A week in the life of THIS English teacher in Turkey

My schedule leaves me little time to sit in front of my computer and update you all on my happenings here, but as it happens today is Republic Day in Turkey. As a result (and because H1N1 has hit Turkey) we have both today and tomorrow off from school. I'm sitting here on my third cup of strong Turkish tea, having eaten a hard-boiled egg that wasn't as hard-boiled as I thought. I find that simple tasks take on a new level of difficulty for me when I am confronted with a whole new set of stimuli. My mind seems to shut down and before I know it, I'm slicing open an egg with a nicely cooked yolk and a soft albumen inside.

Enough about eggs.

Okay, so let me take you through a day-by-day rundown of my work week.

Monday:
Up at 6:30 unless the call to prayer wakes me an hour earlier. Or unless the cat jumps on my head. Or unless I awaken in a panic because I failed to grade journals or lesson plan third period. I start making coffee and look through my closet for a pair of pants and a shirt that don't need ironing. After a shower and a quick breakfast, I head over to the English office. At 8:15, I head to the amphitheater for the Monday morning flag ceremony. My students sit in huddled groups, deceptively mellow and unawake at this hour, giving little indication of what they will be like in the classroom. We stand as the flag bearers come in and march down the stairs. The national anthem is played and the students all sing it in either a low register or monotone. I have discovered that this must be because of the key the anthem accompaniment is played in. You have to either sing it really low or really high and exposed. We listen to announcements, the flags are carried out and I run up to class.

Periods one and two with my advanced prep students (15 year olds) generally goes well. They're still waking up and haven't had their morning break yet so they aren't all hopped up on sugar. Our periods last a mere 40 minutes, which is either mercifully quick or ploddingly slow depending on my preparation and my students' behavior. We either read the novel we're working on or work in our grammar book. Third period comes and I get a break to regroup for 4th period. By this time, the students are their normal, energetic selves. They come upon me at the beginning of class, a wave of questions crashes against me and I entreat them to sit. I like my students. They have an energy that keeps me on my toes. They ask interesting questions. Their curiosity is fantastic and I find myself thinking back to try and remember if I was ever like this.

Period five is set up for parent teacher conferences - I've only done this a couple of times so mostly it's a prep hour for me. I take lunch at 6th period and check in with my fellow teachers. The lunches here are fantastic - we are spoiled: kofta, kebab, chicken, rice, salad, fresh fruit, puddings and cakes, yogurt, ayran, rich lentil soups.

After lunch, I head back to the English office to get ready to face my tenth graders. I teach two classes of tenth graders - each class is pretty unique. This group is my lively bunch. They move quickly through the material and would rather chat and draw and dance and do just about anything rather than settle down to a bit of reading. Yet once they do, they are engaged and ask some pretty insightful questions.

I get a period break then I have my other 10th grade class. This group is quieter but nevertheless just as engaged. They move through things more slowly but not because they lack the understanding or initiative. Rather, it's usually because they take more time to discuss ideas.

The best thing about walking into class each day? The students come to attention and stand by their desks until I tell them to sit (well, it takes them a bit of time to do this sometimes, but it's still pretty cool).

After class I help with the Beyond ISTA theater club.

Tuesday:
I dislike Tuesday mornings because I have two periods with each of my 10th grade classes right off the bat. I'm generally tired after teaching the same thing twice over the course of 4 periods. I get a bit of a mid-day break and then see my prep kids in the afternoon.

Wednesday:
10th graders again in the morning but only for one period with each group. Then I get a break, see my preps for two periods and then backup one of the 12th grade teachers after lunch. My afternoon is spent in a coordination meeting with two other teachers to plan the next week's lessons for 10th grade. After school, another teacher and I co-lead a radio club.

Thursday:
Prep kids in the morning, backup for 12th grade, then 10th graders late afternoon.

Friday:
I have the first two periods free (very nice, except for the fact that I've subbed for teachers 2nd period almost every week since school started). I see my 10th graders in the morning (I should mention we are reading To Kill a Mockingbird right now. My students know I'm a Mac user and in one class I came in to find, written on the board, "To Kill a Mocintosh" with an apple symbol with x'd out eyes. Very clever).

