A 'Mal' Day

Preface: In Spanish class each day I ask the students how they are doing. They respond with "bien" (well), "asi, asi" (so, so) or "mal" (bad).

The five year old kindergarten classes had a tea party at school today. The object was to practice manners that they have been learning. It was pretty cute!! The cafeteria was all decorated and the refreshments were fun and sugary. Each student dressed up for the occasion. I was able to peak at it for a bit and was so sad that I didn't have a camera. There were party dresses, neck ties, top hats, feather boas, gloves, and even a tiara! I had to laugh when I saw Rohan (one of my favorite Indian students) wearing a giant cowboy hat!

One of the kindergarten classes came to Spanish immediately after the tea party. They were quite sugared up! One boy wearing a coat, tie, and hat walked into class and announced to me "I am mal! I am having a mal day! The tea party was mal!" I asked him why it was so "mal." He pointed to the rest of the class and replied, "Because THEY laughed at my mustache and broke it."

(Now this perplexed me a bit, because I didn't see a mustache. I had noticed one of the kids earlier with a mustache painted on, so I assumed that this was what he had had and that maybe it had smeared or something.)

Meanwhile, we jumped into Spanish class for the day, but every now and then it was punctuated by little comments like, "I am so mal!" and "They broke my mustache!"

It all made sense though when Nicolas marched from his seat to trash and declared, "This mustache belongs in the trash!" I saw then that it was an adhesive little Hitler-looking mustache that had become stuck to itself without any hope of being untangled.

Life can be so rough when you are five!