Day 155

May 20 Wednesday

22 weeks...oh my....I still have @284 days left...I'm almost through with my 12th week of teaching....almost one quarter down, 3 more to go :(

I caught up on the latest episode of "Ugly Betty" at work. I'm also working on catching up on "House." I'm currently on season 5 episode 17. There are 24 episodes this season so I'm almost there!

I went into my first class today and there were no students. I thought they weren't going to show up. Then one of them showed up about 5 minutes late. One of the students was absent.

In my 2nd class the students like to work ahead in the book. They had already done the page that we were suppose to start on today. One of the students had already marked the answers as being right before we even went over it. (she likes to use a red pencil and mark if the answers are right or wrong). I told them to turn to that page and they said "we've already done it". I said "no, we haven't". Sure they did it, but I didn't have a chance to go over it with the class. I wish students would quit working ahead!! My students weren't as bad as they were last class, but they still like to talk during class. THey were also singing some song. It was in Korean. They were begging to play a game, but I didn't let them. We needed to do our work.

My highest level student forgot his essay. His was the first one that was due. I'm already off to a bad start. I've heard that the parents are so concerned that the students are doing writing assignments. Well if they are so concerned then why don't they actually make their children do the assignment!!! I only have one student in this class so we move along in the book pretty fast. We cover more in one class than any of the other classes. We are almost finished with the speaking book. Just a few more pages left. I rearranged his schedule a little bit. I told him we were going to do speaking on Monday instead of writing. There is only about 3 pages left to do in the book. I'm supposed to be observed next Wednesday. I'm scared if I do speaking that we will run out of material when Im being observed and then I won't know what to do. If I move it to Monday at least I can make some extra activity for him to do. So I moved writing to Wednesday. I'll give him a writing test/word test and then we will cover the writing unit which is long enough to not run out of material. I wonder what she will say. She doesn't like when I stand still after giving directions. I should be walking around the room making sure they know how to do it. This student doesn't need any help. I stand at the podium and let him answer. He rarely gets an answer wrong. He hasn't made lower than a 9 on any of his tests so far.

When I am being observed in my 2nd class next week I will be giving a writing test and a word test. That will take up most of the class. She'll probably criticize me for making the test too hard. I give the same format every time but they still don't understand after i give examples. why am I giving a writing test to students who don't even know how to write?? If she says its too hard I should say "well if its too hard then why don't you just make the test?!". Thats what I want to say (but I won't). But really I dont know what to put on a writing test. I dont teach them writing. I teach speaking. We probably won't get much actual speaking time in the class. Hmm maybe observing a writing test can show her how giving a test to level 3 is stupid!

There were 3 students absent from my last class today. Class was actually a lot quieter with one of the class clowns not there. He's not a trouble maker, he just likes to do stuff to make people laugh.

I ate fast food twice today. Not doing too good on the healthy eating plan. I would have eaten lunch at home, but I didn't get out of bed early enough to give me time to eat. Yes, once Im in bed I never want to get up. I stay in bed till the last possible minute to give myself just enough time to get ready and run out of the house.

I went to the gym. Lesley wanted me to try the bikes. I didn't like them-just doesn't feel right. Its like you're sitting in a chair and riding a bike. We went to the eliptical machine. I worked out at a slow pace for 30 minutes. Burned a little over 100 calories. Then I worked out my legs. And left to eat at Burger King. At least I had the lesser of two evils-the chicken sandwich.

Tomorrow I'll be back to my interval training. I read online that its good to take a day of rest between interval sessions so today I just worked out at a constant pace. 2-3 times a week for about 30 mins is good.