A wonderful Wednesday

Today started off pretty good, which I felt set the tone for the whole day. I woke up a little bit late, but it wasn’t anything that I would have worried about since I normally give myself time to sleep in a little even though I’m getting up at 5am. As you could probably tell, I do not like that. But everything was going smoothly, which shocked me because things lately haven’t been so smooth. I got a good train, which lead me to a fast train to get to work today. I ran into a couple of teachers walking to school, which was neat. I was able to carry a conversation with them too, which was a shock to me. I even had time in the morning, while everyone was at the morning assembly to eat breakfast.

My first class went much better than I expected it to. I really hadn’t prepared too much and just played it by ear to see what I could do. I dragged out the lesson a little bit, but it was ok since I was just giving the students more information that they might not need. They are preparing for an oral speech test next month that yours truly planned for them. It’s not difficult by any stretch of the imagination since they are the highest level English class and the topic is incredibly easy.

Second period was good too, but I didn’t do too much. I was more or less staring out into space. But the class has behaved themselves lately. I think that there is something going on with the weather that is really affecting everyone. They were good, but seemed a bit tired, so I’m putting it on the weather. The topic of the day was basically pretty easy and just getting them to be caught up with the other classes. I think it’s really difficult for the teachers to be teaching the same thing 4 times, which gets to be a bit of a drag sometimes, but at least you could improve from class to class. This was the third 8th grade class in the rotation since the school year started in the middle of the week. So there’s only one more left before we start something new.

I had the same effect in the third period class today too, being tired and spacing out. But it was much better because there was more interaction for me with the students. I was supposed to only help, but the assignment today was to get them ready for their Speech test next week. So they were writing down their speeches and I was helping them with their grammar and topics. They seem to understand it pretty well and are able to take care of it. It didn’t take too much time at all. I think the 10th graders only spend about 10 or 15 minutes to complete it. So I’ll have to think about how I want to run the class on Friday when I teach the 10th graders, and I think that Friday’s class is at a higher level. So maybe I wouldn’t have to give them too much time, but I think again that I might make the test a bit harder to stretch their ability.

Today, I had a nice long break in the middle of the day, which is a really nice thing to have. I was able to enjoy lunch and just relax without any worries. Since I didn’t have a 4th period, I was able to eat earlier and I usually use this time to catch up on other things, but I was all caught up so I didn’t have much to do.

Fifth period was a bit tough. This was the first 9th grade class today. The students seemed to be very tired and antsy about something and were a bit difficult to teach. I’m not sure what it was. It wasn’t really distracting or anything, but something that I would have preferred not to deal with while teaching. I wasn’t leading the class so I didn’t have too much control over that. I was taking notes because I had to teach the next 9th grade class, which would be next period.

Sixth period was great. They’ve been better before, but they have improved a lot since last year, noise level wise. They are really eager to learn English and have a higher comprehension rate because of it. They were a bit sloppy and tired today, but still on the money with answers and comprehension. We went kind of slow through the materials since we will pick it up next week too. But we finished earlier than the other class. I was able to get every student to speak English today, which is something that I have always wanted to do since the beginning of my term here. So I’m happy to get that going for these students. I think they will benefit greatly because of it.

After school, I felt like something hit me and was a bit tired and groggy. So I decided that after a bit more work, I would go home early today too. I ended up leaving around 5:30pm with one of the newer teachers. She doesn’t really like to stay at school that late and usually leaves way before I do. But I’ve been thinking about it lately and that I don’t think it would be worth spending too much time doing nothing at work and instead I could just waste my time at home. There are still things that need to be taken care of after school, but I didn’t want to stay for it. I think the other teachers have seen that I’ve been working hard and encourage me to leave and NOT stay to help finish their work. I think that’s very interesting.

I went to eat at Bamiyan today. But it wasn’t that good today. I had ordered Mabo Tofu, which is usually very good, but today I guess there was just too much for me. I didn’t get enough rice to balance it out. And there was a lot of people there today, so I had a really place to sit too. I didn’t mind it since I wouldn’t be there long, but I would have preferred another place. It wasn’t the best experience, but that’s what I get for going during dinner time and everyone was meeting someone else. But it was ok; I wanted to try something new. I think next week I want to go eat some ramen at a really nice ramen restaurant, but I believe that I will feel sick afterwards since that’s what happened last time. I think that it’s something about the ramen that makes me sick, but it’s damn delicious.

When I got home, I just showered and finished up my day. I didn’t do the work I had wanted to do, but that’s ok. I’ll get to it tomorrow. I wanted to get my xanga all caught up and start working on adding additional pages to my website. I think that is something that is long overdue and should be finished soon. I’ve been putting that off for many years and I think it’s about time that I finally get something presentable up on the internet and something that will be able to connect everything together that I know that is necessary.