Spamming for my Students

TUESDAY, AUGUST 24

I had left the bathwater from the night before, as I had overfilled it and wanted to conserve. My tub has a setting for reheating water, so I thought I'd try it. I flipped it on, and went about making rice. Right. See, I woke up and realised that I planned to have stir fry for lunch but had eaten the last of my rice last night. Rice takes about an hour to make, so I was frantically starting it.

By the time I got back to the tub, I stepped in and nearly burned my foot off. This thing, I give it credit, is efficient.

At school, I went to the English room and finished putting a few more places (statue of liberty, Disney world) on my US Map before class. It was actually fun as there were Junior High students milling about everywhere. Some would talk to me. One mother was walking into the room to look around, saw me and backed out apologizing. I had to chase after her to invite her to look around. Her daughter still hid, embarrassed, behind her mother. It reminded me how I felt when I went places with my parents at that age although, in my case, my embarrassment was completely justified. My father did it intentionally.

When it was almost time for class, we trooped down and I set up my iPod to play. Unfortunately, I picked some awesome songs and really wanted to sing and dance. I restrained myself as much as possible. It was also outrageously hot so, even with the fan, I'm embarrassed to say I taught my first ever class with sweat marks on my blouse. Ick.

The students were not terribly enthusiastic about Simon Says and it lasted less than we expected. Next was a trivia game, and that went better, although none knew Star Wars, which broke my geeky heart. Then, they divided into teams to answer a question (“What is your favorite subject? Why?” “What is your favorite season? Why?” “What country would you like to visit? Why?” “Which are better: dogs or cats? Why?” “Which is your favorite Japanese singer? Why?”) After earlier parts of the lesson, I was a bit nervous, but they surprised me by coming up with good, grammatical sentences. Even if “cute” showed up in half of them.

Finally, we had extra time, so Mustache-sensei popped up and ran one more game. Students were divided again into teams and had to race to the board and write a word in English. The next word had to start with the last letter of the previous word. They LOVED it. And the creativity was astounding. Someone put up “knife!” This was perhaps my favorite part. One of my favorite parts is that the letters chosen to start each column were M. A. G. D. (and A written off to the side and crossed out.) for my name.

We did the lesson again in the afternoon. This group was much better, but I think I was better, too. I brainstormed more Simon-Says commands and it was much more enthusiastic. The students were good! They also did well at the trivia. I swapped out the Star Wars question for a Princess Mononoke one. And, once again, the students, when asked to list three states in the trivia game, failed to mention Wisconsin, despite my pointing to the map of my state. Michigan, California, Florida, New York, all get mentioned, though. In the second class, one team was a bit behind, so when it came to tallying the points, I gave them an extra point for “America” as I am biased and I can do that, because I'm the teacher. The students were okay with this and possibly even enjoyed it. Overall, I think it went well. I'll be teaching two more tomorrow and I'm excited. Actually, I left class feeling a bit of a natural high. I was really happy and really excited. I went blabbering to poor Mama, who only wanted to be able to eat lunch.

Mama and I talked again after lunch and she helped me sort my mail. I have applied for direct deposit for internet and dropped off the card after work at the post office. I also told her about the kimono course I want to take and she kind of implied that she was also interested. We'll see. She did mention that she had to be home to cook dinner because she's a house-wife. Teaching outrageous hours a week is not my definition of house wife, but I did do a ring check and she does have one. I was a bit surprised as I had assumed she was single. She's never mentioned anyone.

I spent the afternoon coloring and decorating for the classroom. I was printing out a picture of Bucky badger when I got questions. Apparently Bucky is an exciting topic as, by the end of the day, all of the staff were talking about him and trying to figure out exactly what a badger was. I got asked what they ate and I honestly have no idea. All of the distractions meant that I ended up leaving an hour late. Again, I was glad for teachers to see that I was still working. Mama even looked up at me and called out asking when I was leaving, so it's nice to know that they don't except (and seem to discourage) me overworking myself.

I arrived to find TWO missed delivery notices. So I hopped on my bike at 6pm and headed BACK to the post office (remember, I had just dropped off my internet billing card.) And got lost on the way. And showed up and discovered that the post office is open until 7 on weekdays, which is amazingly convenient. They found my packages and spent about 10 minutes trying to confirm whether my WI drivers license and the expired WI direvers License (that's also in my wallet) was good enough ID to take said packages. Eventually they had me say my address, matched up the pictures with my face and let me go. The packages themselves were barely able to fit in my bike basket.

Mommy sent me some presents for co-workers and some blouses for work. They look great – thanks Mommy!

Back at home, I spent the evening e-mailing various organizations seeing if they can send me anything for free. So far, the Wisconsin Tourism Bureau has said they'll mail me some brochures, which is better than nothing and, it appears, free. We're still waiting on UW-Madison and UW-Eau Claire. I'm trying to find a contact address for the Packers, but might have to write letter myself. How... quaint and inefficient. And... not free. We'll maybe do that, once I successfully mail a letter. I also registered with the US Embassy. But, really, I want people to send me awesome free stuff and, really, I figure the worst I get is “no.”

UPDATE: UW Madison is forwarding my request to their community outreach department. Awesome.