A Little Something Humorous

I love when I learn something new from a textbook I'm teaching.

For example, did you know the that word humor actually comes from the Latin word for liquid?* Kudos to you if you're a crackerjack at dead languages, but I had no idea. Apparently the story goes like this: Hundreds of years ago, when people still agreed that the world was flat, it was commonly thought by the noted philosophers of the day that one's personality traits were determined by the balance of the liquids in one's body. Unbalanced liquids = unbalanced personality = strange or odd. So instead of being used to describe things like Sarah Vowell's nephew referring to cemeteries as Halloween parks or Stephen Colbert's version of the news, humorous once referred to someone who was a few sandwiches short of a picnic basket. For example the contestants on Flavor of Love Season 3.


OK, enough with the Latin lessons, but speaking of textbooks, my summer session class starts up next Monday. That means today I am hard at work lesson planning as well as casting aside my hate-affair with talking on the phone to find the best mortgage loan for our new house (Yay! We're getting a new house! Boo! We have to pack. A lot. Quickly.).

I have been in seriously in denial that summer vacation is in fact almost over for me. This is going to put a serious cramp in my new habit of reading until 2am. And lounging around in my pajamas until its time to change into my gym clothes in the afternoon. But in all honesty, I can't complain. I love working with my students and seeing someone who arrived knowing only very basic English progress enough get into the best Hotel Management School in the country. Teaching allows me to work autonomously, be creative and get better every day. And it lets me have a summer vacation in the first place. So, yeah I guess I'm pretty lucky.



*From World Pass: Expanding English Fluency Advanced by S. Stemplski, N. Douglas, J. Morgan and K.L. Johannsen

Set Your DVRs and TiVos

I have desperately been trying to post something witty and interesting this week, but my full time teaching, Japanese class and Grad Research class have sucked all of the creative energy I would like to funnel into writing blog posts out of me.

I nearly had a break down on Thursday after finding out that the researchers I had learily agreed to videotape my class a few times told me they would be back next Tuesday and Thursday too. I was under the impression that they would tape 3 classes total (which is uncomfortable enough), not 3 in the beginning, 3 in the middle and 3 at the end. That is practically the whole semester! And I hate being videotaped, hate it, hate it, hate it. I didn't even like being videotaped on my wedding day. It adds a feeling of complete panic to whatever I am doing not only during the taping, but also before and after for me. In fact, I can feel my blood pressure going up right now just thinking about it. I am trying to find a way to trick my mind into putting a positive spin on the whole thing. Like I'm the star of my own reality TV show. Except I don't get to travel around the world and go bungee jumping or ride in a dragon boat or anything like that.

After talking to Paul about it, I felt a little better and decided to audit both of my classes rather than taking them for credit. Hopefully this will relieve some of the pressure and give me a little more time for some creative pursuits.

On a happier note, my good friend and super talented artist Matt, who was my partner in crime during my study abroad days in Spain, is making his television debut! After doing plenty of as a starving artist, his work has recently been showcased in New York, Chicago, Reno and probably more that I don't even know about. Thanks to this exposure and press appearance in The Advocate last year his business has really taken off and has allowed him to paint full time. I am so proud of him and love to see that all of his hard work and determination to follow his dream has paid off.

Please check him out tomorrow on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition where he painted a "Reflection of the Buddahs" mural in Ty's "Secret Room" for the Gilyeat family in Kansas City. The show airs tomorrow, Sunday February 10 on ABC at 8/7 central.

Less is More

Sorry I've been away for so long. Or as I can now say in Japanese, Shitsudesu shimashita. I can even write that in fancy Hiragana characters now!

Since I wasn't crossing as many things off of my to-do list last semester with my convenient Tuesday/ Thursday teaching schedule with nice long weekends, this semester I decided to test out a theory of mine.

The more time on my hands, it would seem that the more time I would have to pursue all sorts of interests- fitting in some more yoga and gym time, reading, blogging, finding ways to save the world, etc. However, in reality, since free time was in abundance I found myself feeling like I could always do it later. Kind of like the Spanish mañana syndrome.

So my theory was this: the less free time I have, the more likely I am to fill it up with more productive and worthwhile than catching up on daytime TV. So this semester, I took advantage
of the #2 perk that comes with teaching for the university system (#1 of course being summer and winter break between semesters). For every credit I teach, I can take 1 for free. So along with the 4 classes I am teaching I am also taking Beginning Japanese and another grad class about conducting classroom research.

The results so far? If the they were playing in the Superbowl, it would be a really close game between super productive and really freakin' tired. In fact, I think I've already gone into overtime.

Back to School

Well folks, this is the last week of my winter vacation since the Spring semester starts up on Tuesday. I've had a good long time off so I really can't complain.

The greater part of my week has consisted of burying my nose in my textbooks to prep for the coming week. I've been reading textbooks on my couch, reading textbooks at Panera Bread, reading textbooks in the comfy chairs at Borders and reading textbooks at the gym while bobbing up and down on the elliptical machine and attempting not to throw up.

I'm teaching 4 classes this semester. One is a grammar class, 2 are experimental CALL (computer assisted language learning) classes and the fourth is an advanced reading and writing course using short stories and poems in American literature to help my students develop their English skills (can you tell I've just been writing course objectives?). I'm really excited to teach from the textbook I'm using for the reading/writing class. It has a great collection of works and really thought provoking exercises and writing prompts but its really in depth and I underestimated the time it would take to read and prepare for the class.

Tonight I just looked over what I've finished prepping for the week/semester and I am feeling much more at ease with my level of preparation, but Monday of this week I was freaking out, brain on massive overload and in the poetry vein I wrote some haikus, mostly just as a distraction from reading. Maybe some of you teachers who want the summer to stretch on forever can relate.

Words crammed in my ears
the deafening echo of
procrastination

Textbooks are so long
Why did I wait 'til so late
to read them? F*&%! S&%$!