Day 338 | Wednesday, December 1 | 2010

English Class...

Day 305 | Thursday, October 29 | 2009

Kindergarden...

Here is a little ice cream cone I made for my class tomorrow that will help me play a little color / number game with the kids. I'm thinking about going around the room and quizzing them on their numbers and colors and giving them candy corn in return for getting correct answers.

Today has been a good day in general. I overslept my alarm clock but it didn't matter. Classes were good -- in Spanish Civ & Culture we talked about the Generation of '98 writers which I found really interesting. Miguel de Unamuno, Pío Baroja, García Lorca, and several others.

Maybe one day I will be able to move on from teaching numbers, colors, and ice cream to the Generation of '98.

Day 299 | Friday, October 23 | 2009

In the Mirror...

Caitlin and I have been dating 20 months since today! I can gladly say that I have deeply valued all of this time I have been blessed to be with her. She is quite a loving girlfriend, an amazing individual, and an even better friend. She's been there with me through thick and thin and I don't know where I would be without her or without her love.

Today is also Ben's birthday and Caitlin and I will go out to his, Matt's and Emily's house to celebrate. I'm looking forward to seeing Ben, Tiana, Emily, Chris, Matt and Sam -- it's really been too long and I'm starting to feel bad about not seeing them. They are all a great group of friends to me.

Today was good; teaching kindergarden was interesting. I thought them colors today: rojo (red), amarillo (yellow), azúl (blue), verde (green), naranja (orange), violeta (purple), café (brown), and negro (black). I don't think any of the eighteen children remembered many of the colors. They all seemed to pick up on the easy ones (rojo; azúl) but just seemed to not pay too much attention to what I was saying. Half the class still thinks I am a girl.

I took this picture outside of Caitlin's dorm while waiting for her to come down.

Day 285 | Friday, October 9 | 2009

Cold Souls...

Today was a completely crappy rainy day that had no inspirational qualities whatsoever. I did not have any time or motivation to get work done and I didn't do anything last night or this morning for class. I feel completely unprepared for the day and am wondering why I go at it sometimes. I didn't read any of my readings, I didn't finish my theory work, and I only feel so-so on my lesson plan for teaching the kindergarten class.

Maybe it is the weather but I feel totally hopeless. I wish things would be better...

later: I don't know why I worried so much -- everything turned out fine. I still was able to actively discuss everything in each of classes (despite not reading the lecture materials) and my kindergarten class went so well. I gave all of the kids spanish names and I taught them how to count numbers 1-10 by playing them a song on my ukulele. The kids kept coming up to me every minute or so to ask me what their name was again in Spanish. It was at that moment that I realized that none of them could read the name that I gave them on their name tags. Another funny note was that all of the kids were unsure of whether I was a boy or a girl (the long hair).

Also: Caitlin and I went to see the movie Cold Souls with Clare and it was really good (I recommend seeing it either in the theater or on home rental).