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Long Weekend Happiness

My four days off stretch before me – an eternity and the blink of an eye at the same time.

I woke up yesterday to the first snow. It had started the night before, and as we drove up out of the city (book club likes to hop all over the place, this week finding residence in a hilly city neighborhood), I watched the white flakes pelt the windows. I felt young, watching it snow, and later slipping along the sidewalk in my boots.

What I want to do with four days off:

  • READ. Like it’s my job. Finish Circling to the Center, make a dent in Tale of Two Cities, digest a little more Rilke, discover the four or five issues of ‘The Sun’ my writer friend lent me, EVERYTHING.
  • WRITE. I wrote my first short story in a long time this week. It flowed out of me, which was lovely, but now I’m thinking, shoot, now I have to edit it. I’m not so good with that part.
  • SING. Warm-up. Play the piano while I sing some hymns. Pretend I know what I’m doing again. Maybe some German art songs, but I may be too ambitious (again).
  • Finish my brother’s sweater. (Yes, I knit. It’s like the icing on the dork-cake. In my defense, he asked me to make him a sweater, so really I’m just being a kind sister…)
  • WALK. I miss the outdoors. I miss the sunshine, the leaves, the color of the sky. I plan on going for a number of walks in the next few days.

What I DON’T want to do, but need to do:

  • CLEAN MY ROOM. Gross.
  • Find the water heater for my chickens. It’s getting colder (or at least, it’s supposed to be getting colder), and the waterer started to ice over the other day. Not cool.
  • CLEAN MY CAR. Yeah, like that’s really gonna happen.
  • LESSON PLANS. I have a lot of planning for the next week or two of Latin. We’re starting Chapter Six in my high school class, and it’s painful. Remember how in your English classes, your teachers always told you not to write in the passive voice? Well, Latiners LOVED using passive verbs. So basically I think I’ll need to give a mini-English lesson before I even introduce the Latin (i.e., “What’s the difference between ‘Marcus hits Iulia’ and ‘Iulia is hit by Marcus’?”). And welcome to: Prepositions that Take the Accusative Case. And welcome to: The Locative Case.

Now on my way to my favorite little bookstore. Stock up on those books I’ll be reading.

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Pride and Prejudice May Be the Answer

I’ve been teaching an ESL class on Tuesday nights. (It’s just one student – is that a class?!) We meet at the library, where no food or drink is allowed, and I think this is the first time I’ve ever tried to learn without a cup of tea or coffee in my hand.

When I first met my Hungarian student, I was scared. I had been told (via email and in the slightly unclear email-way of a harried 60+ year-old), that the student was Low Intermediate.

I had expectations.

My TEFL course did inform us that the categories were not so good. That everyone has a different idea of what it means to be a “Low Intermediate.”

My student (I’ll call her Aniko) could barely tell me why she was taking the class.

She told me her name. She told me she had come from Hungary two months earlier (although she said ‘in two months’ and it took me a while to figure it out). She told me she was in America.

And I was horrified because I thought our lessons were one hour but they were two and this Hungarian woman was staring at me with big brown eyes.

~     ~     ~

Now, seven weeks later, we have only one class left.

We’ve worked on:

  • superlatives
  • past, present, and future time expressions (This one is TOUGH. How do you explain ‘awhile ago,’ or the fact that we use ‘this morning’ to describe something in the past?)
  • letter-writing (because I love it so much…no, because it’s necessary)
  • emailing
  • coffee-ordering
  • adjectives
  • movie-watching

This last one may seem silly, but let me tell you, it is hard.

I have her watch clips from movies and then fill in the blanks to see if she can hear what they say, if she can tell what should be there.

[If actors are any clue to how we Americans usually speak, we speak way too fast, way too jumbly, and way too idiomatically.]

Last night, I had her watch clips from ‘Pride and Prejudice.’ I think I was a little ambitious; the British accents and vocabulary were extremely difficult to follow. We had to watch each one at least three times, and in the end, even after she got every question right, she put her head on the table and said,

“English is hard for me.”

I almost patted her short hair in sympathy.

Yes, English is hard.

I’m sorry.

Let’s watch a little more ‘Pride and Prejudice.’

Perhaps that is my response to too many of life’s problems.

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Impatience

I write during snapped-up moments between classes.

My high school class was awesome – half of the students were away on college tours, so it was just me and eight students, learning the Ablative Case. You can be so much more productive with smaller classes (and yes, they actually asked me questions when they didn’t understand something!). It was beautiful.

My third grade on the other hand…

I certainly could’ve had a better time.

There’s just something about it when kids choose not to participate. Oh, I don’t know. But I’m cute – doesn’t that count for something?

