Beautiful Fall Leaves

I've been out of the blogging world a lot lately. Life is too full to blog many times for me. I still read other people's blogs, but I haven't stopped to write my own. There is a lot going on, but it will probably bore any readers that I might have. My life mostly revolves around my job and my homework. For what it's worth, I'll fill in the details at the end of these pictures. For now, I'd like to share a few of the pictures that I've taken lately around town, on campus at my work, and on the way home from work since those are the only places I've been going lately!

The left picture of Ryan is actually from a walk a couple of weeks ago in Bellingham. The right picture is at the community college where I work.



I even thought that this trailer park had a beautiful view of the fall leaves. This was a "drive by shooting" and I was the driver, so that's why it isn't the best picture!! I probably should have been watching the road anyway! : P


Ok, so what are my updates? As far as my masters program, I have just started my last class (Action Research) before my practicum starts in January. This current class is supposed to be one of the hardest. It is with a prof that I had over the summer in July who is not very clear with her expectations and a hard grader. : / However, after I finish this class, it should be a smoother ride since I don't have to do extra work for the practicum due to my teaching experience. I will still have some reading, posting, reflecting on teaching, etc., but it should be less intensive than the rest of my program. I'm due to graduate in May 2009!

As far as my work goes.......it's tiring, stressful, challenging, stretching, fun, educational, etc. etc. Again, I teach two classes. One is for level 1 & 2 international students learning English to take college classes in the U.S. I teach that everyday. The other class is College Success Skills, and it is all advanced English international students. It is only once a week, but I have a couple of students that are a real challenge. One student is very obnoxious, teases others like a child, makes inappropriate (sexual many times) comments, and is disrespectful to staff. I had a talk with him outside of class today. It's a little difficult to talk to someone about their classroom behavior who looks about the same age as me and stands about a foot taller than me!

I am feeling more comfortable with my level 1 & 2 students, but there are plenty of challenges there. All except one of my students are international students. The one adult student that I have has clearly never been taught the basics of writing in English. He writes phonetically by how he says things with his Spanish accent. It's difficult because I cannot teach these basics in class since the rest of the class is far beyond basic literacy. He can read, but he cannot spell or write very well.

There are also plenty of cultural issues since most of my students have been here just over a month. I am still learning a lot about these issues. I won't expound on those now since I've already written more than most people are probably reading! : P

Anyway, this Saturday I would love to stay home and go for a lovely walk in the woods with the fall leaves. It's supposed to be a beautiful weekend! Instead, months back I signed up to attend the WAESOL (Washington Association of Educators to Speakers of Other Languages) Conference all day Sat. So now it will feel like my job will continue into the weekend and I will have to get up at 5am when I'm sure that I won't be able to fall asleep before midnight due to my schedule lately of sleeping around 12:30 or 1am. The rest of the weekend will be doing homework--reading journal articles, writing a paper, responding to discussion questions and grading a mid-term exam and news article summaries from my students.

I didn't want to nor need to work this much, but I decided to for professional reasons. Now that I have experience teaching academic as well as adult ESL, it will open more doors for me in Seattle. I was also ready for something new. I didn't know it would be so much more time consuming than the adult ESL.

Somehow with everything else, I'm also supposed to be working on my resume and looking for jobs in Seattle. That's of course not happening! Oh well, back to the reading, grading, lesson planning,.....