Well, I:m here. I:m sitting at the international center typing this thing on a keyboard that randomly switches to kanji and has shift characters all in different places, but I:m not overly concerned with correcting them, so just know that the colon is an apostrophe and the plus sign is a colon. Well, I have had a fairly busy week, but am glad that I have these nice breaks in my schedule. I generally get to work at around 12+30 and then prepare for my 1pm class. then I have like 2 or three hours to kill before my evening classes. The teacher who lived in the apartment before me was loaned a bike by the teacher that lived there before him, so I get to use it until May when the teacher who owns the bike comes back. This means that if I want, I can tool on home and relax a bit - it:s like a 5-10 minute bike ride home.
How:s teaching here? Very structured, which may sound boring, but it actually enables me to prepare relatively quickly - once I get the structures down, I know things will sail along swimmingly. Yesterday, I taught three classes and a private lesson - this all went well and the students are super eager to learn. I:m also learning to do basic things like,
-shop in a grocery store where I can:t read a thing
-change sink trap filters
-hang out laundry on my balcony (I have a washer but no dryer)
-wear layers to bed so I don:t freeze at night
-operate a kerosene heater
-point at things rather than use my phrase book to be understood
-make a meal without salt+ this one deserves some explanation+ the night after I went grocery stopping at the aptly named 24 hour store called *Trial* (those were quotation marks), I decided to make pasta. I:d settled in, made some tea, heated my apartment and sauteed the onions and garlic in olive oil. I started adding tomatoes and basil and bay leaves when I realized I:d forgotten to buy salt. I didn:t want to walk (this was before I was given the bike) to *Trial* so I decided to figure something out. I first squirted some butter from a tube onto the tomatoes hoping some of the salt would help season it. I tasted it and it was no good. Then I remembered that I had some ritz crackers and cheese that had been left by the last teacher, so after shaking the plastic wrapper to get the salt out and then scraping the surface of the cracker, I ended up crumbling three ritz cheezy crackers into the tomato sauce. Then I sat down to tuck in. It wasn:t salty enough, and I don:t recommend adding ritz to tomato sauce - it becomes this weird salmony colored monstrosity that ends up only enhancing the blandness of your unsalty meal.
Today, I teach 4 classes and tomorrow (Saturday)6! Then they:re planning a party for me on Saturday night which will include karaoke. If I ever get internet hookup in my apartment, I:ll publish a picture post.
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5 comments:
Hey Matt! Glad to hear things are going well. I'm beginning my third grading period right now. The first week has gone by very well. I haven't actually told anyone that out of fear that I will jinx things(guess I'll find out next week if I have), but as far as I'm concenred I've earned a decent grading period considering the baptism by fire I received from my 8th graders the first two grading periods. It's so much more fun to be a smiling cool teacher that can circulate around the room freely, actually assisting students with their work, cracking wise and interacting with the students in a positive manner and realizing that, "Holy crap! Time's flown by kids, we gotta get cleaned up before the bell rings!" In fact, one of my students commented the other day that I'm always smiling. I busted up laughing and told her that if she said that to the 8th graders I had last grading period, they'd think she'd gotten my name mixed up with some other teacher. Anyway, enough about me. Continue to have fun teaching and for God's sake, buy some salt already. LOL. Sorry, I cut out salting my food, so I can't really relate. But now I'm wondering if everyone thinks my food is bland. Take care and keep us updated man.
Things sound so exciting and interesting! Aside from minor annoyances and the obvious language difficulties, are you having any real problems, or are things going as well as they sound? (Hope it's the latter.)
I was surprised they're having you teach so many classes. Is it kind of like high school, where you have seven short class periods a day, or are these long, involved, college-type classes?
Also surprised at how cold it sounds. I would have expected a maritime country to be milder - maybe it's a little warmer closer to the sea. Or maybe I expect warm currents everywhere and will get a rude shock if I ever go to Labrador.
Knock 'em out with karaoke.
Well, it sounds like things are going great for you, Matt. You seem to be adapting well. I would have totally tried the same thing with the lack-o-salt incident. Sorry that didn't turn out so hot.
Get us pictures soon!
You're right that once you get used to the routine, you'll do very well as a teacher. In the beginning one hour of prep time for the entire day will not seem long enough. At the end of the first year, you may discover that 5 minutes of prep per class will seem excessive. I found that I spent most of the prep time trying to devise warm up exercises for the classes. I usually did the same warm up exercise for every class that day and adjust the exercise to match their English ability.
Don't forget to hang your futon and matress over the balcony railing in the sunshine once every few months. That will get rid of the moisture that collects inside. When you bring the futon back inside the apartment lay the futon flat and give it time cool before putting it away.
Brian
Poor Matt,
Looks like I let you leave without giving you any advice on cooking. Whoever heard of adding ritz crackers to tomatoes?? That's just bad. I'm glad you're getting the teaching routine down. I think you'll do very well as a teacher.
Michael (from FindLaw)
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