than get mad. One of the most repeat offenders of this is Sebastian, and the other day his pants were ridiculously low when we were out at recess. So I was like, "Sebastian, your pants are totally falling off right now! Just thought I'd let you know." Usually he just pulls them up. Instead, he laughed and very matter-of-factly said, "Miss Scislow my pants are NOT too low, my boxers are just up really high!"

On Monday, I walked into the ninth grade room for class with them at 12:30. And I'd already had them at 8 for their algebra final, and I knew everyone was there. So, I start class and whatnot, and halfway through, I realize George isn't there. And I'm like, "Ugh!", figuring he's off somewhere at school ditching class. (Which at St. David really isn't all that exciting because there is nothing to go do instead, but whatever....) So I ask where he is. And Priscila tells me he went to the dentist. And I must have made an "I don't believe it" face because I figure he just left because he didn't want to be at school. (And generally “the dentist” is the excuse he uses, and generally he tells me what he’s really up to instead…) And Ashley, very thoughtfully, was like, "Miss Scislow, George goes to the dentist a lot…….. He really doesn't have very white teeth…….. I think he lies…...."

My ninth graders have an imaginary friend. His name is Murphy. According to Juan, he’s about one foot tall and has hair as long as the room. He’s mainly Juan, Marcel, and Alex’s creation, but the entire class knows about Murphy. So, they randomly tell me lots of Murphy stories. Apparently Murphy was in jail last week for strangling a gangster to death with his long hair. But he escaped. He’s too small to get stuck in jail. There was a picture out for his re-arrest of him holding hands with Juan and Marcel… Apparently, Murphy used to be a good boy, but they corrupted him. Anyways, they randomly talk about/ to him, go open the door for him in the middle of class, pretend to pet him, rescue him from getting “molested” by each other, and whatnot. (They goof up that word… In Spanish, ‘molestar’ means to bother or to annoy. So they are rescuing him from getting bothered by the others, not from how most English speakers would use the word molest….) Then yesterday, I was in my ninth grade room and there was no chalk. There is never any chalk. Even when I have them twice in a day but not right in a row, the chalk is always gone when I go in for my second period with them. So, I was kind of annoyed and said more to myself than to them, "Seriously! Why is there NEVER chalk in this room!" And Marcel looks at me very seriously and says, "Miss Scislow, don't you know?" And I was like, "Know what?" And he stage whispers, "Murphy eats chalk!" All I could do was laugh and ask him to go get me some more; I couldn’t even be annoyed with the lack of chalk.

The other excitement around here recently was that we learned the Dominican does not have smoke detectors, and we have no idea how to call the fire department… Two weekends ago, we were hanging out, having a quiet weekend at home for once. I made pancakes for breakfast, and then jumped in the shower. Just as I'm getting out of the shower one of my roommates starts screaming in the kitchen, "KRISTEN!!! Come here! We don't know what to do!!!" I figured it was a big cockroach or something, but was kind of confused, because we kind of ignore the cockroaches. So, I run into the kitchen, and there is a pan on the stove. And the entire pan is engulfed in flames that easily were shooting as high as our hanging cabinets (almost all the way to the ceiling!). It was easily the largest fire I’ve ever seen inside. The entire kitchen was full of smoke. (I guess in a way, it's lucky there are no smoke detectors in the DR, because otherwise our whole building would have had to be evacuated.) Apparently what happened is another one of my roommates was frying yucca and started a grease fire… a big one! Anyways, we just sat there and stared for a sec, and I realized we had to put it out ourselves and soon because if it spread we had no idea how to get a hold of the fire department. So, I grabbed one of our really big pots from under the counter and threw it over the flaming pan so the fire couldn't get any air. It went out pretty quickly after that. So, that was good. It was a little scary though! We found out after that apparently 911 works here, but it’s not actually reliable at all…

Hope all is well with everyone at home!