Sunday

I'm a member of a private FB group for people who are either trying to get a job with the company I work for (and they're going through that long interview process), or they've been hired and they're just starting out. The main purpose of the group is to give newbies encouragement and guidance. These days I don't visit it as often, but, man, that place was extremely helpful right at first.

All that to say I've noticed something, and I feel like I've been working long enough now to have a legit opinion on it. It's this: There are teachers who get red tags and can't figure out what they're doing wrong, so they go into the group to talk about it. Then the advice they get from the other teachers is always something along the lines of, "Just keep presenting the material and doing your job, and you'll be fine. You can't please everyone." There's some truth to that, for sure. You definitely can't please everyone, but...

Here's the thing. Nobody wants to feel like they're just your job. They don't want to feel as if you have a certain amount of information to impart, and that's what matters above all else. No, they want you to like them and enjoy your time with them. They want to be cared about. The big secret, the magic ingredient that I want to tell those teachers who are getting the red tags, is that you have to take the time to build those connections with the students. A smile, a joke, a few questions about their lives, an interest in anything they might show or tell you, and voila. Green tags. Plus it makes the job so much more fun!

Tonight Mike and I are going to see Baylee play at a charity event. What's weird is that, even though TMA is finished, Baylee's been playing more than ever. She agreed to help out three different bands who had need of a fill-in drummer, so she's been learning all kinds of new (to her) songs and going to a lot of rehearsals. Actually, she's starting to think she might enjoy doing studio work because of all this.

Last weekend Mike, Drew, Zoe, and I went to Danny and Reyna's house for barbecue and croquet. It was such a great time. I LOVE croquet a weird amount. lol It was the first time Zoe ever played it, too, which made it even more fun.

Oh, yeah, and Danny's working on a new car. He gave us a ride in it, and he "opened it up" on a flat stretch of country road near his house, and, not gonna lie, I screamed a little. lol There was so much power and speed!

Friday

Last night I had a French class with a teacher that I knew was a fast talker. She's not the same fast talker that I mentioned a few days ago, though; she's a different one. Anyway, I thought it might be kinda fun to video just a little snippet of the class to show you where I'm at right now as far as my ability to comprehend the language. I feel comfortable with it, and I'm really happy about that!

I'm not going to translate everything, because it's not that interesting. It's my teacher explaining the difference between two of the future tenses. I'll just touch on a couple points:

1. At the beginning of the video she tells me to read, but I don't know if she wants me to read the entire page or just the stuff at the top, so I say, "Dans le box bleu?" (In the blue box?) This is a little weird because, without even realizing it, I tossed an English word in the middle. Why did I do that? I even know the French word for "box." (It's "boîte.") Odd.

I've actually been doing that more and more lately without meaning to, but usually it's the other way around. I'll be saying something in English and a French word or phrase comes to mind before the English one. For instance, the other day I was talking to one of Baylee's friends about her resumé (She wanted me to take a look at it and proofread it), and I had to think for a second to recall the word "hyphen." All I could remember at first was the French equivalent, "trait d'union."

2. The part in the middle of the video where I speak is just me following her instructions and reading the page.

3. What I really want to show you is the part after I finish reading. My teacher starts talking then, and I'm proud of the fact that I can follow along, even though she's not pulling any punches with her speed.

PS: If you're wondering why none of the students are choosing to be on video, it's because...well...you can mess around more if no one can see you. Like you can play video games on your phone if things get a little boring.

PPS: I often do turn my video on, but if none of the other students are doing it then I won't, either.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot! Week 2 of the diet is done, and here are the results:

Thursday

I have a love/hate relationship with the "tags" system of my job. You know, the one where the parents can evaluate different aspects of the classes I teach with green or red tags, and then part of my pay is based on that. I hate it, because it adds a layer of stress to the job that's not enjoyable, but I love it because it's nice to be recognized for good work. lol And to be honest I haven't gotten a red tag yet. (Knock on this cheap fiberboard desk we got from Ikea.)

Anyway, all that to say, I taught a level 4 class this morning and did something a little different in it, and I ended up getting a lot of green tags. That felt good. Basically, I used the mute button quite a bit more than usual in order to single out individual voices. Then I would take a second to work with that one child. I did it for everyone a couple different times during the lesson. It was really helpful to hear small mistakes in pronunciation, like leaving off an "s" at the end of a word or saying "neeck" instead of "neck." It's easy for stuff like that to go by the wayside in group classes, because you've got so many little voices speaking into your headphones at once.