After 3rd and 4th periods, I rush over to the new building to see my preps for an hour. They are generally completely insane by this point in the week, but this is okay because I am too. I grab a super quick lunch then head back to the English building to help with the radio club's Friday lunchtime broadcast. Lately I've been bringing my iPod over to the co-op and playing jazz or lounge music for the hour. Then it's back to the new building for a lesson with the preps. 8th period on Friday is the last one of the week so I make that my SSR period with the students (I long for this period as it is generally the only block of time I have in the week for some solid reading).

We all head back to the amphitheater for the closing flag ceremony, get announcements, sing the anthem, enjoy the warmth of the sun and head out. Generally I will grab a drink and a snack with some of the Turkish and foreign faculty down by the bay.

The weeks fly by here. I'm generally overwhelmed but I've learned to ride the wave of uncertainty and enjoy the experience.

Four Seafood Pizzas, Three Whi-ite Russians, Two Silly Reindeer, and a Salary Ma-an in a Red Dress: A Christmas Party AEON Style

Well, this AEON party was not a well-planned affair, but sometimes it's the unplanned events that prove to be the most enjoyable. We'd talked about having it at a restaurant with lots of food and drink, but no one seemed to think about reserving a room at a restaurant until two weeks before the night of the party. Year-end parties are HUGE here in Japan, so every restaurant within a mile radius of school was booked on the 16th. We then decided to have a potluck party at the school - similar to what we did for halloween. We talked about, and even planned a game for the evening, but luckily, the party ran itself and everyone had a good time without the staff having to resort to mixer type games. Mind you, if we had planned it a little bit better, we could have had a white elephant gift exchange which would have been a lot of fun (in this society of shopping for and owning the latest clothes and accoutrements, I would have been sure to have walked away with a Burberry scarf or a Louis Vuitton wallet).

Michel and I decided that we would do a little planning of our own to insure an enjoyable evening. After quaffing a couple shot glasses of a quickly mixed drink, we went to the bathroom to change out of our work suits and into more casual attire. The day before, we bought these silly reindeer headband/masks and goofy glittery bow ties. Then in one of the classrooms, we broke out the ingredients for our evening's refreshment. Here's Michel proudly holding two of the ingredients:

We mixed the Kahlúa, milk and Stoli in a plastic pitcher and then got out our Christmas mugs from the 100 Yen shop out and poured ourselves drinks for the evening. We waited a bit for a few of the students to arrive before making our appearance. Zen was one of the earliest to arrive. Zen had had some wine before coming and was all ready to enjoy the party:

Soon, more guests started to arrive and we were all surpised when our former part-time teacher, Fumiko came into the room. Madoka had secretly invited her as a surprise for staff, teachers, and students. Here she is with Satomi and a couple students getting ready to chow down some seafood pizza (I did eat one piece, but I may have to order a pepperoni pizza for dinner tonight just to make up for that one slice - it wasn't that bad, but I just can't get used to it):

After a bit, Yoshiko donned my antlers and bowtie and the newlyweds posed for this pic:

When Michel and I went downstairs to let Yuichiro (one half of the crazy guys) into the building and the first thing he said was, "I need the bathroom," we thought he had been waiting outside the building for sometime and had to go, but when he came through the doors, we realized his real reason for needing the bathroom. Like at the Halloween party a couple of months ago, he decided to wear a dress - a santa dress (but he did include his cat ears from the last costume and made sure to cover his armpit hair with flesh colored duct tape - shudder). Here he is posing with Michel (Note to Michel: this is not as bad as the pic I could have posted):

Later, Kotaro put on the mask and was delighted to be surrounded by Madoka, Fumiko, Miki, and Stacy:

Here's Junko and Seiko (two of my advanced level students with our school manager, Yoshiko):

And here are the two goofy reindeers (did I actually just type an s after that word to make it plural?) with Yuichiro and Yoshiko:

It was good to see Kei too, as I never get to teach her anymore (Jess, she was thrilled when I told her you thought her skin looked so beautiful in the Halloween pics):

And here I am toward the end of the night (still wearing that awful tie) but happy to get a few minutes to catch up with Fumiko and see how she was doing. Fumiko and I used to always have our lunch at the same time on Saturdays and would have interesting chats - I miss that:

I think I took off at around 1:30 and was handed a box of doughnuts on my way out - hooray!

no title

*I am still enjoying work.
*I am still enjoying my students.
*I am still maintaining my sense of humor.
*I am still keeping my mind engaged in intellectual pursuits.

and yet, I have hit a new low in my professional life.

