(no subject)
You know, for a self-proclaimed misanthropic hermit-wannabe, I’m surprisingly attached to my friends. It never ceases to amaze me how friends can make up for a terrible week.
My presentation on Friday went well... But the reception was disheartening. Some of the novice teachers in That Other Program were downright RUDE! One person read a book the entire time; others didn’t look up once; one even made a “hurry up” gesture during the presentation. Afterwards, one of my friends in this program told me that my presentations were getting "increasingly better" (I think because I included music and flashy pictures this time), and she suggested that a game would have improved it even more. Now, I use games frequently in my classes, but that’s because my audience is students who 1) don’t speak much English, 2) are kids, and 3) generally don’t want to be there in the first place. At this presentation, my audience was adult native English speakers who were attending a workshop for professional development. I shouldn’t have to be a dancing monkey for their edification! I’m still a bit bitter about it, but the world seemed much brighter after a full afternoon of movies, chocolate, and sangria with lab83. A Christmas dinner/gift exchange with the other island SETAs and a holiday party at the child center also made me happy.
Today was another disappointing day. I bought a small cake for my TOEFL class, since it was a student’s birthday; and we had planned to order pizza and watch It’s a Wonderful Life after class finished. The birthday boy didn’t even show up to the class; the other students ate the pizza, but then decided to skip the movie; and when the birthday boy finally arrived, he had already eaten lunch and had a very uncomfortable expression on his face when I brought out his cake. (Note: This isn’t the first time I’ve brought a cake for someone, and this kid has been in enough of my special classes to know this, so it's not that he thought it was weird....) I watched the movie alone and gave the cake to the third-grade teachers.
Anyway, the day was kind of a flop, and I was feeling grouchy about it; then I went home, logged onto NateOn (like MSN)... and was immediately welcomed with text messages from two Korean friends and one student, who invited me to “play” on Wendesday, when we don’t have school. THEN another student called me from China (but then accidentally hung up on me). I feel so loved. ^^
My presentation on Friday went well... But the reception was disheartening. Some of the novice teachers in That Other Program were downright RUDE! One person read a book the entire time; others didn’t look up once; one even made a “hurry up” gesture during the presentation. Afterwards, one of my friends in this program told me that my presentations were getting "increasingly better" (I think because I included music and flashy pictures this time), and she suggested that a game would have improved it even more. Now, I use games frequently in my classes, but that’s because my audience is students who 1) don’t speak much English, 2) are kids, and 3) generally don’t want to be there in the first place. At this presentation, my audience was adult native English speakers who were attending a workshop for professional development. I shouldn’t have to be a dancing monkey for their edification! I’m still a bit bitter about it, but the world seemed much brighter after a full afternoon of movies, chocolate, and sangria with lab83. A Christmas dinner/gift exchange with the other island SETAs and a holiday party at the child center also made me happy.
Today was another disappointing day. I bought a small cake for my TOEFL class, since it was a student’s birthday; and we had planned to order pizza and watch It’s a Wonderful Life after class finished. The birthday boy didn’t even show up to the class; the other students ate the pizza, but then decided to skip the movie; and when the birthday boy finally arrived, he had already eaten lunch and had a very uncomfortable expression on his face when I brought out his cake. (Note: This isn’t the first time I’ve brought a cake for someone, and this kid has been in enough of my special classes to know this, so it's not that he thought it was weird....) I watched the movie alone and gave the cake to the third-grade teachers.
Anyway, the day was kind of a flop, and I was feeling grouchy about it; then I went home, logged onto NateOn (like MSN)... and was immediately welcomed with text messages from two Korean friends and one student, who invited me to “play” on Wendesday, when we don’t have school. THEN another student called me from China (but then accidentally hung up on me). I feel so loved. ^^