"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.