*I didn't complain when they suggested we do mini 5-minute lobby lessons.
*I helped think up good idiomatic expressions to teach students between classes.
*I had fun teaching (along with my fellow teachers) pronunciation through tongue twisters.
*I even participated when one week of every month, we started having to teach a portion of a karaoke song and then sing it with our students in the lobby ("Your Song" by Elton John and Louis Armstrong's version of "What a Wonderful World").
*I drew it to the attention of our staff and fellow teachers when I noticed that some students waited in the hall until the singing was over so they didn't have to participate and feel uncomfortable, but to no avail.

but now it's simply awful:

*The song that was chosen (Notice the non-accusatory passive voice? That's on purpose.) for this week's karaoke sing-along?















*wait for it...















"What a Feeling" from Flashdance.


*I refused to sing this song with my students in the lobby and lose every shred of credibility.
*I refused to scoop my voice, Irene Cara style, while singing words that made no sense.
*Yet I was forced to teach the words to students twice this week.
*I had to say horrible, unnatural things like:

"Okay everyone, repeat after me:
'What a feeling-'
'Being's believing-'
(someone PLEASE tell me what that means)
'I can have it all-'
'Now I'm dancing for my life-'
(a useful phrase for any Japanese traveler)
'Take your passion-'
(yes, Michel and I sang 'Take your pants off,' which is what I (and I think everyone else) used to think Cara was singing)
'and make it happen-'
That was great everybody! Now, let's listen, and join in when you get to the chorus!"


*When I didn't have to lead, I generally hid out in an empty classroom.


*Who needs a drink?

Farewell to Yukiyo

Last Friday was the final day for our assistant manager, Yukiyo. We are going to miss her - she was always great with our students and super helpful to us foreign teachers. I remember on my second day in Utsunomiya, Yukiyo took me to the city office to apply for my identity card. She sat with me and we got to talk for a while - I think Yukiyo always has a friendly calming effect on people.

Here's the restaurant we went to - it's "famous" (as Michel loves to say) for its grilled lamb:
Michiko, Yasuko, and I split an excellent bottle of cabernet to get things started and then I dug into (or chopped into, I guess, since I was using chopsticks) some kimchi:
There were gas burners at each table with a cast iron grill pan that was raised in the middle - it's called a Genghis Khan pan - probably because the type of food is really Mongolian in origin I think - that and the pan kinda looks like a Mongol hat (in my imagination anyway). You put the meat in the center on the dome and surround it with veggies. The meat was marinated in either sesame or peanut oil which made it taste fantastic.
Here are some various shots at the table. Yasuko and me:
Michel and me:
Yoshiko and Sayaka (who is laughing hysterically about something - something to do with the bib she was wearing I think):
Here's the whole gang (Michiko must have moved in the pic as she's the only blurry one):
And here is dear Yukiyo trying to keep it together (we made her cry twice, poor thing)
It was a blast and I went home with a tummy full of wine, lamb, veggies, kimchi, and apple sour...


...I had a stomach ache the next morning.


(...but it was worth it)

Halloween Post - or - how I accidentally closed my blogger window and lost my almost finished post with uploaded photos and how I am really mad

I'm not sure why I get so angry when things like having to repost everything on Blogger happen to me - I mean, I live in an age where such things only take a few minutes, but for some reason, I get almost livid when things like this happen. Anyway, today was our Halloween party at school. I had to be at work at 11am after not sleeping well the night before. We often have open Sundays where we interview prospective students and offer special lessons. I had to work today and was lucky enough to have signed up two prospectives who will be starting next week. For my special lesson, I taught how to make pumpkin pie and how to carve a jack-o-lantern. We only had one student sign up for my special class. But as it was Kentaro - who's a great student, I didn't mind having only one.

