Thursday, the 26th January, was Australia Day. We celebrated it in my class by learning about Australian Flags: The National Flag, Aboriginal Flag and Torres Strait Islanders Flag. We sang the Australian National Anthem and I Am Australian. (The latter is the better of the two if you ask me.) One of my students is Australian, and she presented a PowerPoint presentation that she prepared about the things that make Australia special. Her mother prepared Australian bites like ANZAC cookies, dampa, ripple cake, toast with Nutella and toast with Vegemite.



What is Vegemite? It is yeast extract. Beyond that, I don't know. Either you like it or you don't. There is no middle ground. I like. I've eaten a piece of toast with it everyday since Thursday.

The Chinese New Year was also recently celebrated. My class celebrated it a couple of days early. The new year was on Sunday, so we had our celebration on Friday. 2006 is the year of the Dog. I was born in the year of the Dragon.



Below is who I am according to the Zodiac:

People born in the Year of the Dragon are healthy, energetic, excitable, short-tempered, and stubborn. They are also honest, sensitive, brave, and they inspire confidence and trust. Dragon people are the most eccentric of any in the eastern zodiac. They neither borrow money nor make flowery speeches, but they tend to be soft-hearted which sometimes gives others an advantage over them. They are compatible with Rats, Snakes, Monkeys, and Roosters.

We cooked a stir-fry in class and steamed some rice. A Taiwanese student in my class brought two dishes that her mother prepared. One of the students made a dragon, and we went outside to have a parade. Friday was a perfect day until 10 minutes before school let out. One of my students had a severe asthma attack. I did not even know he had asthma. He's new this semester. Apparently, he's also allergic to peanuts. His mother did not include that on his list of allergies in his file. One of the dishes prepared contained peanuts, and I informed the class of this. Well, he ate it anyway. I was terrified. He was terrified. He could not breathe. Thank goodness his uncle arrived at the end of the day and was able to rush him to the nearby clinic.

Don't worry. He was ok. I called his home over the weekend to check on him. He was fine in class today.