March 7th, 2016

March 7th, 2016

1:01 pm on the 14th, talking about the 6th.

First class was an intermediate business class with Amy, Niko, and Michael- Michael said he was just taking this class to kill time, but he was probably the strongest English speaker in the group. He second guesses himself a little, but he's also friendly and an enthusiastic, good natured participant. Amy was the weakest... actually, maybe Niko was, now that I think about it. It doesn't really matter. Both Amy and Niko have connections to textiles! Uh, yeah, anyways.

My next class was the old get teams to figure out the order of cut strips to make the story of Little Red Riding Hood and Beauty and the Beast. I didn't have enough time to cut the B&B strips before class, but while they were working on the first story in their groups I had time enough to cut ONE set of B&B strips, and so this time I made two people co-group leader- I couldn't decide between Irene and Betty who I should make team leader, they were both very strong, new students- Irene even corrected me at the start of class when I referred to Little Red having a "bag" when I should have said "basket", so obviously I was favouring making Irene the leader, but it was kind of a big job, and the two girls were obviously close friends, okay, co-leaders it is- and they contructed the story while everyone else had pieces, and they could only tell them about which strips they had...

Well, I didn't really have any consequences for people that just tossed their strips to Irene and Betty and let them sort it all out, but thankfully that didn't happen.

Lunch break... I've got no notes.

Then I had a class on supersitions with new student Sherry, two Jasmines, Dora, Amaris, Eamonn, Kevin, and Katarina. Ten minutes or so into the class Iris came late- she wasn't on the attendance list, but there were a couple of blank English name spots on the sheet, so I got her to point to hers...

The class was totally dead, they did not care about this topic whatsoever, didn't contribute, it was rough. Finally I gave up and did something they seemed to dig- I read to each person what the booklet said their star sign was all about. A personal highlight was when I got to Kevin, who's star sign indicated he was a prankster. "That's quite right- Kevin's funniest joke is when he pretends he's a statue in class." That got some laughs. And when I turned to Iris and asked her what her sign was she responded "I think I'm in the wrong class."

That got a good laugh out of me. I didn't think she was at this level. I probably should have kicked her out and over to her proper class and let them deal with the mess, but I let her decide what she was going to do- regardless I didn't sign her book for a class she wasn't registered for.

Well, I got a little talking to from Vicky afterwards for not properly checking the attendance- listen man, she showed up after attendance was taken, that's on her, and there were at least two blank English name spots on the sheet, that's on you Web guys. If she doesn't want to pay to take the class she missed, and you don't want to give her a class for free, well, you guys duke it out. Meanwhile I'll keep making like an English-speaking dancing money like you pay me for. I was a little sore about this talking to- according to my horoscope Taurus don't like getting told what to do. Brother, I can tell you that is bang on correct for my case.

Advanced business class with Jack and Eddie on disagreement. I half forgot which student was which, and neither one is particularly talkative. Went on a tangent explaining about Pavlov and his dogs because I have to talk about something.

The native Chinese teacher, Sophie, who I'd never talked to before, was running late with her salon class taking place where my next class was supposed to be. She apologized for the delay and I told her it happens to me all the time.

This last class was on daily activities with Sam, Leo and Yolanda, who is herself an English teacher, which makes it kind of weird to teach her. And I see she didn't have her homework, that's some kind of irony right there. I forget whether or not there was a good reason, I think maybe she wasn't given it. Still, it's funny. I ended up using Sam for a lot of examples in this class, he had the homework most conducive to the lesson goals.

After class I introduced myself to Sophie- she'd said my name a day or two before, but I had to ask to make sure I knew her name- and I asked her about her class that ran a little late. It seems it was her third salon EVER, so she's still getting used to the whole teaching English thing. She's getting less nervous about it, but she's still lacking in confidence with her spoken English, which is why she hasn't said much to me so far in her time here, instead preferring to speak to Adeel who can, you know, speak Chinese. She said she was going to go change out of her work clothes and left, and I couldn't help but laugh, explaining to Adeel and Dany how often Chinese people have no idea how to end a conversation, opting instead to bluntly state their reason for leaving and then leaving. It's pretty great- I'm sure I'm guilty of doing the same thing.

Sophie returned and I suggested leaving together to continue chatting- we rode the subway together and I went way past my stop, because I'm smooth like that.

Returning home I stopped at the grocery store for some bananas and some kind of junk food- it turns out to be two slices of white bread with jam sealed inside. Having that sitting in the junk food aisle is actually a fairly healthy attitude to have about that particular snack.

It was very tasty, in a familiar sort of way. Not that I've been much for white bread in the last dozen years- didn't you know that stuff is bad for you? 

There's white rice everywhere here. Give me some brown rice! - 1:57 pm