whathaveyou

Today started with a jolt.  Normally I have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9:30, but that class was removed from my schedule last Friday for another class that begins this Wednesday.  Consequently, I stayed up fairly late after dominating some AOE2 (suck it, Jrod and Adam) and was not planning on waking up until 11:00 or so.  I get a call on my phone at 9:15 saying that the teacher who was supposed to cover the class couldn't make it, and "can the class cover you today?"  I end up hopping in a taxi without showering and arrive at the institute at 9:45.  The best part of this is, literally the class period before I had lectured the entire class about not being late, and that they all had to get to class on time because we have a lot of material to cover.  So they were all sitting in their seats looking for me when I walked in 15 minutes late.  I thought about trying to explain how I had dumped their sorry asses for a better paying gig that didn't start at 9 am, but I thought things might only spiral out of control.  So I took the students' trash talk like a man (mainly because I only understood about half of it).

I'm actually really glad I got this final class though, because the students all came up to me afterward and said that they were going to miss me, and that I was one of the better teachers they'd had at the institute.  My explanations of words and ideas were better than what they had been used to.  I guess all those years of being a secret grammar-nazi are paying off.  It also validated me in the sense that I can actually teach, despite literally having no instruction on "technique" or "style" besides 5 total hours of a bogus online certification process (BridgeTEFL.com, everybody!). 

Also, what's the protocol on student-teacher relations at an auxillary school?  Can I take one of these girls out?  Half of them are older than me anyway, it's not like I'm stalking some group of middle-school chicks who barely speak English.  Maybe once I'm a little more confident I can't get fired for that sort of thing.

I started Rosetta Stone Spanish, mainly because I feel like my Spanish got worse over the past couple days.  Funny what a little alcohol and a lot of English podcasts/reading will do to an already-feeble spanish mind.  It's like I was in the woods, and my Spanish abilities was a small fire that I had lovingly and slowly started to care for and build.  Then, with a single weekend of alcohol and a following day of relative isolation, I proceeded to do an entire riverdance number on top of my small fire.  It appears I will need to be more careful in the future.

Otherwise, not much to report.  Hope all is well wherever you all are - drop me a line sometime!  Or cash, whichever you feel comfortable doing.