... and my kids catch me off guard....

by making me laugh out loud in class. If things continue this way, all my students will realize that it's almost easy to make me laugh and will maybe try to provoke it. So how'd they do it? It's no easy feat as I haven't laughed as much since I've been in France. (How shocking!) For the first incident, I had my students describing what their own country would be like if they had one, what kind of government they would have and such. One of my students declared that he would have a totalitarian regime and that he would tax his subjects 99% so that he could get all their money. I couldn't help but laugh at his cruelty towards his potential future subjects, and it didn't help that the students were so surprised by my reaction. The French do seem to laugh less than we Americans do! A student even offered me to stand by the window so I could get some air. The fact that they were commenting didn't help. It never does. Especially when people ask if I need air! The second incident happened only yesterday. I was encouraging one of my students to keep speaking English by going along with what he was telling me (that he'd written a book in one minute about how to solve the U.S.'s economic problems) and he decided to pick on his classmate, saying that since he was Russian, he was Borat's cousin. I couldn't help but laugh at his ridiculousness, and two of his other classmates, turning around and seeing that I was laughing, joined in teasing me, which made me laugh even harder. The life and times of my teaching experiences. Thankfully, overall, teaching has been going better since last week, which is rather encouraging for me. Incidents like these only make it more enjoyable.