Finally:
I finally sucked it up and asked a coworker where the Lotus supercenter was. Because of all the hassle Lotus had caused me, I walked there immediately after work (even though it was closed by then), just to prove a point. I'm not sure what that point was. But in any event, I know how to get there now.
Running:
On Thursday, I prepared and gave a demo for K1C. Given the experience of Wednesday's classes, I was very happy to have the extra preparation from doing a demo, especially for a class of Kindergarteners--the age group I feel most ill prepared to teach. When I gave the demo, Coco had mostly positive things to say about it. My games involved a fair amount of running, which she thought was a stellar idea ("If you don't tire them out, they'll tire you out.") And on Friday, when I actually taught the class, it also seemed to go fine. Afterwards, however, I asked my coteacher what she thought. "Too much running." Umm. Can't win all the time.
Michael Jordan, et al.:
I <3 S4D. Or maybe it's S4A. (There's only one S4 class, and about half of the class materials are labelled one way and half the other.) In any event, they're great at English, very funny, and an absolute joy to teach. The class clown is this kid named Jordan. Whenever I say, "Hello, Jordan." or "How you doing, Jordan?", he responds "Michael Jordan!". Expect stories about this class.
Elephant:
When I'm hanging out in the office, preparing lesson plans, students will occasionally just wander in, sometimes with good reason, sometimes just because. One just-becauser was a boy from--I would soon learn--S1C. His English name? Angus. Now, you might have thought I would have had difficulty maintaining my composure after hearing that name, but actually, based on his slurred delivery, I initially thought he said his name was "Triangle", so "Angus" seemed pretty normal in comparison. When I taught S1C for the first time (Note: The S means they're older; the 1 means they're bad at English.), I was delighted to see a familiar face among the students. This delight did not last very long. Angus is almost totally unwilling to participate in any activities that actually involve speaking English (i.e., almost all of them). When we were going through some flashcards, he fixated on the word "elephant". Every question I asked after that was met with a loud, immediate response of "Elephant!". Sigh..... [ NOTE: According to WolframAlpha, the estimated most common age for a person with the name "Angus" is 62, and about half of all Anguses are over 80. ]
To Salad or Not To Salad:
At my school, we have something called "communication books" in which the teachers give feedback to the students and their parents. Ideally, it works something like this: If you are teaching the second period of a class, then in the last 10 minutes, you give them a miniquiz, and while they are doing it, you fill out comm. books and hand them out before class ends. Let me tell you, we do not live in a perfect world. If I could send a message back in time to myself, it would be a primer on doing comm. books in an efficient, sanity-preserving, and correct manner, including all of the variations between teachers and sections.
In one particular communication-book snafu, I looked up at the clock and realized I had only 8 minutes before class was over. I decided I really needed to do comm. books, so I handed out the miniquizzes. Or rather, I tried to do so, only to discover that they were not in the classroom. So, I sprinted downstairs to the office, grabbed them, came back up, and found out that we were a couple short. Then in the last five minutes, I desperately scribbled in comm. books, all the while trying to answer questions about the miniquiz (including those from distressed miniquiz-less students). When I finally finished the comm. books, I just wanted everyone to leave and not make their parents wait. Instead, the students worked furiously to complete their miniquizzes. When I had finally managed to shoo them all out, I let out a great big sigh and walked down to the office. I flipped through the miniquizzes, many of which were incomplete or riddled with errors. It was at this point that a student named Bill totally made my day: In response to a prompt of "like, salad", he created the sentence "No, I can't salad." Yessssss.
Corkscrewed:
On Sunday night after work, I decided to stop in a corner grocery store to look for salt (I make myself a fried egg every morning as part of my breakfast.). On the way from the spice shelf to the checkout, I came across a rack of wine bottles. After eyeing them for a minute, I thought to myself, "Oh what the hell, I survived the first week, didn't I? I should treat myself." I then selected a brand based entirely on its low price and the preponderance of Europeans in their TV commercials, and I proceeded to the checkout. I strolled back to my apartment with a grin on my face, a bottle of wine in my hand, and a sense of exhausted fulfillment in my heart for a week well(?) done. Once back in my apartment, however, it dawned upon me that I actually have no corkscrew [ NOTE: I have one now. ]. A lesser man would have given up then and there. But Peter Nelson is not one to be outdone by a mere bottle. No sir. In my infinite resourcefulness, I decided to use my metal chopsticks to pound the cork into the bottle, with the plan of storing the wine I didn't drink in an empty water bottle. The plan worked perfectly, with the minor exception that I sprayed wine all over myself and everything in the kitchen.
-Peter
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