Wow! Everything's been crazy lately! I'm loving my new job. My daughter is loving kindergarten. She's so amazing and precious.
I'm teaching on regular 50-minute periods now instead of the 90-minute blocks I did last year. Wow has that screwed up my time-frame within my mind. It's a lot like jet lag. I know my kids think I'm hyper. I think we're never getting enough done. I plan waaaaay too much. I'm like, "yeah, sure we can read the Odyssey in a week, do our weekly vocabulary words, and write a paper." We're doing good to get the vocabulary words and test done and then get a couple pages into the Odyssey. Oi vei.
Oh, and then I have to translate everything into Spanish as I teach. This gets very interesting. Because you see, were you to only speak English and listen to a conversation I have with a spanish-speaking student, you'd think, "gee, she's pretty proficient. No lapses in the conversation, she's laughing, getting jokes, they're understanding. Awesome." But you'd be fooled. Completely. You see, I have the proficiency of a chinese waiter. Mind you, I totally understand not all chinese waiters are like this, but you know the one's who are and those are who I'm talking about. The conversation sounds a little like this: "You want sit here? Good chair. Want docker pepper? We make good fwy wice. You sit now." We're very able to communicate and it goes well... but it's always in present tense! And very limited. I always apologize before I have to speak Spanish. They think I'm crazy, I know. However if you were Chinese and didn't speak any English, you'd look on that waiter with awe and respect, eh? "Wow, he must be fluent." hehehehe.
You'd not believe how hard simple things are for freshmen. I mean, I was totally not prepared for this. I'm so used to teaching juniors and seniors. These guys are ... well for one, lazy. And two, really really really distracted.
A couple gripes: What is with the freakin' mini-skirts?! Send 'em home? Yah, like 2/3 of your student body then. oi vei. (No that wasn't intended to be a pun.) Oh. And the kid who talks loudly about his/her grades to everyone, has underwear always showing out the top of his/her pants, talks about sex loudly whenever anyone will listen, and then insists you let him/her go outside to blow his/her nose. And I'm a little indignant about the kids who get angry when I translate what I said into Spanish. "Miss! this isn't supposed to be Spanish class!" And there's a huge paradox I've noticed: While they're completely impervious to knowlege of routine that will help them (like the fact that there's a vocab test EVERY friday and new words EVERY monday) they're also completely thrown askew when I violate the everyday routine to do something like go to the computer lab. "What's wrong with your room miss? Why are we in here? Why do we have to be in here? What's going on." Oi. I could make a much more comprehensive list, but egads, I'd be here all night. I've got play practice to go to anyway.