Here's Kentaro rolling out dough for the face on top of his pumpkin pie. I pre-made the pie dough, but beside that, he made the whole thing by himself:
Here we are about to put the pie in the microwave/convection oven. In Japan, things are very specifically done - for example, when you are in the kitchen you wear a stupid apron, like the ones we are wearing. You don't see any other style but these weird, cumbersome things. But as I didn't want to get flour on myself, I wore one:
After making pie, we carved jack-o-lanterns. It was fun to see the reactions of Kentaro and the staff as we lit them and put them in a darkened room. People just don't really carve pumpkins much here so it was fun for everyone to see how they looked all lit up:
At 5:00 the first party guests arrived. Here's Kotaro, one of our brilliant students, who walked in and casually took off his jacket and put on a lab coat, transforming himself into a pretty convincing doctor:
Meanwhile, Kentaro donned his costume. Clowns generally scare me, but somehow Kentaro's sunglasses-wearing, pig-snout-sporting version, made me laugh hysterically:
Here's Satomi, Michiko, and Michel (a.k.a. Lucifer sensei) as the party was beginning:
Yukiyo and Sayaka decided to be Shibuya high school girls and did a pretty good job looking exactly like them - right down to the makeup. They look exactly like many students I see on the street every day. Here they are with two new students who's names I don't know - Michel and I call them "the crazy guys" because, as you can see from the picture, they are quite mad. The one in the pink Chinese dress is a huge baseball fan and not only knew that Minnesota's team was called the Twins, but also that Torii Hunter played on our team:
Setsuko also wore a Chinese dress. Here she is with Stacy, who was a giraffe this weekend:
Emiko, like the crazy guys, did some cross-dressing for the evening. I loaned her a cigar I had so she could be a gangster. Mayu dressed as another kind of Shibuya girl - Her makeup may look extreme, but it is EXACTLY what you see some of the girls doing in Shibuya:
Kei, who is another of our brilliant students put on a halo for the evening and is sitting here with her classmate's (Aki's) daugher, who made a cuter cat than the crazy guys:
We had a contest for best student costume: Aki, who is a gorgeous, wonderful student (mother of the cat in the last picture), played her part as a disco king to the hilt and was flanked most of the evening by the two crazy guys (who came in second place):
Here we all are at the end of the night:

All in all, it was a lot of fun. We have a great crew of students and this batch in particular were all really social and got to know each other better tonight. Now I'm at home sipping wine and feeling better that this post is almost complete and I can post it without losing it again.

I didn't believe him (a.k.a. the dumbing down of Matt)

One of the first five things Michel told me when I arrived in Japan (he went on to tell me much more than these first five things - all good advice - but they don't come into this topic) was that I would start to slowly lose my vocabulary. He told me that when you spend your day simplifying your classroom English for your students, all those brilliant words not getting used drift back to the far recesses of your mind and are left forgotten like a ketchup packet at the bottom of a kitchen drawer. I didn't believe him at first. I love using words and finding the perfect word to use. I told myself that this would not happen to me. I even laughed on Monday when Alex couldn't remember the word "Zoo" ("It's that place with the animals..."). But I am forced to come to the frightening conclusion that this is happening to me as well, but I think on a grander scale. It's not just single words that are vanishing like socks in the laundry, it's whole phrases and ideas. And it comes at a point where I really want to do more writing. I sit down, open my notebook and uncap my pen and begin. Yet nothing substantial comes out. I have three good story ideas that are all in different stages and none of them is developing into anything substantial. I need to get out of this state of atrophy. Any ideas on how to do this?

Some Good News

Thanks to you all for your kind thoughts and words after Sydney died - I really appreciate it. It helped me feel a lot better.

I also got some good news (on an unrelated note) that made me feel even better after having kind of a down week. The Victorian Web agreed to put a chapter of my thesis on their site. If you want to see it, here it is. I'm pretty happy about this and I think it's another publication I can add to my list.

