Tell ME!!!

Today went rather strangely in a couple of ways. The first thing was that I was supposed to teach the mother's class today. So, I was waiting outside of the classroom for them to come, when I remembered that one of the possibilities that had been mentioned for the future was that they could combine the mothers' classes. While no decision had been reached, I decided to ask the other teacher anyway. She told me that it was a good question, and she had no idea.

Then I saw the dean walking to the other class (he is the one who teaches it). I went and asked him. He told me that he didn't know and that we would find out as soon as class started. So, instead of waiting, I did what would normally be the next best thing: I asked the coordinator. He said that he didn't know and that we should just wait for the students to show up. Soooo, I waited. They didn't show up, so I decided that to just go to my office and work on some administrative stuff I needed to do. At least I was able to get some things completed, and I didn't have to teach a class that I really didn't want to teach.

My university students, on the other hand, gave me such problems yesterday. These problems were not so much behavioral as they were cognitive. I tried to explain what a century was to them, and they just didn't get it. I told them it was a measure of time equal to 100 years. They decided to look it up in the dictionary...same definition, same lack of understanding. Then I started going into other measures of time: decade, year, week, day, hours, seconds....Most of them eventually got it, but some were still a little unsure. I will check again to see what comes of it.

I was told that I need to use the Wright Brothers book that is produced by the company I work for in class. This book is too hard for the students, but I will do my best to simplify it as we go along. I am going to attempt to use it to introduce good reading academic reading habits. What I mean by this is mainly looking for context clues to figure out the meaning of unknown words. It really bothers me when student feel they need to look up every word as they may miss the meaning entirely. Besides, often the definition is given in the sentence...why would you look it up if they tell you right there? (unless this portion is too difficult for you to understand as well). Eventually I would like to also be able to point out key words like "next" and "after that".

After work, I spent a little time on the computer and then the person who fixes things around here asked me to come downstairs and kick the soccer ball around with him for a while. So I did. After an hour or so, the wind started really blowing, so we stopped, and one of my housemates and I went to the restaurant to eat. It came to $12 approximately, but it was a lot of food. Not too bad, all in all. Of course, I felt I could spare it as I have spent less than $50/ week living here!

Of course the cheapness of the place does come at a price. For example, I found out that while you can ship packages out of the country through couriers like Pele Post or DHL, letters are a different story. You have to ship them as packages with a minimum charge being half a kilo. I have heard that this is very expensive. So, my plans to write a couple of people or send post cards, is not going to happen! It is a strange thing not having this service, but I guess this is what comes from all of whatever is happening here.