Tuesday, October 28, 2003
 

Okay. It is now officially uncomfortably cold in my apartment. Keep in mind that I'm cold natured as it is. My lappy is also right next to a window, which doesn't help matters any, considering the amount of time my butt is parked here.

Shock of the day: I actually have GOOD news to report, for once in this blog's history!

(gives audience a moment to recover from the shock)

We have "teaching mentors" here who observe us at various points in the semester. Me being me, with my inexplicable tendency to mix numbers up, forgot that I had an observation yesterday. So I walk into class, and there sits my mentor.

Now. I had done exactly zero planning for this class. As in no lesson plan whatsoever. I thought I'd probably put them into groups or something.

So, there she sits. I take my time checking roll, and I gain a few minutes by taking contextual questions from the audience. All the while, I'm trying to come up with a lesson plan that engages all the students and utilizes the markerboard (something the mentor really stresses doing). I finally come up with the idea of conducting the literary analysis by means of "character sketches," so I have the kids call out names, and I write them on the board in a chart. From there, we fill in the chart with characteristics, which we then proceed to discuss. Somehow, we made it through the 50 minutes.

After class, my mentor came up and hugged me and said that it was one of the best classes she'd ever observed. Needless to say, I am elated. After the Major Stinkiness of the past two weeks, I really needed this boost. I am, needless to say, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

So, I apologize for the horn-tooting there. I desperately needed a happy moment, though, even to get through this week.

Moving on.

Requisite feline cuteness blather: My mom knitted some toy mice for Alice (who, let me reiterate, is not spoiled), and she loves 'em. It's so cute; she holds them in her mouth by their tails, then swats them around. Her favorite alternative to this is to dig her claws in (pretty easy, since they're knit) and bash them against things.

Strange how we humans find these expressions of violence so precious, huh?

And, finally, a random question: Has anyone out there ever tried lychee black tea? Is it really sweet, even without sugar? As the cold weather draws nigh, I'm in pursuit of new varieties of my cold weather staples (oatmeal, tea, soup). E-mail me if the tea is any good, so I'll know whether to seek it out or not.

Elvisette philosophized at 1:56 PM