Eight Cool Things From Monday

A lot goes on in a day here -especially a weekday. So, I thought I would just picked eight cool things that stood out for me today.

1. This was the day of a new semester, a fresh start. No matter how prepared and eager I may be it doesn't change the fact that about a third of the students didn't have the new books. Ooooh boy.

2. Someone left a piece of blueberry cake on my desk. No idea who, it was amazing. Gomabseulnida!

3. One of my classes read a story today about what makes a pet perfect. The story was about a boy who wanted a dog, and he was very specific about what he wants in a dog. The dog he gets matches the description in every way but one, he's short. But that's because he's only a puppy, then he grows into a huge dog. We discussed which animals would make great pets my class came up with : a penguin, a tiger, a shark, a lion, a spider, an eagle, and a polar bear. What little bad asses!

4. My evening class was ahead on their curriculum so we had to slow things down. They had reading and writing, where we had already written the assignment together last Friday, and debate, where we had already discussed the topic. Knowing that they hadn't really done any formal debating I played them a couple youtube videos of formal debates while I marked and corrected the written assignments. We spent the rest of that class writing out what the would say about their debate topic, using more formal language. Each of the students would have to introduce herself and thank everyone for listening at the end. Since they had a lot of time to make sure their speech was well written they felt more comfortable speaking during the next class. As an experiment I asked them how long they thought it would take them to read what they had written, guesses ranged from 30 seconds to 12 minutes. They all spoke for just over a minute. Convenient since there was drilling being done in the other room that started right after the last one finished.

5. The director came into observe one of my classes. She liked how I walked around the room, spoke clearly, engaged everyone, and frequently referred to the pictures in the book. I guess I teach the way I like to learn. She wanted me to use some resources that were absent from the classroom: a clock to pace myself and a stereo for the CD component. I skipped over the CD parts or did them differently since I wasn't aware we had a CD player (to be fair, there only seems to be one for the whole school).

6. One student came up to me and gave me a biscuit in the shape of the Merlion. She was excited I recognised it from Singapore! It tasted like leechee nut.

7. I walked to work by myself today and totally got the route down pat.

8. I got my pay in advance from the director so I was able to have a nice dinner of Kimbap after work

I'm really enjoying keeping busy! I look forward to knowing the routine a little better though!