Wiped

I took my first exam on Tuesday and ever since then I have been one exhausted ball of, don't want to do nothing which is probably a bad thing considering that I have another exam tomorrow. An exam that will probably be much harder than the one that I already took and that one was bad enough.

Another factor for me being tired is the class that I am teaching. Not because they are horrible students (in fact, today they were nigh on perfect) but because I am such a high energy teacher, who bounces around the classroom like a chihuahua on crack....... in heels.

It is because of this class, though, that I've been studying as much as I have been because it's in the late afternoon so I usually have a decent amount of time with nothing else to do. This means that I haven't been rushing through my homework assignments, that I have studied for the quiz for about 2 hours already, and that I've started doing some supplementary reading in the TESOL field. So despite the physical and mental exhaustion, teaching this class has been really good for me. Not to mention the fact that it pays $13.75 an hour.

Inneresting

I do apologize for my grammar error on my last post. I'm not good at self editing and what is put down on the page is usually just verbal diarrhea that comes directly from my brain. Oops, so sue me.

Today, after studying for FOUR HOURS STRAIGHT I decided to make an appearance at the Sid festival that's sponsored by the Saudi Club here on campus. My conversation partner, Moayad, had invited me and I though that it would be interesting to go. I was only there for about 30 minutes but I got some free food (very good, me likey the sheeps) and was witness to some interesting behavior.

There was a large group of people walking slowly on the lawn, looking down into the grass. Occasionally sifting through it.

Ellen: Guess what they're doing.

Me: Umm, I dunno.

Ellen: They're looking for something that was lost during the tug o' war game.

Me: A ring? That's awful.

Ellen: No, not a ring.

Me: A watch?

Ellen: No, it's something that a ring would be on.

Me: YOU MEAN THEY'RE LOOKING FOR A FINGER?

Ellen: Yes, that's exactly what I mean......

Movin' on up

Had the big, scary meeting today where we found out more information about what is actually required to graduate with the MA degree. My comment, in the meeting, was a question about whether or not I could hide under a rock. It basically boils down to a big big BIG comprehensive exam (6 hours) and a 25-30 page research paper. I'm much more worried about the exam than the paper because there I have to memorize, regurgitate, analyze and apply a shit-ton of information. Not one of the skills that I'm famous for. This also hinges on me not procrastinating and getting on top of things NOW. Again, not one of my strong points.

On the other side of the coin, I am now (temporarily) employed as a teacher again. One of the full-time teachers is on sick leave and I get to teaching grammar, one hour a day to some low level students. I'm very excited about this and hope that it last for a couple of weeks and will lead to other opportunities. Either way starting tomorrow, I'll be earning a bit of dinero. Strange, earning money instead of spending it. I'm not used to that any more as my checking account will attest.

Picture this

Me.

On a bike.

In the pouring rain.

Wearing heels.....

The return of a tradition

Back in Nanchang, I used to host a weekly dinner party at my place. Those Thursday nights of my last term there were some of the best moments. Good friends, good food and good booze always make for a nice time. I haven't had much of an opportunity to do something like that for almost a year now and I have missed it.

So, now that I have the ability to host these dinners again, I've decided to do it about once a month. It's partly because I like to cook, partly because I want to show some of my foreign friends various kinds of American food. Or at least food that they haven't encountered before. I started by cooking Cajun basically because I hadn't had it in ages and I figured that it would be something that they would like. I invited six fellow TESOL grads and was very pleased that they all came. Everything tasted wonderful, we all got slightly drunk and we definitely were a lot less restrained than we are in class.

I'm not sure if these people are my friends yet, not because we don't like each other but because they all seem so busy that they don't have much time for me so I've been struggling with being social again. I want to go out and do things but living away from campus, it's a bit difficult. People don't think to call me to do things and I'm not one to go out to random places in the hopes that I'll meet somebody nice. This all comes down to the fact that I want to have some good friends and I wouldn't mind meeting a boy. I hate the fact that I seem to whine about this constantly but it something that is in my mind constantly.

Sigh, one of these days I'll stop being a social retard.

Wee little happy dance

It's hard to judge how well things are going so far, class wise. I still feel like an idiot most days because I just don't have the wealth of practical knowledge that my other grad students have. And most of them have practical teaching experience too so it's not as though I'm unique in that regard. We hadn't had anything graded up until this week so it was hard to tell if what I was doing was enough and en par with my fellow students.

My first graded assignment was a definition. In my field of study, it is required that we memorize and define several hundred linguistic terms and theories. Yeah, not so much fun since I'm not that good at remembering stuff. My definition was on the Sociocultural Theory and man, this one was difficult. I did my best though I thought that is was complete rubbish, and turned it in. We got the definitions back yesterday and to my complete surprise, I got a perfect 5 out of 5! I was just hoping to get more or less the same grade as the others but I actually did a bit better :-D

Of course, then we took an ungraded quiz and I got the lowest score in the class but that's besides the point....