I’m working on patience. That was honestly why I never wanted to become a teacher. Mr. B. (that’s actually what we called him), looked at me one day when I was in high school, and said, “Catherine, you’re gonna be a teacher.”

I said, “No thank you! I am WAY to impatient to teach.”

And I was right.

But that’s the thing: maybe God doesn’t wait til you’re perfect before He makes you do what you’re supposed to do.

Maybe He sends you out and expects you to trust Him. Expects you to work.

Expects the people and things in your life to both sharpen you and smooth you.

Pretty annoying.

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Storytelling

This week of teaching has been phenomenal.

I say this a little early (it’s only Thursday, after all), but I can’t help it.

It’s due to a few things:

Being Prepared

  • This goes without saying, but the better you prepare a lesson, the better it’ll be. Even if I go in confident of the material and what I think will happen, if I haven’t prepared for the barrage of repeated questions (“Can I use a highlighter?”, “Can I use a highlighter?”, “Wait, can I use a highlighter?”), things go a little off track. I’m getting better about going with the flow, steering the class back on track. I want so badly to let the kids be who they are, to help them create who they are, so it’s hard for me to tell them to stop talking. Please, would you stop expressing yourself? Please stop trying to connect with me. But I know this is necessary, and I’m working on it.
  • The bottom line is, more often than not, everything takes longer than I expected. So I hope I learn from my week of good preparation and keep this going.

Quizzes

  • I gave a vocal quiz in each of my classes this week. This is good because it forces the kids to study, it shows me where they all are on the spectrum of basic Latin comprehension, and, the best part, it gives time for story-telling at the end…

Telling Stories

  • I think this may be my calling. Or perhaps, my calling within the teaching world. All of my grammar school classes 3-6 grades, clamored onto their respective rugs in their respective classrooms, and watched me with wide eyes as I told them the story of Odysseus and the Cyclops. Did I get it perfectly? No. Did I remember to say everything I wanted to? No. Did they love it? YES.

(I wish it were possible to post a picture of my classes, on their knees, sprawled out on their bellies, chins cradled in little hands. I guess you can imagine what they looked like when one fourth grader sighed blissfully, “This is my favorite story.”)

So maybe my writing and singing play into this life pretty well. Isn’t it nice to listen to a singer read from D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths, or a writer recount the Fall of Troy!

Maybe everything is converging.

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The End of the Hiatus

So I’ve taken a break.

It was unintentional, but deep down, I know I needed it. A lot has changed since my last post, and I needed some time to think. Even my trusty journal was left untouched for almost a month. Thank goodness it (she/he, I don’t know) is patient.

Part of the reason I took a break from writing is because of the title of this blog: “Broke on my Birthday.” When I chose it, I thought it was humorous, a little stab at myself and all my recent-college-graduate friends who found ourselves, indeed, thrust into life and not entirely prepared.

But something’s changed. For me, at least. I was never actually broke to begin with, and now, through unbelievable blessing and good-timing, I find myself with a job. A JOB. Yes. I am a

bonafide

Latin

teacher.

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Latin teacher by morning, administrator by afternoon

The thing about blessings is, sometimes you don’t know quite what to do with them. When people ask what I do now, I feel this huge grin explode on my face. I’m embarrassed, actually, by my joy. Well, I’m teaching grammar school Latin. Oh, and High School Latin I. Yeah, I know, who would’ve thought?!

But as I told my cousin yesterday, over a cup of coffee at my new teacher-hang-out Barnes and Noble, I go into class every day, and I am excited. All these little faces looking at me, eager to learn. Eager to show me what they already know. All the joys I’ve encountered so far will have to wait for another post, but I can’t tell you how beautiful it is to hear a third-grader read, “Roma in Italia est”, and then tell me with shining eyes, “Rome is in Italy!”

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and thank you for supplying my coffee

So that is how I’ve been spending my days: frantically getting together enough material for seven Latin classes. There is too much information, too much new, and I CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF IT.

So, welcome back to my blog. I’ve missed you.

Oh, and check it out. I may have taken a break from blogging, but I haven’t been entirely lazy…

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[Notes from The Student, Part 3]

[train thoughts]

That idea of “do not throw your pearls before swine” keeps running through my head. Maybe it also means that we should be careful who we tell our deepest thoughts to. Maybe we should guard ourselves – not open ourselves up too much to people we call friends, but who time and time again prove less than trustworthy.

K. says we’re dreamers. We think and dream and hope big. And that’s not necessarily bad, but that it could (and probably is) a large part of why we are so often unsatisfied. See the less-than-perfect sides of even our biggest blessings. Maybe dreamers are more likely to be unsatisfied than concrete people.

G. is funny, clever, gets things and people quickly. But there’s not a lot of grace in her. What’s the point of knowledge – even a shade of wisdom – if you don’t have grace? I see too much of myself – of how I could be.

