On Monday, I hiked up to "Mt. Everest Secondary School" and taught my first 8th grade math class. When I walked in, the 25 or so students all stood up and shouted "GOOD MORNING TO YOU SIR," very slowly and very creepily. When class was over, I waited a second for them to leave but nobody moved. And when I started walking towards the door, they all stood up and shouted "THANK YOU FOR TEACHING US SIR" equally creepily. But besides awkward entrances and exits, classes are going really well. I teach the 8th grade class, break for lunch and then teach the 7th grade class. From what I've observed so far at the school, and from what I've been told by Natalie, most of the teachers don't really teach, they just kind of have the students repeat stuff from their books. I don't know if other math classes are like that, but the English classes definitely are. So, the 7th and 8th graders seem pretty pumped when I get volunteers to come up and answer problems on the board.

I've also sorta started teaching English at Chialsa Monastery, a little over an hour's hike from Nayabazaar. Natalie has been teaching this one monk for the last couple weeks, and seeing that there's now two of us, he's having me teach a couple of the younger monks (I don't know how old they are, probably 15-20). So, I just sit around with them for like 30 minutes and we talk.

So, my daily schedule looks something like this: I wake up, read a little (Natalie has lent me this book which is apparently the "yoga bible," so I've been doing yoga in the mornings too. Don't laugh), eat daalbhat, hike an hour to the monastery, teach some monks, hike back down, teach 8th grade math, drink some tea, teach 7th grade math and then have the rest of the day to do whatever.

But, even though everything has just started, I'm not going to be around for the next week or so. Natalie and a friend of hers from Canada and I are going to trek to Luklu and Namche in the North. Luklu is the furthest destination you can fly to before reaching Everest Base Camp (which is still probably a two weeks walk away) and apparently it's a pretty cool place. And supposedly there's a lookout near Namche where, if it's a clear day, you get a pretty spectacular view of the Himalayas. It's probably going to take us 3 days walking to get to Namche and 3 days back, assuming it doesn't rain too much (monsoon season has started even though there hasn't been all that much rain lately).