Shige's Going Away Party

Last night after work, we had a going away party for one of ours students and I got to try out the camera I am buying from Michel. Here's a pic with the wide-angle lens:


A Story
Tonight as I walked home, I stopped, as I usually do, to smell this amazing gardenia bush that grows next to one of the canals near my house. This evening everything was still, and the smell of the flowers hung in the air at quite a distance from the bush. The flowers were so white that they shone bright against the dark waxy leaves. When I got close to the magnolias, I came across a little woman in a straw hat who was picking the flowers. I knew she wouldn't understand me, but I still said, "They smell great, don't they?" and gestured to the flowers. The woman had picked two blossoms and was holding them up for me to smell. I smelled them and was about to leave when she said "dozo" and offered the flowers to me. I took the flowers and thanked her in Japanese. As I looked back, she was again picking blossoms. I took the flowers home and thought about how nice that little encounter was. I filled up a vase with water, and discovered that the blossoms were covered in small bugs and had a weird moth-like thing on one of the stems.

I threw them off my balcony and wondered if I'd inhaled any of the bugs.

Utsunomiya!

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.

A quick update - still with no pictures

As the internet connection here is a bit dodgy - we sometimes are able to pick up a signal from a neighbor - I'm unable to upload photos to my blog, but they will be forth-coming; I promise (Jess, that semicolon was for you). Training has been, in a word, intense. The curriculum is very structured (which I'm not at all used to), and the daily schedule is packed so full that by 8pm when training ends, I'm exhaused (we work from 11am-8pm). I'm here with fifteen other teachers - One Brit (Wales actually), two Ozzies, four (I think) Canadians, and the rest Yanks. They're a great group of people - very fun to talk to and hang out with.

Last night I taught my first class to actual students. At about 5:15 a bunch of Japanese students began arriving at the seminar house in taxis and were shown to their classrooms. As space is limited, each class had three or four teachers each of whom led a short, 15-20 minute portion of a lesson. As the students arrived, they were shown to their proper rooms and we greeted and talked with them before class - we call this lobby talk here. It's a time when teachers can assess students' speaking levels and stuff like that. I had three great students and I taught them how to form indirect questions and statements. I was surprised at how well everything went - MSU folks and high school teachers reading this, please note: Japanese students are some of the best you can work with. They were with me the whole time, very attentive, eager to learn and anxious to practice. Not once did I have to tell a student to put away a cell phone, or wait quietly for the room to get quiet - everyone was ready to learn.

I have to go prepare my lesson - we're teaching students again tonight - and be ready for training in an hour so I'm gonna sign off here.

Oh, what am I eating? Lots of triangles of sticky rice wrapped in nori (seaweed paper) with a soy and seaweed filling. I'm drinking a lot of tea and had a great adventure at a ramen shop with huge bowls of noodles and big bottles of beer. Languagewise, I'm completely baffled and have no idea how to read kanji - this makes train and subway travel a bit tricky.

Konichi-Waaaaaaaaahhhhh

Well, the rumors are true. I have accepted a teaching post in Japan. I have just sent off a packet including:

-a deposit check
-my diploma (original copy for verification)
-signed contracts
-a copy of my passport
-a work Visa application form
-a policy receipt acknowledgement
-six rather unflattering passport size photos that cost a small fortune to have done at Kinkos

I'll be leaving on January 12th, 2006 to fill a one year contract at a school in a city called Utsunomiya. This city is about 50 minutes away from Tokyo where my brother, his wife and kids will be. I'm exited that I'll be near my brother and his family for the first six months of my teaching post - it will make adjustments much easier.