I've settled into a sleeping schedule that's working pretty well for me. I go to bed around midnight, take a "nap" until 3:30am, then get up, get showered and ready, and teach. Then I go back to bed until noon. It works. Today, though, when I went back to bed I had nightmares the entire time. One of the nightmares was that I was still homeschooling and was trying to piece together curriculum for Baylee, who was only going into 7th grade. [cue scream, like in a horror film]

Some recent pics:

Speaking of Baylee in Junior high, this picture came up in my FB memories the other day. Cooper was sure a cutie, wasn't he? He was so tiny (compared to our current behemoth, Winston). And Baylee was pretty darn cute, too, with her broken arm and black nail polish. lol

Mike talking politics with the young 'uns this past weekend.

Chez nous, on peut souvent voir ça. C'est Zach qui fait ses devoirs. (At our house one can often see this. It's Zach doing his homework.) He's taking two classes this summer quarter, English and calculus.

Mike teaching Drew to iron a dress shirt.

I recently discovered a bunch of fun filters on Instagram. This is one that puts sunglasses on your face.

Monday

Confession: I've been really struggling with having any sort of desire to do French ever since I got a job, and then starting the diet only made it worse. It's like I've got a ceiling on how many things I can be self-disciplined about at one time, I exceeded it, and French was the thing that fell out the bottom. I've been skipping classes...a lot. Anyway, I've got one month left on the package I bought several months ago...the package that has me doing 5 or 6 classes a week...and then I'm going to drastically reduce. Like, I'm going down to 1 class a week. I think I can manage that and be happy about it.

I've been going around barefoot all summer, which has made my feet embarrassingly calloused, so I decided to try a thing:

It's called a foot mask. You put your feet in plastic socks filled with a chemical gel and leave them there for 60-90 minutes while you watch TV. Then you wash it off and wait. After 3 or 4 days your feet start peeling like snake skin. In fact, they tell you that once the peeling starts you should wear socks for about a week, or you're going to leave a trail. (Let's take a moment and picture that. Okay, moving on.) Then when it's all over you're left with feet like a baby. Here's a link that shows the process. I highly recommend not clicking on it.

Like I said, I tried it last night. I put my feet in the gel socks for 90 minutes while I watched Netflix. It wasn't painful exactly, but it tingled in a weird way. Now today the tingling is gone, and the skin on my feet feels like it's a size too small. We'll see what happens. Do you want me to keep you updated? *grin*

Oh, guess what! I had problems with my knees for months and months, and all the time it was happening I truly believed, from the bottom of my heart, that it was residual pain from bike riding last summer. Then I lost 7.5 pounds and suddenly my knees felt much better. Now I've lost 8.5, and the pain is gone. I'm happy, but at the same time it's a little embarrassing that it took me a little over a week to fix an issue that I lived with for ages. Doh.

Saturday

Quick little update:  I finished my first week of Nutrisystem and lost 7.4 pounds! And actually that was yesterday. As of this morning I'm down 8 pounds exactly, and I was able to move one hole down on my belt.

I had the best class yesterday. I was teaching a group of level 4 kids, and they were all energetic and talkative (in a good way). During the welcome section of the class, after we'd made introductions, I did something new with them that was totally spur of the moment, but worked beautifully. Normally I play a little game as an ice breaker (like, "Let's make a list of sports we know!"), and that's always fine, but this time I noticed that one of the boys had a Rubik's cube, and I could tell he badly wanted me to see it. So, instead of going into a game, I put the boy up in front of the class and said, "What do you have, [so-and-so]? Show us!" He was so pleased. lol He happily showed off his toy and talked about it for a second. Of course, then everybody wanted a turn, so one at a time I brought them up front and they presented a toy that they had near them. It was perfect! It made all the kids really comfortable with me and each other, and it set a great tone for the rest of the class. I'm going to look for opportunities to do it again with other classes.

