A day in the life of an MK

Jaelyn in action on her computer

Hey!

So I’m Jaelyn, the daughter of Mira and Roger. My mom decided to pull me into writing a blog post for you guys, partially inspired by a video conference with my aunt. (Yes, I’m apparently writing a blog post, Esther Eemo!) I’m currently twelve years old, I think, and I guess I like to write. Thus the reason my mother has pawned off her blog-writing responsibilities to me for the time being! I also love to read, (my mother may have mentioned this in her past blog posts…) and yeah! I was told to write about anything that I want to… so I guess I’ll just pull a topic out of a hat… ;)

I go to a missionary school, as the faithful blog readers may know, and I’m in 7th grade. The school is run off of an American school system, though it’s an international school, and thus I am in Middle School. In Canada, Junior High starts in Grade 7, but Middle School is grades 6-8, so I missed a year of it during our year in Canada… oh well! I’ve settled in pretty well, and have kind of gotten used to the flow of things-which is probably good because the year is already halfway over!! My locker is quite atrocious, (I have friends who can’t bear to look at it…) but somehow I’m able to grab and stuff things into it in time to get to class, and I haven’t been late that often… I guess…

Well, anyhow, I think I’ll give you a run-down of a typical school day here! At 6:00 AM we’re supposed to wake up to get ready for school. I, for one, am not so fond of this, because I am in great need of my beauty sleep! I’ve gotten used to it though, and so I’m usually able to be up and have eaten breakfast by 6:50-ish. School starts at 7:30 in order to beat traffic and to have a few hours of cool weather in the morning, so we usually leave the house around 7:00. This semester, P.E. (physical education, or gym,) for Middle School is first thing in the morning. Last semester, it was last period of the day… read: hottest time of the day, and I am surprised that none of us threw up! We are all very grateful for the teachers who shuffled around their schedules to let us have P.E. in the morning!! Anyways, school lets out at 2:30, and we try to beat traffic home, as the hospital by the school releases the bodies at 3:00, and weaving your way around the funeral processions is brutal! When we get home, my brother and I have a snack, homemade frozen yogurt, iced tea or bagged juices are favourites, and start on homework. Hopefully, we’re done in time for dinner, and have preferably practised piano already (my mom is set on having us take piano lessons, partial credit is given to Auntie Jocelyn for that idea, and my brother and I are not so happy about that!). Dinner is normally pretty good- you’ve seen some of my mom’s culinary creations, but some of them… like maybe the time we ate mush for dinner… ;)- and then we have the rest of the evening free! I like to read- surprise, surprise!- or make earrings or something of the sort until bedtime. We have relatively early bedtimes, especially in relation to the kids in Canada, but I’ve learned that there are kids that have earlier bedtimes, so I try not to complain about my 8:30 bedtime. Nathan is usually in bed by 7:30, and I try not to whine about having to go to bed by 7:00 when I was in fourth grade… ;)

That’s pretty much all there is to it, sorry if that was an incredibly stale retelling of what happens here in Niger… I don’t really know what you guys want to know about!! If there’s anything in particular that you want to know about our lives here, feel free to ask! My mom will probably then drag me on out here to write to you again, but I suppose… Until later!