AliThinks: Thank You

To everyone who's supported me these past months. For you blog readers, my announcement about three weeks ago was a real shocker, but a few people out there (including my family, who don't read this blog because they don't know about it) were aware of what was going on and offered me their moral support.

I don't know what to say. Some of you reading this are my friends from way back, when I still lived in the States. Some of you are friends I met online. Some of you are fellow bloggers, and maybe we are on the way to becoming friends. You've all reached out to me in one way or another, and I thank you.

There's one person out there who has done so much for me. A special thanks goes out to you, sweetness, for being a true friend during these tough times. You'll always be in my heart, no matter what.

Now I'm done being sentimental. Prepare thee, for I am going into rant mode.

[on]

I'm fucking exhausted. I've never been so tired, not even after giving birth, I don't think. Of course, women tend to forget everything about birth. Nature's way of assuring that we will continue to accept getting pregnant, you know.

So here I am, ass dragon, and all I can say is "When will it stop?"

[/off]

That was quite a mild rant. I'll have to do better next time.

This week was pretty interesting. I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I enjoyed teaching. I have six different classes, from 6th to 9th grade, although the 7th grade class is just starting English. They're using the 6th grade book, so it's as if I have two classes each of 6th, 8th, and 9th grades.

You have to forge a reputation during the first days of class, and if it's not a good one, you're done for. Last spring I realized that I didn't care if the kids liked me, so that has helped. I've also gained a lot of confidence. That helps, too.

But the best part is putting the kids back in their place. Some funny things have happened this week, and during class I'd think "I have to blog that. Oh! I definitely have to blog that!"

One technique I use to learn names is to give each kid a note card that they have to fold in half lengthwise and write their name on, so that they can place the card in front of themselves and I can read their names. There are different games you can do with these cards, so they make good icebreakers at the beginning of class. A few 9th grade smart asses decided it would be funny to write different names on the back of their cards, and turned the cards around to show the new names. One kid wrote "Dieu," which of course means "God." Heh heh. I forget what I told him, but in essence I put him in his place. That doesn't mean he has stopped testing me, of course.
Another smartass wrote "Britney Spears" on his card. He was talking, making comments that first day, and I looked at him and said "Watch it, or I'm going to call you 'Britney' all year." His neighbors laughed. I think I've called him Britney about 10 times since then.

God and Britney Spears both had to do extra homework for talking too much in class, and neither did it. For the next class, they have to do the original work, plus another assignment. After that, if they bug me, I'm going to whip out the detention slips so fast.

Another thing that made me laugh happened in three different classes. French kids invariably get confused about the use of "his" and "her". So I would use classmates to illustrate the point. Depending on if I was indicating a boy or a girl, I'd say "His hair is brown," or "Her hair is red." Etcetera. Without fail, at least one boy, while I was pointing to another boy, would say "Her" -- in essence, calling his male classmate a girl. Each time I'd make a comment about how funny the student was. That made the others laugh, and sort of embarrassed the kids who tried to make the joke.

I don't believe in ridiculing or humiliating students. But there are ways to deflect their attempts to draw attention to themselves. If you can do it with humor, all the better.

The other thing I wanted to blog about was the 6th and 7th grade classes. They're in their first year of English, and we start the first lessons with simple things like greetings and the alphabet. We also worked on English words that are used in French, to show them how much they already know. The kids came up with the usual: sandwich, hamburger, t-shirt, etc. One 7th grader (OMG, he's a boy and his name is Joy. No shit) raised his hand and said (brightly, I might add), "String!"

Some of you might know what "string" is in French. Before the rest of you go scrambling for your online translators, let me tell you: it means "thong." (By the way, it's un string, for those of you interested in gender).

I looked at the kid over the top of my glasses. For a few seconds I didn't say a word. Then I said, "Uh, no. And I'm not going to tell you the English for un string .

I almost choked when one of the 6th graders came up with the same word. Those sweet little faces hide a lot of worldly knowledge.

Of course, when I thought about mentioning these things here on my blog, I planned to write about them in a much wittier way. At least they're "down on paper".

That's the best I can do right now.

Comments

crack that whip! hey, 6,7,8,9th graders, they sound like my grad students, only with longer attention spans.

and know that when you need a shoulder to lean on, or an ear to yak into, there are a bunch of us lining up to help where and when possible. the peeks you've given into your world show a pretty cool and together lady. so far, you haven't given us (the proverbial us? the electronically connected world..) the impression that you are either a saint or an ax murderer, just a very interesting and human person. hope you keep blogging away. i enjoy my journies to your world.

Posted by: bothenook | September 11, 2004 at 01:28