Onward

Another weekend come and gone since my last post.  This one was similar to the last one, except that I both a written assignment and a lesson plan to get done.  Friday afternoon, of course, was filled with lazing about, continuing my run of watching Star Wars all the way through, starting with the newer releases and saving the best (old ones) for last.  I intended to go for a run, but by the time I felt I had the energy, it was getting dark.  Guess I had to put that one off.

Friday night I met up with Alec, Brian, and a couple of Alec's Swedish friends to play music and hang out on Alec's balcony.  We had a good time, and this continued when we went to another of Alec's friend's apartment (she's also from Sweden, coincidentally).  Her building had a rooftop terrace, which we quickly occupied, and we stayed there for a good part of the evening (again, playing guitar and talking).  We started to play songs that everyone knew, generated good ole' sing-a-longs.  Super fun.  Alec worked for a small indie record label back in England, scouting out and signing worthy new bands.  At one point, he told me that he really liked my style of singing and playing guitar, and that he would sign me.  GAH best compliment ever!  This guy really knows his music, so I was pretty flattered.  He is obsessed with making a cappella trumpet sounds, which a couple girlies in Ellement, my group at CC, can do rather well, so I've also showed him one of our videos.  Again, the seal of approval (Sammi, your mouth trumpet is legendary now, and Marina, he digs your voice and thinks you're very pretty :) )!  But enough of that for now.

When we finally motivated ourselves to leave the Swedish girls' apartment, it was about 2 am, a good time to head to a bar or a club.  We tried to get into the same place we'd gone last weekend, Ferona, but it was full and the doorman said we would've had to wait a couple hours to get in.  It just so happened that right as we were about to walk away, Aminah and Jess (two more CELTees) walked out, a happy coincidence since we had gone to Ferona to find them.  We absorbed them into our group as we wandered to a different part of town looking for a good spot.  By the time we decided on a club and found it, Jess had decided to go home, but the rest of us went inside and danced away for a few hours.  At first, the DJ would play the beginning of well-known songs until the chorus arrived, at which point he'd cut the music (expecting people to shout-sing) and then switch to a different song.  Not the best idea, buddy.  Finally he either got the hint or got booted from the chair, but all the sudden we were listening to complete, uninterrupted songs!  And this new DJ (I think it must've been a new person) also knew how to layer one track over another, making for some cool mixes and smooth transitions.  This won't matter to most of the world, but I was in a dancing mood, so it made a difference to me.  Ha.

We lost track of time dancing, what with all the darkness and flashing lights that make it feel like eternal nighttime.  When we finally left the club, we were all surprised to emerge into daylight.  Oops.  None of us had intended to stay out that late, but we succeeded in staying up until 6 (or at least, that's what time I got back home).  Given the large amount of work I had to do, I only let myself sleep for a few hours before getting up to start powering through my lesson plan.  Of course, my work was laced with Star Wars and food breaks, but by mid-evening I had finished my lesson plan.  Woo!  I opted for an early bedtime and an early morning, so that I could get some rest and get a good amount of time on Sunday to work on my written assignment.  Turned out to be a good call.

I got up early and went for a short run, which felt so great until my knee started hurting.  Boo!  I even wore the knee brace I bought in Perú, so I'll bet that helped lessen the pain and the impact of the run.  HOWEVER this is bad bad news because it means that I've actually really done something bad to my knee that won't go away in a couple weeks.  Travis and I talked about this when I had so much trouble hiking in Perú...he told me about how he had strained his meniscus a few years ago and had to spend a good two and a half months doing nothing before it (mostly) healed.  I'm not sure if I have a meniscus problem or something else, but my pain seems similar to his, so it's a definite possibility.  Crap.  That means running is out of the question.  Wish I could teleport my trusty bicycle and ride it around here.

Anyway.  The run was good for all parts of me except for my knee, and I needed the exercise to get my ya-yas out.  I got an early start on my written assignment, worked all day with random breaks here and there, and finished at a reasonable time on Sunday evening.  Then early to bed, early to rise to get to school early for lesson prep.  Today we switched classes with the other TP group, so it was our first day with the upper-intermediate students.  We were flying blind today, because we hadn't gotten a chance to observe these students or even talk to the other teaching group about the students' strengths and weaknesses (apparently we were supposed to be given this time, but we weren't...c'est la vie).  This made planning a little tricky, because we had to completely guess how long certain activities would take and whether or not the students would be able to do them.  We were all pleasantly surprised, I think.  This group of students is smaller and more obedient, shall we say, so they're not always talking over each other in the middle of instructions and they pick up on things quickly.  I didn't expect such a marked difference between the skill levels, but it is really noticeable.  Our challenge with this group is not gonna be having enough authority and giving the simplest clearest instructions possible, like it was with the pre-int students; no, it's going to be getting them energized and enthusiastic about what we're doing.  Granted, today's lesson topics weren't the most exciting in the world (international cooperation and communication through means like the internet and the World Student Games, which apparently do exist), but the students didn't have any real enthusiasm or energy.  It's my personal challenge to change that now (*grin).

We also got our halfway-point progress reports today, and I did well, as I expected.  One nice thing about this course is that there are no surprises...you know when you did poorly, and you know when you're doing well.  With regular feedback after every teaching session, we all have consistent benchmarks for our progress and what we need to work on.  So it wasn't a surprise for me to see that Fran gave me all satisfactory, to-standard marks, plus a few above-standard marks in certain categories (for the record, we have something like 40 or 50 evaluation criteria, so getting a few above-standard grades isn't that special or unusual).  What did surprise me was that she said she wants to see more above-standard work out of me in my lesson plans, because she's confident that I'm capable of doing it. Of course, knowing me (little miss A student, disappointed with a B), I would love to get above-standard marks every time, and I told her that that's what I'm aiming for.  We agreed that I've shown good examples of all the teaching things they want us to learn, but it's just a matter of me consolidating them into one lesson, and doing so consistently.  Challenge acknowledged, master.  Now it's time to rise to the occasion.

This week will be an intense one for me, partly because of this new, higher bar, and also just because of the sheer volume of work I have to do.  I got one lesson out of the way today, but I have two more to do, on Wednesday and Friday, and now that our lessons plans are more a product of our own creativity and ideas, they take a lot longer to complete.  I'm not kidding when I say that each one will require eight or nine hours of work, minimum.  If I haven't done that much, I haven't thought of everything that I should've.  I'm seeing this week as the big hump to get over, because next week will be more low-key for me and then the course will be over.  So here's to hoping I have what it takes (I mean, I know I do, but hopefully I don't have to kill myself getting everything done).  Onward, ho!