A New Adventure... Again!

Wow - school has officially hit once again. It has been a challenge, as always, but classes seem to be going quite well. My German writing class is intensive, I absolutely love my French class this semester, and my masterpieces of world lit class has been an interesting experience in democracy. All of my alternative pedagogic experiences are coming into play, as the professor had us create our own syllabus with assignments of our choice. It promises to be an interesting sweep through world literary history...

It's nice not to be teaching at the moment, but I can't shake off the quiet dread of what will happen when I start teaching two classes at once next block. In every spare minute I've tried to do some more class prep to make my life easier... sadly it's not going to pay off quite as much as I hoped. I got a call from Professor Brewer the other day, who said she had put the syllabus up online for my review. To my surprise, she had the entire syllabus, including my half, all planned out. As I scanned through it, my heart nearly stopped when I saw that she was planning to teach 3 chapters of grammar before I started teaching. The implications hit me hard - it meant that I had half the material to cover in the same amount of time, and that I therefore had to somehow double my classroom material to have enough meaningful activities for my students. In quiet desperation I wrote Professor Brewer an email, explaining my situation and suggesting a few things that I thought would be meaningful so that I could flesh out my class time. I received her response yesterday, which basically said that I shouldn't be so worried because she had everything planned out for me. I'll be going to her office on Monday to discuss it further with her... so we'll see how that turns out.

Friday I went to Nikki's aunt's house to help her celebrate her 20th b-day. It was great - lots of pizza, a pool, a moive, a game, lots of cake and ice cream... didn't get home till 2am, but it was worth it :). Saturday I went with Nathan, one of the other teachers in the German department, to see an art museum and have dinner, after I went shopping for the German house in the morning. My roommates are heroes for going shopping with me on such short notice! I've been really blessed when it comes to that.

I think that covers the basics, and the CES fireside is starting, so I bid you all adieu,

Love and miss you!

Margaret