[we don’t have to be all things for all people. we are finite. there is actually a lot of peace in that.]

[that was the only thing about last night; i looked around while i was dancing and just saw so much desperation. it was gross and sad at the same time.]

“I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts.” -Psalm 119:45

So seeking after the Lord’s precepts – His laws, His will – is what brings freedom. Structure brings freedom. So counter-intuitive to how I think.

[overheard on the subway: “i went to zara and spent $700 on, like, nothing.”]

Gave a guy 50 cents. Said he needed $2 to get home, but I didn’t have $2 (literally, I did not have it). Can I have just $2? No, I don’t have $2. Can I have all your change? No, you can have 50 cents. Did I just help his drug addiction? Maybe. I don’t know. Where in the Bible does it say, “make sure they use your money wisely”?

[i keep thinking about M. maybe because i realized i’m older than he’ll ever be – i’ve already been given more time. i’m not sure. maybe i should email his mom, tell her we still think about him. tell her a story where he’s the young hero, showing me how to laugh, how to flirt, how to smile into twinkly, mischievous eyes.]

Marriage is such an excluding relationship. When others get married, you are eternally on the outside. Weird.

Don’t reduce your life to only one passion.

[in thinking about “Legends of the Fall” and how grotesque all the characters are; they could have lived beautiful lives, but instead they chose selfishness and reduced themselves to one passion, flattening themselves.]

A lot for a day, and yet only a piece of it.

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[Notes from The Student, Part 2]

Can I just say, I have a new-found respect for Education Majors?

And teachers.

And anyone who is good at planning, being creative, organizing, and then ACTUALLY EXECUTING SAID PLAN.

Wow.

I just finished my second lesson plan (this one was for a listening lesson), and tomorrow is my first day teaching an ESL class. We’ll see how it goes. I tend to get sidetracked by their interesting stories.

For example:

Today, I “acted” as an ESL student because there was only one tried-and-true one (a Russian man, seemingly in his 70s or 80s, not sure…). So I got the privilege of discussing questions with him, answering multiple choice and true/false questions, and trying (overall) to be engaging.

But the thing is, I started talking to him, and I found out he used to fly planes in Russia.

He was a doctor on a helicopter that flew down to help people IN THE TUNDRA. Yes. The tundra.

I felt a little bit like I’d wandered into a novel.

I asked how long he’d worked there. Fourteen years, he said.

Then I asked if he liked it, and he smiled and just said, it was my job, and I was reminded, again that

we do what we are supposed to do

we do our jobs

we do the right thing

and we don’t always have to like it.

There is so much I could learn from this Russian man.

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[P.S. Power-outage in the city today. For blocks. Everyone freaked. Restaurants wouldn’t take cards; people didn’t know what to do with themselves. I was secretly in awe. There’s something I love about remembering that we depend on things, that there are some things out of our control. Like when a huge snowstorm stops life. It’s beautiful, kind of, to remember that we’re finite.]

 

 

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[Notes from The Student, part 1]

So it’s become pretty clear that I do not like instructions. You’d think that someone who likes to do something perfectly the first time would thrive off direction, but that doesn’t seem to be true.

For instance, this past week — five days of two, three-hour classes — has been filled with VERY PARTICULAR INSTRUCTIONS. On everything. I wrote my first lesson plan (I almost said my first ever lesson plan, but that’s not true: I wrote some short, Catherine-suitable plans for vocal pedagogy in college), and I couldn’t believe how long it took.

Step-by-step?

I have to write down what I’m going to say?

Shouldn’t I already know what I’m going to say?

I felt like I was in elementary school, just learning how to write cursive and hating the extra curlicues and exactness.

I did it, though. I wrote out a five-page lesson plan, complete with about 15 glorious colored pictures and even a graph (thank goodness for little brothers who, with only minimal eye-rolling, show me how to insert cool stuff into documents).

I wrote it, freaked out because I have a huge and horrible tendency to lose my brain under stress and forget everything, and made a thousand copies so I could teach my first lesson to ESL students.

Real ones.

I rushed into class, ready, excited, nervous. Felt like I was about to sing an aria that I’d been singing all semester, but I was still scared of that run towards the end.

I rushed in, but the class was empty.

Somehow, there’d been a mix-up in administration, and the 7 or so elderly Russian immigrants didn’t know to come.

We waited a good fifteen minutes. Unlike my fellow students, I wanted the ESL students to come. Desperately. I LOVE adrenaline, and I perform best when I have a ton of it nearly shaking my knees out of joint.

But no one came. I had freaked and worried about being the worst teacher in my class and panicked over the copier for no reason.

Now my first lesson is this coming Wednesday.

The story of my life.

Intensity intensity INTENSITY

until the bubble bursts.