Happy All Saints Day!
A day late, that is. I suppose it is high time I return to this venue. After a rather unexpected absence of over three weeks I am here to stay (until I get lazy again). Over the next few days, I will be finishing up two or three entries and then post date them. Keep your eye peeled for entries after the 10th of October.
My birthday went well enough. I received several nice gifts - an A4 size framed picture with small pieces of amber attached, a small amber sailboat, a box of chocolates, a card, and a picture book of Kaliningrad. Each member of my family sent a card with me for me to open on my birthday. This evening I stopped by the post office on the way home from work and picked up a package that my Grandma had sent me from the US - it was another birthday present. I suppose that means that I have received everything sent my way except for the two cards from my girlfriend.
Today I started interviewing students again for the next semester at school. Only one slightly annoying thing happened. One of my star students (NOT!) came to sign up for the next level. I told him that he didn't bother to come to the last few classes and take the final, so based on that and several other reasons (minimal attendance, zippo comprehension) I thought he should take the same level over. What I wanted to say was that he should enroll for the level prior to the one he took, but didn't. Anyhow, he didn't want to retake the level, so advanced. Probably shouldn't be saying this in a public forum, but every ruble matters, so we can't turn the students away. Seems like a crock to me, but perhaps it will shock me into the realities of a public teaching profession. No Child Left Behind means that they all advance, right?
For the past two hours I've been baking a cake. It will be edible, but I messed it up royally this time. I actually made the same cake for my fellow teachers when we celebrated my birthday. After a really rotten day at school I arrived home and stayed up till 2:30 baking a cake. Brought it into school and we only ate about a quarter of the cake. So then the secretary and accountant divided the remainder and took it home with them in their ever ready plastic bags. At the time it perturbed me that they were walking off with my labor of love (er, um, experiment is more like it). After a little while I was glad I didn't have to eat so much of the cake as I had had more than my share of the batter and it was a little dry to boot. Anyhow, today I tried making the cake in a different shape so it would fit into my tupperware container for easier transport. After botching the first layer of six (and proceeding to gulp it down), I made it through the remaining five, but don't have a very good feeling about it. Oh well, I enjoyed my collection of Seinfelds while baking. Kosmo Kramer is my hero. Someday I want to be as cool as he is.
The realization struck me either yesterday or today that I want to do too many things. From my 39 item todo list for October, I finished 13. I suppose a third isn't all that bad, but that means two-thirds didn't get accomplished. The reason this came to mind was that on my vacation week (this week), I thought of going to a bunch of museums and seeing Kaliningrad a little better than I've had a chance to. And I still have yet to set foot in a museum and here my week is nearly half way over. On one hand it is good to have a dream and something to strive for. Yet on the other, it is nice to posses the capability to set realistic goals. I wouldn't worry too much about it though. Good things come in unexpected forms.
The only other news is about my NaNo. It is now day two and I have not penned anything. That means I'm two thousand words behind. My strategy is to only write on the weekdays - 1 thousand words per day the first week, 2 thousand the second, 3 thousand the third, and 4 thousand words each and every day the fourth week. That gives me the weekends off to do something else and regroup for the next week and a few extra days at the end of the month to give a read over the whole hodgepodge and make a few changes. At first my idea was to write short stories, but I think it will be a lot more engaging for my nonexistent readers (and therefore challenging for me) to create one big story. Tie the characters lives together in a mixed web of something or another that we call reality.
And here we have it. The end of the post. In it I will comment that those of you whose email I have (and whom I want to be able to contact me in the future) will be receiving a note from me soon. Midweek last week I received the nice email saying that accounts of inactive students will be deactivated around the 20th of this month. Email will still reach me until mid-March when the next sweep happens, so don't fret too much about me not receiving your valued communique.
My birthday went well enough. I received several nice gifts - an A4 size framed picture with small pieces of amber attached, a small amber sailboat, a box of chocolates, a card, and a picture book of Kaliningrad. Each member of my family sent a card with me for me to open on my birthday. This evening I stopped by the post office on the way home from work and picked up a package that my Grandma had sent me from the US - it was another birthday present. I suppose that means that I have received everything sent my way except for the two cards from my girlfriend.
Today I started interviewing students again for the next semester at school. Only one slightly annoying thing happened. One of my star students (NOT!) came to sign up for the next level. I told him that he didn't bother to come to the last few classes and take the final, so based on that and several other reasons (minimal attendance, zippo comprehension) I thought he should take the same level over. What I wanted to say was that he should enroll for the level prior to the one he took, but didn't. Anyhow, he didn't want to retake the level, so advanced. Probably shouldn't be saying this in a public forum, but every ruble matters, so we can't turn the students away. Seems like a crock to me, but perhaps it will shock me into the realities of a public teaching profession. No Child Left Behind means that they all advance, right?
For the past two hours I've been baking a cake. It will be edible, but I messed it up royally this time. I actually made the same cake for my fellow teachers when we celebrated my birthday. After a really rotten day at school I arrived home and stayed up till 2:30 baking a cake. Brought it into school and we only ate about a quarter of the cake. So then the secretary and accountant divided the remainder and took it home with them in their ever ready plastic bags. At the time it perturbed me that they were walking off with my labor of love (er, um, experiment is more like it). After a little while I was glad I didn't have to eat so much of the cake as I had had more than my share of the batter and it was a little dry to boot. Anyhow, today I tried making the cake in a different shape so it would fit into my tupperware container for easier transport. After botching the first layer of six (and proceeding to gulp it down), I made it through the remaining five, but don't have a very good feeling about it. Oh well, I enjoyed my collection of Seinfelds while baking. Kosmo Kramer is my hero. Someday I want to be as cool as he is.
The realization struck me either yesterday or today that I want to do too many things. From my 39 item todo list for October, I finished 13. I suppose a third isn't all that bad, but that means two-thirds didn't get accomplished. The reason this came to mind was that on my vacation week (this week), I thought of going to a bunch of museums and seeing Kaliningrad a little better than I've had a chance to. And I still have yet to set foot in a museum and here my week is nearly half way over. On one hand it is good to have a dream and something to strive for. Yet on the other, it is nice to posses the capability to set realistic goals. I wouldn't worry too much about it though. Good things come in unexpected forms.
The only other news is about my NaNo. It is now day two and I have not penned anything. That means I'm two thousand words behind. My strategy is to only write on the weekdays - 1 thousand words per day the first week, 2 thousand the second, 3 thousand the third, and 4 thousand words each and every day the fourth week. That gives me the weekends off to do something else and regroup for the next week and a few extra days at the end of the month to give a read over the whole hodgepodge and make a few changes. At first my idea was to write short stories, but I think it will be a lot more engaging for my nonexistent readers (and therefore challenging for me) to create one big story. Tie the characters lives together in a mixed web of something or another that we call reality.
And here we have it. The end of the post. In it I will comment that those of you whose email I have (and whom I want to be able to contact me in the future) will be receiving a note from me soon. Midweek last week I received the nice email saying that accounts of inactive students will be deactivated around the 20th of this month. Email will still reach me until mid-March when the next sweep happens, so don't fret too much about me not receiving your valued communique.
posted by Troy on 23:20
Post a Comment
<< Home