February 28th, 2016

February 28th, 2016

(Is this the last of the Editor's notes: Two points; 1. I'm much less an editor as I am a copy/paste-er. A) I know these notes probably took almost as much time as deleting the dates. 1:38AM, March 2nd, -G)

11:46 am on March 1st about the 27th

My first class of the day was on how to review or judge a restaurant, what makes a restaurant good or bad? Students for the class included Jennifer, who was a little late and had apparently been out all night for a party, talking and playing billiards (also called "pool"- she liked that, as "pool is easier" to say), Will who got up late and had to run here- I told him he didn't seem to be sweating nearly as much as I do when I have to run somewhere, and even if he was, his complexion wasn't altered at all, whereas mine, you know, gets all red and whatnot. And then there's quiet Emily- she's a weaker student, and also lacking in confidence in speaking, which only compunds the problem. HOWever this class was easily the most I've ever seen her talk, so I think she was more comfortable with me.

Of the first possible ideas to use when judging a restaurant, Jennifer had the first suggestion: atmosphere- cool, nice one, very surprised that got to be first, instead of, you know, taste.

Oh, oh, they also had homework, they had to describe how to make some food- Jennifer hadn't actually written anything down, but she gave a fine answer.

In the last few minutes before the end of class I described s'mores, aka smores to them. Marshmallows are tough to describe.

Then I had a salon titled "What's In the Papers" where the first thing we did was to have our three groups come up with the who/what/when/where/why/how of the headlines... let's see, something like "The Dark Side of a Bubble Economy", "Man Happily Washes Dishes" and... I forget the last one.

I gave the group of two, Lexie and Kevin first pick- Lexie unsurprisingly picked "Man Happily Washes Dishes". Lexie... um, has a very cynical relationship with men. Melody, Amaris and Zale had the headline that I forget, and the boisterous Dora and Gina (plus the not so boisterous Sherry) had to deal with the "Bubble Economy" one. "Noo, it's too hard!" You'll be fine.

Kevin had a tough time opening things up for his group, so I moved on to, again, the one  forget, I think we got through that one, and then I threw Zale under the bus. He tried to say he couldn't do it, but I dragged it out of him. Somehow I made him the "who" for Kevin and Lexie's "Man Happily Washes Dishes".

Gina and Melody, meanwhile, came up with an interesting narrative regarding the low birth rate putting Gina, um, one of those nurses that helps with getting babies born... um, I know this... urgh well, you can look it up yourself with your precious internet and google at home- right, well, it put Gina out of a job, so she had to get a sugar daddy. Hey, don't look at me, this was their story, I told you they were boisterous. Also, Gina says "baby" like "bebe" which you KNOW I commented on.

Everyone was given a short article they had to decypher- there was a lot to decypher- and I shifted the groups slightly. I threw Melody on team Lexie/Kevin, leaving the weakest group, Zale/Amaris on their own- no, it's not because I'm a monster, it's because I was going to help that group personally. After I convinced the two that they could do it, both Zale and Amaris had a ton of questions, but that's good! And they got through it! Actually, Amaris isn't that weak a student, she mostly needed motivation to try.

Then came my break, and who knows what I did. Presumably I got food. This may be when I sat with Leon, Ailsa and Ivy- I'm glad Ailsa and Ivy seem to be friends now, Ivy was mostly sticking to herself until this point.

I had a full, ten person, lower intermediate salon class about "Making Choices" which had more to do with saying, yes, this is something I will do, or may do, or will not do. On the guy side of things we had Leo, John (I... don't know which one is which) and my favourite little dude, Bill and then there was Ailsa, and to my left there was Lily who smiles at my jokes, Cherry who I've seen all the time but have never had a class with before, Cindy, then Caroline who I don't remember, followed by Queena, then Jessi. Yup, that's the whole table, in order... Caroline, Leo and John have a little wiggle room, position wise.

We had some questionaires to work through, and, I figured Ailsa would like to go through it with me, so I didn't hum and haw too much before pairing up with her and getting the other groups of three to work. But then we were the last to finish! Whoops... holding up the class. Ten points from Teachyndor.

Well, I guess that's all the important stuff here. Bill did a lot of the heavy lifting for his group, which looks funny since he must be 11 or 12 and the other guys are at least 16. But a bright kid is a bright kid.

After an hour break where I watched Adeel's English Corner about wealthy Chinese people and conspicuous consumption - buying yachts, etiquette classes about banana cutting, gold toilets. One English commenter on the video, a yacht salesman or something, said luxury items are a weapon on the battlefield of success. Incredibly, grossly backwards. Especially in cases where it could be true.

Then I had a class where, at first, only Lily from my last class was present- but we were soon joined by Jessi and Daisy. This was, yet again, a class where we construct "Dyned City". This class is possibly starting to blend together with the other times I've done it. It is a fun class though. Daisy did NOT have a phone to take a picture of the homework at the end, so I told her I'd be happy to get a photocopy for her, no problem- of course this was the one time the photocopier was in use, by someone double sided printing some 30 pages of whatever. What are the odds? I'm just glad she was mostly done with this print job, but it still took an uncomfortable amount of time to print off the homework, give it to Daisy (who, in exchange, gave me a "Zhang Cheng Nougat cookie" which I held onto until I got home) and get to my final class...

Talking about proud moments in our life with Gary, Leon, and Tyler. Oh, but first I told them, to the best of my ability, the names of football/soccer positions in English. Because priorities, amirite?

I don't really want to record what they told me- oh, no, not for moral reasons, just because I want to finish this post, shower, and get some food somewhere. My stomach has the rumblies.

So, in short, we gave appreciative speeches about our partner and their accompishments. Outside of class, perhaps this was earlier in the day, I sang the praises of S.E. Hinton and "The Outsiders" to Ailsa and Jasmine who were asking me how they could improve their English (read stuff), and also I gave my facebook contact information to Nikita/"Goliath".

Finally, returning home, I had that Zhang Cheng Nougat cookie- I guess that's the nougat in between two crackers? Aand it tastes like chewy, retaining-wire destroying cardboard.

Don't worry, my retaining wire is okay, but not for lack of trying on the part of this "cookie".

Okay, that's enough. Let me get some food and wander around a bit before I catch up on my last two posts. - 12:49 pm