Thursday

Yesterday Mike called me and started the conversation with, "Hon, Drew was assaulted." Then he calmly went on to describe what happened. Drew was picking up Zoe from work. She works at a cool clothing store in a sketchy neighborhood. As he walked up to the store (which was closed by this point) a drugged-out homeless man stepped in front of him and started swinging. (You might think that sounds unbelievable, but it's not. Homeless people on drugs are  dangerous, because they're unpredictable.) Drew protected his head, so mostly the man's punches connected with his arms, but he did graze Drew's face once. In the meantime, the employees in Zoe's workplace could see this happening and were panicking. They unlocked the door and yelled for Drew to run inside. He did, and that was the end of it. Zoe was understandably upset and so was Drew, but he didn't tell anybody about it until the next day when he called Mike.

Like I said, Mike immediately called me to let me know what happened, and I don't remember doing it, but at some point during our conversation I hung up on him, because I knew that Drew had just gotten home from work and was sitting on our front deck. I went out to him, burst into tears, gave him a hug, and asked him if he was okay. He got a bit teary, too, which isn't like him, but he hadn’t quite shaken it off yet. He said, though, that he was fine. The homeless man wasn't very coordinated.

I'm sick of Seattle.

Wednesday

I had the best class this morning! Rather than reinvent the wheel, I'll just tell you what I said about it on FB:

Teaching these English classes is always good, but sometimes the stars align and a particular class will be great. This morning I taught a group of kids who were all engaged, excited to be there, and willing to go along with my shenanigans to help them learn. 😂 They gave me high fives through the cameras, danced with me when they got something right, and laughed a lot. And they learned! It was totally energizing.

I want to say this, too: I understand now why teachers like the well-behaved kids best. Teaching can be kind of exhausting (even though it's also rewarding), and if the kids are with you, if they're happily following you, it makes it so much more enjoyable. When they don't want to be there and they have an attitude, that sucks energy. It's just facts.

Which reminds me of a conversation I had in bed last night with Mike. I was telling him about one of the "ugly underbelly" sides of teaching English online to Chinese kids, which is that sometimes you see physical discipline taking place on camera. That is to say, a "tiger mom" (click the link. It's an actual thing.) will decide that her son/daughter isn't putting forth enough effort, so she'll haul off and smack the child right in front of you. I haven't had it happen yet, but enough other teachers have that it's known and discussed.

Anyway, to get back to my original point, these kids who have their moms sitting right there, translating for them and/or just generally making it difficult, are often the kids who have a bad attitude. They're stressed. So it was wonderful this morning to have a class where every single student was relaxed and happy.

PS: One of the other things Mike and I talked about was the immersion format of the company. There is no Chinese spoken ever, only English. Mike said that maybe the moms who translate for their kids are helping in their own way, but that's not the case. Those kids end up behind; I've already seen it. They're handicapped by the help, and the other kids soar ahead of them.

I also know from my own experience learning French in language school that immersion works. I can't explain it, but when you absolutely must understand, you do. A switch in your brain flips. It's like my grandpa Visser's method of teaching people how to swim. He would throw them in the deep end, and they would learn. (Or as Mike jokingly says, "Yeah, your grandpa's method was great! It worked 99% of the time!" LOL)

Okay, one more little thing to kinda prove my point. The other day I had a French teacher, an old lady, who talked 1000 miles an hour. It was the fastest French I've ever had to deal with. Oh, and she was no-nonsense, too. She'd give someone an instruction, then end it with, "Allons-y!" (That's French for "Let's go!" In other words, "Answer immediately, because I've got a lot to cover and I'm not screwing around!") The interesting thing is that every student in there kept up. We didn't dare not to.

Tuesday

I've taught somewhere between 35-40 classes now, and this morning I had my first "meh" experience. And it wasn't the kids; it was me. You know that feeling of getting off on the wrong foot? Like, you thought it was just going to be a normal "promenade" (as they say in French), but then you started walking with your left foot forward instead of your right, and for the rest of the time you couldn't get into a comfortable rhythm. That was me this morning. Sigh. So far I haven't gotten any red tags, though, so we'll see. (And, in my defense, I did get the job done. The kids learned what they needed to learn, which was, "It's a pencil! It's a book! It's a marker!" lol These were littles who were only on their second lesson.)

Yesterday Drew asked if he could borrow my car to take Zoe to a movie. That was at about 2pm. Guess when I got my car back. Really. Take a guess. If you said 10:30pm you'd be correct. He was pretty repentant when he got home (in a "better to ask for forgiveness than permission" kind of way), and I was calm. I just said, "Okay, but here's what you should know about taking advantage of someone's generosity: It only works once."

