Sweet Caroline

Bah Bah Bah! Good times never seemed so good (so good, so good).

TMH and I went to a ball game tonight. It was a lot of fun. We seem to be packing in the fun lately, partly because he is going out of town this coming weekend and I will be on my own in the big city. Between our fun and my stressful job I have been busy. Good busy.

Let's see. My job has become a bit more stressful because the department my students will be entering has realized that they have admitted students who are not really ready for grad school, in terms of their English level. They put the pressure on my boss, who put the pressure on me, and now I have to write letters to make sure we are covered. The course ends in 4 weeks, and despite common misconceptions about language learning, I will not be able to wave a wand and fix the students in that time period. I have to do midterm evals for all the students, basically warning them (the students and the department) of their deficiencies. They are all going to love me after that, right? I don't know how I end up with these jobs...

On a side note, one of my students is really crazy. I wonder how she gets by in her day to day life. She honestly thinks that people get AIDs from eating monkeys. Long story. Let's just say she has some problems with listening comprehension. Let's also say that in other parts of the world education about STDs may not be so good... another student asked whether a woman could get AIDs during her period. Shocking.

Another funny thing- today we had a big confusion about sex issues and sexy shoes. It was the perfect way to learn the importance of pausing and stress. You may be wondering why we were talking about AIDs and sex. Let's just say this is a content-based program and a professor lectured about the origin of AIDs on Friday. Everyone gets the same lectures on Friday. You may also wonder what this has to do with the students' area of study. Not much, obviously. I just do what I'm told... and clearly the students could use some education on these issues. It would help if they could actually understand the lecture. Clearly a professor did not say that people get AIDS from eating monkeys or discussing sexy shoes. And these students will get advanced degrees... what is the world coming to????

TMH and I have been doing well and having fun. So, generally I am back to good-busy. Yay! Midterm is upon me. The summer is really flying by. I better get going. I have no idea what I am teaching tomorrow. Planning has just become too tedious, what with all the grading and other things...