Depressing Blog

Nothing too new is happening in our neck of the woods, but I figure that I should update the blog anyway!

I have been really stressed lately and am actually loosing quite a bit of hair which I think is linked to the stress. I've never lost so much before. : / The last two nights I've had insomnia pretty bad because my mind won't shut off with all that needs to happen. I pray...I read...I write things down but then still remember more later....I pray more.....I count my blessings so as not to dwell on the stressful things, yet it's still been difficult to fall alseep. Saturday night, I couldn't fall asleep until sometime after 4:15am!

I am really busy with my job, as I've mentioned before. As the quarter wears on, I am more worn out and I know that my students are too. They start to try to pull things on me like turning in work with someone else's handwriting or copying sentences directly from a news article online. Do these students whom I see 10 hours a week really think that I don't know their handwriting or writing ability? If I get a paper with no grammatical or literary mistakes from a level one student, something is wrong!

On a positive note, Ryan got his official acceptance to the business school at the University of Washington a couple of days ago. We are excited about that. He had been accepted to the U as a whole, but we needed that business acceptance to actually make the move to Seattle a sure thing. We plan to move a few days after Christmas. I'm starting to look forward to moving and to a change. I look forward to finding a new church and meeting new friends.

We're starting to look at places to live to get some ideas of locations and price ranges. It's hard to know where to look since we don't know where I'll be working yet. We don't want to have long commutes if we don't have to. We found a cute house for rent in Edmonds yesterday, but if I get a job in south Seattle, that will be too far to make it worth it. We can get more for the money outside of Seattle proper and probably quieter living.

I'm praying that I can get a good job with all of the budget cuts! I do have one interview with City University in a couple of weeks. It wouldn't be my first choice, but if that is the only door that opens, then I guess I'll take it. : )

I finish my current grad class in two weeks and my teaching quarter in a little under a month with Thanksgiving break in between. I am looking forward to a break!!!!

On Thursday, I'm taking my students on a field trip to a coffee processing plant. I'm having to do a last minute 12 passenger van license renewal tomorrow morning since my license just expired on Oct. 25th! Sheesh! One more thing to add to my schedule. I'm actually still in my Chinese class, but I skip some days and don't do much homework for it. I'm just auditing anyway.

That's probably enough rambling for this post. As long as I remember my camera, I'll take pictures of our field trip. Until then....please pray for sleep for me and good quiet time with the Lord for strength.

The (soon to be) Pilot

This is a scanned copy of the picture that the flight club took on the day of Ryan's first solo flight. He did three landings all by himself--meaning in the plane alone with the instructor on the ground. He is just over halfway finished with his private pilot's license. He loves flying and tells me about his amazing experiences high in the sky. I always worry about him and pray often when he's flying! I especially hate hearing the stories of when he has to stall the plane in the air, it starts falling, and he has to recover the plane. Yikes!! So far thankfully, he's still alive and his instructor says that he's doing really well.

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,.....

Festival of Family Farms

Mom and I with bags of decorative gourds.

Yesterday, my mom, four of my students, and I went to the Festival of Family Farms. We visited three farms until it started pouring down rain. This was the first time for these girls (from Hong Kong and Japan) to see cows up close and touch them. One of the girls got to touch a horse and sit on it for the first time ever. She was really excited about that.

I love the colors and varied shapes of the gourds and squash.

It was REALLY windy as evidenced by my mom's umbrella that blew inside out. It was also raining pretty hard--definitely not the "sprinkles" that were forecasted!

Pumpkin field, a student trying her hand at milking "Squirtie Gertie", pumpkins, and an artichoke flower.

The Last of Bali: Parts IV & V

Phew! I think I'm finally through with choosing Bali pictures! Follow the links at the end of this post. Now, I just have to figure out how to put the video clips that I took into some kind of short movie. That will have to wait awhile for now since things are really busy for me.

I am teaching the level 1 & 2 international students this quarter. It's a big adjustment after teaching the advanced, adult English-learners for the past 2 and 1/2 years! I have to speak a lot slower and write a lot on the board. Most of my students have only been here about 3 weeks now. They are not used to hearing native spoken English, and they also didn't get much speaking practice in their English classes in their countries. Most other countries focus on grammar and writing when students study English as a foreign language. Then students come here thinking that they'll be in a much higher level than they test into because their speaking and listening are low.

I have a couple of students who can only write very short phrases and others who can write a simple (though error-laden) essay. I do hours of lesson planning every day. As I think I said in a previous post, this is known as the Intensive English Language Institute (IELI) where I teach. It's also very intensive for the teachers with lots more to grade, correct, and planning for levels that I'm not used to teaching.

On top of that, I have a student that has caused quite a bit of hassle these past two weeks. I'm praying for patience and wisdom in how to deal with him. Last night during my bible study, I felt the stress disintegrating as I was reminded that God will give me wisdom to teach a wide variety of English abilities, some very needy students, and that I don't have to teach them everything. I only need to teach them what they need for this level. They seem like they have so far to go!

Tomorrow, I'll be taking 6 students to some local farms that are opening their doors to the community for the "Festival of Family Farms". I'm so thankful that the student who has been a real stress did not decide to come! Thank you Lord!! Even though it's supposed to rain, hopefully it'll be a fun time for them.

OH, and here are the last of the Bali pics--follow the links below! I hope some of you are still looking at them and getting a good overview of that part of the world.

Bali Pictures: Part IV

Bali Pictures: Part V