This post was going to be about Star Trek. Moh well.

I just love olfactory recognition. Today, while at work, I tripped down memory lane when I used some old scented lotion we have in the back. We don't use it very often. One person in particular doesn't like the smell of it (eucalyptus spearmint, a rather masculine scent for women's lotion actually), but a previous coworker used to use it so much that I thought it was her scent. And it was this coworker I thought of when I used the lotion. She was pretty cool. My strongest recollection of her was that she really liked Portland, Oregon and wanted to move there, which got me thinking about moving to another city for a while.

It's strange to think that over a year ago, I was thinking I wanted to move to New Mexico or Oregon for a while. And now, thinking about moving to another city in the U.S. seems like a daunting step, when in reality I will be moving to another country soon, and I am completely okay with this. Well, I'm still excited in a nervous way, but I'm looking forward to it. I think right now, I would never be able to just decide to pick up my life and begin anew in Albuquerque. For instance. Is that crazy?

I think part of this . . . double standard? . . . comes from the fact that I am looking at going to Korea as a new experience that doesn't have to be permanent, but is still full of possibilities. I don't know if I will stay for more than a year, but I could, and that possibility makes me excited. Like, if I do stay for another year, it will be because I'm happy there. On the other hand, if I moved somewhere in the U.S. right now just to change locations, and I end up not being happy there, it would feel like a waste of time. I don't feel like Korea will be a waste of time, even if it doesn't end up being awesome. And if I only stay for a year, it would be a year where I got valuable work and life experience.

And this is what I thought about when I smelled that lotion.

This post is not for much except to say that this year's Easter was a five hundred-percent improvement over last year's (see March 2008). In fact, this was probably the most awesome Easter since I stopped being excited about the Easter Bunny. To recap:

1. This year's Easter came out of the last Holy Week tour I will ever go on. Which made me really happy. Touring with choir during Holy Week does put me in a focus spiritual mood, and I'm really going to miss that in the future. Also, I just love to see other parts of the country during the early Spring. Speaking of which . . .

2. It was actually Spring this Easter! No snow, no freezing in my Easter dress. And the sun was shining when I went outside at 7:30.

3. The fam and I enjoyed a fun, low-key Easter gathering. And Rachel came and got to meet the fam, too! We jumped on the trampoline, swapped stories, and ate two kinds of meat entrees. A good time was had by all.

4. The festivities continued into the evening, where the focus of celebration shifted from the resurrection of Christ to Rachel's birthday! Hmm, that sounded like I was narrating Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Anyway, MaryLynn, planner extraordinaire, got together a really fun group of people (AKA our friends) at the Chatterbox Pub, where we ate and drank and sang karaoke for over three hours. It was my first public karaoke experience, and it wouldn't have been nearly as fun with a different group of people.

So, to the few that read this, thank you for sharing a fantastic day!

The First of the Last Hurrahs

I think the next three months will be a strange mix of anticipation and wishing things never change.

I have been offered (!) and have accepted (!) a teaching position at Luther Theological University in Yongin, South Korea, about 25 miles outside of Seoul. The official start date hasn't been given to me yet, but I'll be going in "early summer," which I'm taking to mean any time in June. So I have two to three months to get ready to leave!

In me time, three months is a long ways away, and most of the time, I don't feel the butterflies in my stomach about moving away from my family and friends and home. When I really think about it, though, I'm overwhelmed with pride, excitement, and hysteria.

I truly am proud and excited that I am going to follow through with a dream I have had for years. Truthfully, and sadly, I can't think of many far-reaching goals that I have made and worked to achieve. So having real plans feels really, really good.

Probably the biggest drawback to leaving, though, is that I love and feel very attached to my family and friends here. My "year off" since graduating has probably strengthened that attachment, for better and for worse. For worse being that I have probably fallen into a state of prolonged nostalgia. Sometimes, I wish all my friends and family could stay together forever! :) But all of us are changing and maturing, and many of the people I am closest to have their own plans to take off on their own for a while. And even though I just said I wish things could stay the same, knowing that we're all pursuing our own interests and goals makes me really happy for everyone.

Before we all do that, though, I'm continuing my pattern of living out my nostalgic wishes by accompanying Christus on tour. I'm really excited. Choir tours have been a big part of my whole life, and I was for sure going to get one last one in if I could. Good friends, good music, host stays (!), quality bus time, the fabulous Midwest . . .

Better pack.

One good reason to shop at Byerly's

Yesterday I went on a few errands. I brought my iPod with me, but put it in my reusable grocery bag while I was in Byerly's. When I got to the checkout line, the cashier was a really sweet old man who handed me my keys out of the bag, and then he held up the iPod and said, "Do you want to hang onto the treasure?"

Awww.

A Twitter would serve the purpose of this blog post better

I've got my last lesson tonight, and I've written up about half of it. The rest is in my noodle, but I'm just getting it down really slowly, so I'm taking a mini-break.

I got some gnocchi from Target that I was really excited to make for lunch today. It was disappointing. Actually, it was pretty shitty. I usually am a clean-plate girl, but I could only stomach half of it.

MaryLynn gets back tomorrow!

Okay, seriously, I have to finish writing my lesson by 3:30 so I can work out before class.

Bye!

In your face, history!

I had a really, really good lesson last night. And you know what? I think it's because I took the extra time to be prepared. It felt so good to have those hours to focus on my goals for the evening. I was able to anticipate challenges in the lesson, and I was able to meet those in a way that let the students do most of the talking. I caught some of my other bad habits, too, because I was more relaxed.

