(no subject)
My life in between my last post and this one....
ESL: My teaching was supposed to stop at the end of May, but we have decided to continue the adult classes through the summer. To elaborate; the program is actually a home work help program for school age children which is run primarily for the purpose of giving VA Tech students a way to earn service learning credits. We also offer adult classes while this is going on so that the parents of the children can learn English as well. The adult classes are taught by me and another guy. We are (obviously) not VA Tech students. So in the summer there are not VA Tech students so no homework help. Originally we were going to stop the adult classes for the summer too; but we have the funding so we are continuing. I was going to do Tuesday and Thursday classes, but we I have temporarily lost two students (one is very sick and one is visiting family in Africa) for the summer and we decided that I would just do Tuesdays.
We had a huge party to celebrate the end of the year. It was awesome. We had African food and Somali Dancing. It was very crowded and NOISY having all of the children and adults in the community room. There were about 150-200 people in a room that really should only hold 125ish. Most of the people were under the age of 12 which made it even more interesting. We had some junk food and soda set up before the African Food and I have never seen that much food devoured so quickly as when we released the children to eat. They were like a hoard of locusts. I brought a HUGE bowl of popcorn that I had popped, and it was gone in under five minutes. It was crazy, but a lot of fun.
So we resumed the adult classes the next week. There was a lot of confusion as to what was happening (and there still is three weeks later). We get kids showing up wondering where the other teachers are. And not all the adults that usually show up have been showing up because they are confused as to whether or not there is class. And then there are some that are just too busy now that they Children aren't being babysat during class time. But I have two of my regulars and a few new ones. One of my new ones is a young woman that is attending medical assisting school and I have been helping her with her work. She is super smart and wants to one day be a RN. She plan on working her way up with each degree so she can support herself and pay her own way through school. Another is a high school student that is really smart and enjoys being challenged by the stuff I have. And this past week I just got another new student from the beginners group. She has freakishly accurate pronunciation and reading and writing if you tell her what to write. But she has real challenges comprehending or coming up with what to write on her own. But her grammar and spelling are great and way above a lot of the students. She had A LOT of trepidation about leaving the beginning group; and unfortunately I wasn’t prepared for her; so I only had some more challenging readings. But I think she will do well once we get working more on her level.
On of my regulars wants to focus on the citizenship test. They recently changed the tests now, though to requiring that you pass English comprehension and writing exams. They grade on pauses and overall length of time it takes you. Which will be the death of my student. He is really smart and can remember info and such; but his pronunciation lacks and his timing leaves a lot to be desired. He just isn't sure of himself and he takes forever to read things and longer to really comprehend them. Which is fine for me; but not for the INS. So we will be really hunkering down on reading quickly and accurately and also writing quickly. He is the same when it comes to writing. I felt so bad because I had to really level with him on those points and I know he was getting frustrated and down on himself when we were working on stuff. I encouraged and praised him every step of the way; but essentially it will always be a confidence thing. He is afraid to be wrong. But it's like I told him, if he doesn’t make the mistakes I can't correct them, and he can't learn from them. I'm hoping it will go OK for him.
My work on the Board goes fine. We are facing some tough decisions of some things. Essentially it comes down to definitions. We are at the point where we need to lay down specifics and definitions for our service population; but defining and labeling is hard for those on the Board that have mentally handicapped children and grandchildren. Understandably they hate labels and they also are afraid that they may have to essentially define their loved ones out of our programs. But hopefully we can figure it all out without stepping on too many toes.
My first Strategic Planning meeting with my church is Sunday. I am not expecting much. I doubt many people will show up beyond the ones that are required to. It makes me so mad when people complain, but then don't want to give any time into fixing the problem. And it didn’t help that when I was talking about the meeting last Sunday in the announcements section of worship and I mentioned that the meeting Sunday would be 1.5 to 2 hours in length that the pastor said "oh really!?!" This is an involved PROCESS that is going to take longer then fifteen minutes a meeting. I just hope it goes OK.
The garden is going well. I have more lettuce than I can handle. And my zucchinis are exploding from all the rain. My tomatoes remain meager, but there are actually some tomatoes on them now, and they have lots of flowers. Carrots and dill are growing along fine too. My poor eggplants though are getting eaten alive by bugs. It's strange; right next to them is the lettuce; a varitable field of delicious leafiness; but they remain untouched for the most part. hmmmm
Next weekend I will again be representing my church at our VA Synod yearly conference. It's like congress for our state's Evangelical Lutheran Church in America churches. We are dealing with the question of homosexual pastors and blessing same sex unions AGAIN this year. I just want to get up at the beginning and table the issue until next year, as that is all we will be freak'n doing ANYWAY. My brother is going too. He is the parliamentarian for this year. He said his church actually had a meeting to decide how his Church's reps would vote. My church doesn't do that. Though if half of them know how I was voting they would shot a brick I think. Sadly, I think we could probably make some sort of headway on the question of homosexuals in committed relationships as pastors; but in order to approve that measure we HAVE to approve the measure on blessing same sex unions. Our pastors HAVE to be married if they are living with someone/having sex and if someone is gay that means we have to provide them with a "marriage" of sorts if they want to be in their committed relationship AND be ordained. They could be ordained and be abstinent (as all unmarried pastors are supposed to be). Then we really have no problem with homosexuals as pastors. But if they want to live their lives and be happy with a partner and all; no ordination. The issue of blessing same sex unions is way more controversial than ordination of "practicing" homosexuals. With the later you can argue that if a person is called and a church feels called to accept them; then who are we to argue. But with the former the argument of individual church rights loses ground. Anyway, we're just going to be running in circles all weekend on the issue. People somehow think that if the VA Synod endorses either one of them that it means that individual churches will be forced to "marry gays" and "accept homosexual pastors. Really it's the height of irrationality. I just can't wait til the day when it's all behind us and we do the right thing and bless same sex unions and ordain homosexual clergy that are in committed relationships.
Yeah, so that is pretty much my life right now.