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.