India trip [day 38.]

Wow. I got 100 blog views in the past two days. That's more than I've gotten in the past two months. 

Thank you guys to your positive responses to my last post, I just really needed to be completely honest and get it out, and I'm glad it touched some of your hearts. 

But this post won't make you cry, I promise.

I know, I know, I am a terrible terrible blogger and I'm sure I'll get in plenty of trouble when I return to the states. But for right now, I'm 9,500 miles away, so what are you going to do? Ha.

But I do have my excuses! 

Our crazy landlord kicked us out of our house, like I mentioned in one of my past posts, so we've been moving to an apartment in Nelamangala [pronounced Neh-la-mungla.]

I won't lie to you and say I like it better here than I did in Bangalore. That would be false. Moving from Bangalore to Nelamangala is like moving from New York City to Duncan, Oklahoma. I have to get used to a COMPLETELY different environment now. But after a few days I'm starting to like it. A huge plus to this apartment is that it is literally right across the street from the school, so I've been able to teach every single day and I am SO happy. I have developed such a love for my 8th and 9th grade. They are wonderful. I don't know any more about photography to teach them now, so we sit around and talk about America. So far they think my sister on her wedding day is the most beautiful American they've ever seen, Lady Gaga music is amazing, screamo music is scary, and the cup game is the greatest thing ever created. It's so much fun to go to those classes. I look forward to it. 

The reason I'm sitting around teaching them absolutely nothing is because my 10th grade class is very very far behind, and we have to wait for them in order to move on. They have very few free classes, so they're only about halfway done with my photography course. To be blatantly honest, I would be ecstatic if I never had to walk into that classroom again. They are awful. Excluding one girl, the entire class is...well, to throw aside all political correctness, a bunch of little brats. I don't know if it's just because we're the same age, or they hate photography, or I'm American, or SOMETHING. They just talk and talk and talk and mock me to my face and purposefully ask ridiculous questions that I don't know how to answer.

I know, I know. Despite all of that I should be patient and show them the love of Christ, but yesterday I just lost it. After teaching to closed ears [except that one girl, bless her heart. She loves photography.] for about half an hour I threw down my chalk and yelled something to the effect of "Okay, LOOK. If you want to not listen to me and jack around during my class, fine by me. It does not affect me in ANY way if every single one of you fails this class. I know you don't care about this, but this is an actual class and I'm sure your parents are going to be so happy to learn that you flunked it. I'm going to America in a month, I'm never going to see any of you ever again, so go ahead. Keep talking. Fail this class. I don't care. I honestly do not. But you know what? I'm your teacher and you have to respect me. Don't come crying to Sister Josna when 8th and 9th graders pass this class with flying colors and you have a failed class on your records. It's certainly not because I'm not teaching."

No one said a word the rest of the hour.

Yes, I was harsh, yes, they'll be their usual terrors tomorrow, but maybe I broke through to ONE person. 

I'm actually going to ask the headmaster if I can stop teaching them once we get done with this course. In no way are they promoting my walk with Christ that I'm supposed to be showing to these kids. 

Okay. Enough angry teenage rants.

I'll blog tomorrow.

I actually will.