I've done some looking online for information on Utsunomiya, but haven't found much - I was told that it is a city of about 1/2 a million people. It is, however, close to a city called Nikko which I've heard is beautiful - cherry blossoms in the spring and brilliant fall leaves in autumn. It also has some beautiful shrines, is near the mountains and some hot springs. Hmmm...sounds like a great vacation spot, doesn't it? (hint hint)

So, the next three months are going to be filled with:
-dismantling my apartment and figuring out where to store things
-finding a home for my cat for the year - any takers?
-packing off season clothes in boxes to send ahead to my school
-buying a more professional wardrobe (and some nice work slippers)
-reserving a one way ticket to Japan
-earning money to pay for the first month until I get my first paycheck
-buying small gifts for my colleagues and new students
-participating in a certain spoilsport's wedding
-getting to meet my sister and brother in law's new baby
-spending TONS of time with my friends before I leave

As I find out more about my city, school, and apartment, I'll let you know.

Random Notes

Well, I've been doing a lot of thinking about this fall and my life in general and have come to several conclusions:

1. Moleskine notepads provide the best writing surface for my fountain pen. This brand of note pad has been around a while and have been used by the likes of Van Gogh, Hemingway, and Matisse (Okay, this first one isn't as much about my life as it is about my pen, but the Moleskine top flip reporter's pad adds nicely to the mystique of writing with a fountain pen, and this makes my life happier).

2. I cannot get to Japan in September as I first thought. I found out that had I taken the plunge and just flown over to Tokyo with the idea of getting a job with Berlitz, I would have had to have waited twelve weeks for the proper work visa. During that time, I'd just have to sit on my rice paper mat doing nothing but getting poorer. Therefore, I decided to a) Get a job with a Japanese company (Aeon) that is more helpful than Berlitz in both interviewing (I have one here in Mpls. on September 25) and finding accommodations, and b) go to Japan in January instead of September. This will put off my PhD work (wherever I end up getting accepted) for another year, but that's okay.

3. I need a better job for the fall. I'm tired of the hours at the bookstore and the bakery. Schai has given me information on her awesome job and I have an interview next Monday. Even though they aren't hiring at the moment, Schai says that they have a huge turn over.

4. I don't like Spanish. I have to pass a language proficiency before I'm officially graduated. Spanish seemed the best idea at the time, but I don't like the language enough to keep up with it. I do, however, love Danish and have studied it more recently (having had a year's course at the U of M). If I'm here for fall, I'll probably sign up for a semester of second year Danish. Then I can wow everyone with exclamations such as, "Jeg kan også godt spise lidt mere œblekage. Man kan gotdt drikke rødvin til œblekage. Skål!"

5. If I am going to be here for at least five more months, I'm going to see if I can't get an apartment in my old building in St. Paul. Living rent-free is nice, living in your parents' basement is not. And the not-niceness of living at home outweighs the advantage of not having to pay rent.

Reasons NOT to teach composition online.

1. The fact (and I mean fact) that your students' IQs drop noticably.
2. The student who asks the question after you've given the answer.
3. The five students who still ask the same question AFTER the student from #2 has already asked the answered question.
4. The students (one in four) who are given direction, sent off to their sub-chatrooms to work, and the first thing they type is "So what are we supposed to do?"
5. The student who (every week) exactly one hour and fifteen minutes into class asks "Can we go now?"
6. The student who knows the technology better than you.
7. The student who is too easily offended and takes EVERY message typed by the instructor as a personal slam on her (yes, it's always a her).
8. The no shows.
9. The late-comers.
10. The student who doesn't know how to send - much less open - an attachment.
11. The Chatty-Cathy's.
12. D2L
13. UCompass
14. The students who refuse to follow protocol.
15. The fact that you can always predict the one student who will have some issue (technological or other) that will hold up the class.
16. The fact that the chatroom doesn't always refresh properly.
17. The student who reiterates the answer to your question and gets it completely wrong.
18. The student whose only contribution to the classroom chat is "LOL."
19. Emoticons.
20. The students who answer questions for you.
21. The nay-sayers.
22. The students who get frustrated with YOU for their inablility to follow instructions.
23. The students who continue to use Microsoft Works when you've told them over and over not to, and who look utterly bewildered when no one can open their essay draft.
24. The fact that students don't consider an absence from the online session as an absence.
25. The fact that cyberspace is a dumb venue in which to teach students how to write.

Big Mouth Hungry! EAT SMURFS!

