Monday, Take 2

Ah, new week, new class, new TA. I switched TAs with my friend, so now Hana is my TA, and Sundong is Mahmoud's. I'm not even sure how this happened, but I'm happy with it. Sundong was great, but Hana and I are much more chatty and friendly, and I think that's true with the guys as well, considering when I ran into them after class today, they were going off to play pool. Speaking of other teachers, here's a picture of most of us!

From left to right: Me, Greg, Rebekah, Peter, Sara, John, Mahmoud, and Neil.
David, the last teacher, is somewhere else.

This was taken at this week's opening ceremony, which is why we look all nice. I room with the other two girls (obviously). I suspect Sara would be horrified by this picture - she's not nearly as frumpy or old as she looks here. Greg is Russian, but did his degree somewhere in Canada, and is currently post-doccing at Stanford. Peter is originally from Hungary, via a long list of places, and teaches in Virginia, as do the next two, Sara and John. Mahmoud is my colleague from GMU, and Neil is from New York, as are David and Rebekah. And yes, Greg is trying to look like a Russian mobster, but maybe comes across as Russian pop star instead in this picture. If you think he looks tall next to me and Rebekah, you should see the pictures of him next to our tiny Korean waitress one night.

My new class is so much more fluent than my last class. They understand me much better, they read better, and most of them can speak better. They were also extremely quick to grasp all of the concepts I gave to them. I'm excited about this week, in spite of the climate change theme. Here's hoping it goes a little smoother than last week. Now, off to check my lessons plans.

And for anyone who wants to talk to me on skype, I'm generally online sometime between about 5:30 and 7pm EST. That's my time to be online and go over the day's lessons before I go to breakfast and class. The other option is to stay up until 4am EST when I get home from work, or get up early before you start your day. But I usually go to bed by 10am your time, so if you're not online by 8 or 9am, I've probably already closed my computer and gone to get ready for bed. I'd love to talk to people if you're around, but those are pretty much my only windows of availability.