Mike and I are taking a trip next month! See, Mike has to go to Denver for five days in order to attend a workshop at the university there, because it's required by his master's program. My best friend Melissa and I hatched a plan for me to go along, but then to spend the five days with her, because she lives near Denver. Now you're probably thinking, "Oh, that's nice," but actually it's more than that. It's monumental, and here's why:  Melissa and I have been friends for 15 years, but we've never met in person. That's crazy, right? But it's true. We met a long time ago on an online marriage/family forum, and we hit it off immediately. We clicked and stayed clicked. And now we've been friends through our children growing up, through moves, job changes, and life's highs and lows, but we did it all over the phone and by texting. In summary: This trip in September is going to be epic.

Monday

Today's my day off! Woo hoo! Honestly, it felt amazing to sleep in past 3am. lol (My life is strange now.)

Guess what! I started Nutrisystem on Friday, and I've lost 5 pounds so far. I'm so happy, because it hasn't even been difficult. It's mindless. I grab the next thing and eat it. Done. Well, almost. I'm supposed to make some vegetables to go with it, and I do that...sometimes. But I can only eat just so many veggies before my mind rebels, you know what I mean? It's like, "Girl, try to give me one more salad and see what happens."  I guess I'm not a good Neuter (Nutrisystem user. I just made that up.) in that way.

Me with my probiotic chocolate shake today.

While Drew was in Portland with Zoe he got his hair cut. I really like it! My mom says he looks like a young version of my grandpa, her dad.

By the way, while they were gone I agreed to take care of Zoe's iguana, Hoa. I realized after they left, though, that I'm totally scared of the thing, so Mike ended up feeding and watering it the whole time.

Finally, here's a hilarious picture I took the other day of Mike trying to groom our cat. This cat has long hair, and there's so much of it that he can't begin to take care of it himself. (Or he just doesn't care. It could easily be that, too.) So once a week or so Mike holds him down and brushes him, and the cat hates it so much that it sometimes takes two people.

 And here's a nice picture of Winston to make up for that one.

Saturday

2019 has been a year of change for me. I wrapped up my homeschooling gig when Baylee graduated, and then turned around and got a job...teaching. LOL Also, I started taking French classes. It's all been pretty exciting, but there's one more change I want to make before the year is over, and that's to lose weight.

I looked around at quite a few different options and finally settled on Nutrisystem. They send you most of your meals, and then you add things here and there like fruits, vegetables, and a few extra carbs and proteins. It's actually really pretty foolproof, so I think it'll fit in well with my life right now, as I have neither the time nor the desire to mess around with much. I ordered it, and the first shipment came yesterday morning, so I'm on day 2 of the program. So far, so good. I'll keep you guys updated with a weekly weight-loss check-in.

Man, I just did my first "stand-by" class. That's where you're scheduled to wait in the wings, ready to jump in if another teacher is sick. (Actually, I did one last night, too, but it didn't convert. That was great, because I got paid to just sit there and be ready to teach, and then three minutes after the class started I was off the hook and could leave.) My stand-by today did convert, though. Here's how it went down:

A little bell dinged, telling me they were going to need me, and two buttons showed up on my screen. One said something like, "Click here to get a quick overview of the lesson," and the other said "Enter the classroom." Guess which one I stupidly chose. Yep, I entered the classroom. I don't even know why I did that. I panicked, I guess. As soon as I got in there I realized my mistake: Not only did I not know what the lesson was about, but I didn't even know what level the kids were. Argh. That makes a big difference in how you approach them. I just kinda felt it out, though, and quickly figured out from how little and squirmy they were that these were newbies, probably somewhere on level 1. Anyway, I think the class went well.

And here are some pics and a recent video.

Winston knows how to get comfortable.

Getting ready to teach the concept of "too small."

 Drew playing at the Capitol Hill Block Party recently.

A picture my brother put on FB the other day. That's my brother, Eric, and his daughter, Olivia.

Zoe and Drew took a train to Portland this weekend, and Zoe sent me this text when they were on their way down there. Drew has a head cold. lol

Speaking of Drew, I got this video of him practicing the guitar in the living room the other day.

And here are some pretty flowers.