You are sitting in your office waiting for one of your students to come to her conference with you. She's the only no show so far - well, you could count the student who told you yesterday that conferences would not be conveneint for him as he was going to the cities and could you please log on to D2L so that you can meet with him online to discuss his paper that he'll probably send as a microsoftworks document, so you can't read it anyway, but wait, he never sent it to begin with, and he wasn't terribly disturbed by the low grade on his first paper, so you don't even consider him. You are glad she didn't show up because it means you can work on your thesis revision and that chapter you haven't finished on your thesis. You are still a little anxious after the meeting you had with your advisor yesterday - you know you are behind and it bothers you; you just don't want her to call that to your attention. You want to be done with the damned thing, but that bout of chronic fatigue syndrome hits you every time you sit down to your computer to work. You can talk forever about CGR. You love to talk forever about CGR. "Goblin Market" is probably the one poem you really get. But when you sit down to your thesis, all the interest and energy flows out of you. You forget how to write a paper. No. Forget about forgetting how to write a paper; you forget how to write. You are still scarred (you almost wrote scared, but either works) after your experience writing papers for American lit last semester. You can still string together words, but suddenly people tell you you are illogical, that you make no sense. You know what you mean, but that counts for shit.

You remember reading the first part of a biography on Leonard Bernstein (you never got past the first six chapters because you have trouble finishing things). You remember how he attended some latin school for brilliant children of brilliant parents. You remember the story of how he wrote a brilliant paper the night before it was due, and how his teachers gushed at how innovative he was and how he took such an unorthodox approach to the assignment, that he received high marks. You wish you could sit at the piano and play the way he was playing at 10.

You think of your friend in New York who seems to live some sort of charmed life. Who can live on three hours of sleep a night and accomplishes more in five hours than you do in two weeks. Who writes cookbooks and caters meals for Oprah, and had a lion and a peacock for a pet when he was a child.

You are always tired. You don't get any exercise. You don't always get your work done. You always have an excuse. You fall asleep at your computer. You get a sore throat (You make sure to cough and sniffle when you tell your advisor this to add verisimilitude to your story. The story IS true, but you still feel bad for using the excuse). You had much more fun writing your paper for world novel this week. You parodied Jamaica Kincaid's writing style, writing in second person. As you write in the same mode now, you feel like a counterfeit. You enjoy this mode more, because it feels lazy. When you read your paper in class two nights ago, one person applauded you for it. Another said "funny." You were proud. You felt deflated when the professor questioned your emotional response to the book you parodied. You felt suddenly like you got the answer wrong, that your sense of well-being hinged on getting the right response. But you've always felt that way. You get tired of that, and always resolve not to care so much, but you still do. You feel more that your thesis is being written for your advisor's benefit than for yours. You realize of course that this is a problem, because how can you write with conviction about something when its written under the pressure of needing to do it for someone else? You try and convince yourself that your knowledge of this will be the thing that pushes you through it, and it will eventually. But you're not buying it right now.

Then your 4:00 appointment arrives - the student from Macedonia - and as you read through his paper (which should be a drudge because you are marking grammatical errors every three words, but isn't because his communication is clearer than most of your other students' - heck, it's clearer than your thesis) you begin to get lost his story of his father teaching him how to repair a gold ring. You are caught up in his story and can see this student's father sitting with him at a work bench teaching him how to solder, file, and polish. This student represents something for you, but you don't completely know what it is. You are glad you didn't send him packing to 101 for non-natives. Maybe he represents your desire for independence as well as connection (but the minute you write that, you don't believe it). Maybe you just wish you had a cool accent and not the non-accent you tried so hard to have so that you didn't have a Minnesotan one.

You think about a record your parents had when you were a child that described the ministry of the apostle Paul from the book of Acts(you feel embarrassed that you just admitted to something so churchy, but then you don't really care either). You remember the actor speaking for Paul recounting a vision he had one night where he saw a man standing there saying: "Come over to Macedonia and help us." You remember the meaning of the vision, but for some reason it registers differently now. Every time you see your student, you think of this dream of Paul's.

You wish you were in Macedonia.