The other person I taught with last night did well, too, but after we were done for the night, we talked about how the lesson went. She complimented me on how my part went, and I mentioned having time to review everything. She had been at work all day, so planning came down to the last minute for her, as it usually has for me. We both talked about how we always say that we "work well under pressure," but that more and more, we're realizing that saying that is just an cop-out for doing things in a hurry and not at our best.

Sometimes circumstance (e.g. working full time) makes it so that we have to do the best we can under pressure. I'm lucky enough to have a lot of time to work on my lessons now. But since that won't always be the case, I'm going to remember this lesson as a reminder to make time to be ready, even if that means starting a week early and working a little bit every day.

In other news, I'm thinking of getting a new blog. "likedejavualloveragain" is a carry-over from the xanga I used to have. And that name was fine when I was just writing about the foibles of my day. But now I would rather write about things more related to my teaching experiences (and hopefully teaching abroad experiences). So, as soon as I can think of a better name for a blog, I'll be giving this one a rest for a while.

Unless, of course, I want to write about the foibles of my day.

What am I supposed to do now?

I don't really have a good reason to post. Well, decide for yourself if I do.

So I'm teaching again tonight, and the past few times I've taught my group and I have put our lesson together at the last minute. One good thing I will say about this is that it really gets me in the zone of thinking about the class and preparing for it. History has taught me that I work well under pressure.

Today, however, I am completely planned. That is, I have planned my lesson, typed it, combined it with my partner's part, and gotten the materials. And I've still got over three hours until class.

Which brings me to the title of this post. I know what I should do: check everything, practice it, look for the places where I or the students might have trouble. And I will do that. I just had to marvel for a moment at all the extra time I have. It seems so strange to me.

Well, I guess I'll go to it.

"What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility . . ."

What a difference a week makes, eh? Every day should begin with a call to social action.

I've taught part of two lessons, now, and it's been going well. Not perfectly, certainly. But I'm optimistic about the fact that I have been able to see where I can improve, and where I'm doing well. Teaching is uncharted territory for me, probably the most uncharted I've ventured into for a long time. The truth is, I've spent a lot of time doing things I love, such as music, but I've always struggled to recognize the ways I've grown in them, blinded by my own confidence in my innate abilities. [Edit: That sounded cocky. I'm just saying, I know where some of my talents lie, and I've considered them good enough a lot of the time.] So far, teaching has been a great experimental field for me. I can see what's working, what I might want to try again a different way, what I can throw out. It's been a great chance to develop better evaluation skills.

Coming full circle, last Thursday, my group did a lesson on the inauguration. Boy, was that interesting. The students were all vocal about Obama's election and politics in the United States. They mostly seemed to be excited about what the change would bring. What was clear, though, was that they wanted to see how the Obama administration would work with their home countries. One woman in particular is from China, and is eager to share about her country. I'd like to incorporate more activities that allow students to talk about their experiences back home.

Well, I'd better finish my job application!

Deep breaths . . . deep . . . breaths

Well, today's one of those days where lots of stressful things have converged. I think I'm going to come out of it alright, though.

Tonight's my first night of student teaching, and I am nervous about how it's going to go. Actually, I'm nervous about how it's going to go for the other student teachers more than for myself, for different reasons. But my nervousness about them is distracting me from focusing on what I have to do.

The job I want to apply for in Chile actually has an application deadline of Thursday. However, I sent the program a message and got a reply from them that I can ask for an extension, and they'd love to have me apply. Now I just have to ask for that extension, which sounds easy, but as a procrastinator by nature, I might ask too late. My excuse this time is that I'm not sure about making an international long distance phone call this afternoon. NO excuses!

I'm going to do this application as soon as I can. However, I have the inconvenience of teaching on Thursday as well this week, so I'll have to focus on creating a lesson plan first.

My final stressor, one that is the scariest at the moment, is that my hours at work have been cut way back. I've felt pretty comfortable about money, but this will change a lot for me. Basically, everyone got a note that their hours would be cut back since business has been extremely slow since Christmas. And we might be expecting this regularly if it doesn't pick up again.

Boy, that makes me want to leave the country for a while.

I'll try to post again when I see the light at the end of the tunnel!

I have to edit my list from before to give credit to Jens Lekman's Night Falls Over Kortedala as my favorite new listen of 2008. His songs tell stories and describe feelings and memories in a way that's transcendent but with refreshingly normal lyrics. Beautiful music, lovely voice, cute Swedish accent. Bonus.

My TEFL practicum has started, and even though I won't be student teaching tonight, I get butterflies thinking about it.

I am nervous, but also very excited about working with this class. Myself and five other students in the TEFL class are sharing student teaching Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Commonwealth Terrace Cooperative on the St. Paul campus of the U of M. We're working mostly with spouses of graduate students who have tested at a high intermediate level of English (although different levels individually). Basically, they can all communicate well, but want to improve their fluency with the language. We're focusing a lot on listening and speaking.

I'm teaching on Tuesday, and I think I have a good lesson plan. However, my biggest challenge will be individually evaluating the students' progress. Since I'm such an optimist, I worry that I won't be identifying specific problems. So that's going to be my main individual goal for the practicum, to actually look for each student's problem areas.

The job hunt has also begun. I'm seriously considering Chile as a place to apply. What appeals to me about Chile, in addition to it having a fascinating history, amazing geography, and a climate (at least in the major cities) that I could definitely live in, is the opportunity to resurrect my Spanish. There's a job there that lasts from April through November, but also others for 5- and 10- month periods. Korea and China are also in the running, although there are so many jobs offered there that I don't know where to begin to sort them out.

Tomorrow and Saturday I have free days, though, so maybe I'll get some of that sorting and applying done then. If I don't end up watching Buffy a lot. The 'mates have got me into it. So . . . wish me the ability to focus.