My life is craziness!

Last Tuesday, I went home for the first time since June. I use the term "home" lightly, since I've only spent 7 nights there so far and I live in a corner of the attic ;> And also because my parents' new house looks more like a hotel then a normal house. Just add a chandelier and a few magazines to the living room and it could be a hotel lobby. It's kind of off-putting how schwanky it is! I mean, my mom still shops at Talbots and she lives in a 6-story townhouse- I hope they don't start lunching or caring about society stuff. I don't think that will happen. Anyway, it's in such a fun location: right on mainstreet in downtown Ann Arbor. We walked everywhere all week. On Wednesday we went to an Irish pub, on Friday a tapas bar, and Saturday, a sushi restaurant. I did mucho Christmas shopping on Friday and spent 4 hours on Saturday studying at the gorgeous U of M law library. And we all spent Thanksgiving day at my Aunt Frances' house.

Student teaching is amazingly wonderfully fun (and a tiny bit stressful). If anyone has read about the cultural clash between the Hmong immigrants and the, um, white people living in Minneapolis/St. Paul, I deal with many Hmong children and families on a daily basis and I've never seen it. The media is definitely trying to drudge up ignorant xenophobia for news' sake. If you're interested in the Hmong people, their history, and the immigrant/native clash, read the book "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" by Anne Fadiman. It's a tragic and true story about a Hmong girl with epilepsy and the miscommunications between her parents and the US health care system. The children in my class are adorable, and their parents are extremely involved and appreciative of teachers (i.e. perfect parents to a teacher).

Today I taught calendar time, a math lesson, and a wriitng lesson, and I was observed my my advisor. Why are the kids always animals when she comes? I felt like a lion tamer while reading The Hungry Caterpillar. After school, I had to give a presentation in my night grammar class (4:30-7:30pm). I had made a 22-slide powerpoint presentation, but due to the chaos of the room, and the fact that I had to present four times, I only had 6 minutes. So I sped read! However, Focus and Emphasis (phonological, lexical and nonphonological, and syntactical) are indeciferable at that speed. I mean, did you know that the stress of an affirmative declarative sentence falls on the accented syllable of the last content word? And that that is also where the intonation pivots from rising to falling? Did you ever think anything could be that boring? No, me neither.

My life=craziness. I teach every day this week. Plus, tomorrow night I'm going to a Hmong teaching panel, Friday I'm going to an English as a Second Language Carnival, and Saturday I'm going to a trivia party. I have two lesson plans to write this weekend (which need to include Standards- National, ELL, State, Writing, and Math) and I need to do all the applications in the grammar book.

What keeps me going:
The kids- cuteness personified.
The approach of Christmas- I'm hosting my whole immediate family for two weeks, plus organizing caroling and hot chocolate partying.
My friends- What's up Leaning Tower of Pizza?
My future job- where should I go? Hint: it can be anywhere in the world!! They pay really well in China. But I really want to go to Mexico. Or maybe England. Hmm...