Various updates

 Once again, work has hit me like a ton of bricks. Not a bad ton of bricks, I suppose. Just very busy! I'm back into full swing at my regular job and also teaching two classes as an adjunct. Keeps me busy for sure. So here's what's been up since my last post before the semester started:

Work: Like I said - busy! Several trips to Pittsburgh to meet with my online students. And my regular classes are going well. I have some great groups of students and am very thankful for that. I've also been doing a really interesting professional development program about teaching language that is useful for employment and I'm learning so much!

Running: I just finished my last long run (10 miles) before the Pittsburgh half on May 1. I haven't been training as well / as much as I would've ideally liked, but I'll take it. I'm super thankful to have had L. and/or T. with me for most of my longer runs and am really looking forward to running with L. at the race AND seeing some of my favorite out of town running friends :)

Travel: J and I went to Charleston, SC for a long weekend back in March with some of his friends from college. It was super nice and I loved taking a trip that didn't involve a wedding, conference, or other obligation. It was just for fun. The weather wasn't as warm as I was hoping for, but it was beautiful and a great trip. 

Thirty-One: It's been a good year so far! I did a very nice vendor event in March and then had a great open house / girls evening in early April. I'm loving the new catalog and the spring gift guide. (If you haven't seen them yet and want to - just let me know!) 

Around the house: First - I haven't done nearly as much crafting as I'd like :( Still working on that same sweater I started a year ago. And I think I've forgotten how to use my sewing machine :P But I'll get back at it... hopefully after my online classes end and I have a little extra time each week.  But I have been reading a lot, which makes me happy. I got a yogurt maker and have been happily making homemade yogurt, because I take odd pleasure in making things that normal people buy from the store. On a related note - J and I started the seeds for our vegetable garden this weekend and I'm looking forward to that. I also became a member at the local botanical gardens and am hoping to visit a lot this summer. We went to the recent cactus and succulent show and I added a new Mother-of-Thousands kalanchoe to my collection. I'm ridiculously excited about this. And then we got a zebra aloe from L. :) Making progress in my crazy plant lady life goals.  

Other miscellaneous notes: 

-J's hockey team won the city championships! I'm so proud of them :)  

-We've been to some really great concerts / shows lately. We love live music and I'm thankful that we get to enjoy it so often.

-Now that I'm not working more than 1 evening a week, I've been able to get back into my small group meetings at church and I'm really happy about it.

-I finally feel like I might be heading in the right direction with some of my health issues, though it's honestly pretty overwhelming and takes up more of my energy that I'd like. I at least have a new doctor that I feel a little more confident in...  so we'll see how this goes!

-Conway is still adorable and we love him ;)  We can't have a blog post and not mention him! 

So - the short version: Life is pretty good. I'd love to be a little less busy, but I have really nothing to complain about :) I'm sure there's something I've forgotten to mention here, but if I tried to recap it all, then I'd never finish this post or ever post again... So consider this your brief(~ish) update on my life! 

Happy 2016!

Happy New Year, everyone! The end of the year went by so quickly! Lots of good things - traveling and time with family, mostly :)

Here's a "quick" recap!

November:

I went to Philadelphia for a conference. I was only there about a day and a half, but it was very nice. I tried to split my time between conference going and self care. Including time with my dear friend who lives there, lots of good food, some nice long walks, and a trip (or two) to Uniqlo ;)

For Thanksgiving, we did potlucks in all my classes. We also made class cookbooks for each class, which is an awesome project that I highly recommend!

The next weekend I went to New York for Thanksgiving! Love getting to see my extended family. We ran the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day, ate tons of good food, and then took advantage of the beautiful weather the next day and went to a park. :) Also enjoyed going shopping with my cousin and aunts! (Are you sensing a theme here??)

Riding a dinosaur at the park. As you do. 

Beautiful weather for November in New York!

It was also the start of the "busy season" for Thirty-One. I did a lot of vendor events and had a great time!

December:

I finished up the semester in the middle of December. We had more potlucks. It was good. I made my Cranberry Bliss Bars. They are still magic

I used some of my free time after the semester was over to catch up on my craft queue :) Especially holiday crafts! (But there's still so many more projects on the list!)

Hair ties

Festive leggings/pants

Boot cuffs

We had a great Christmas. I was very fortunate to get to spend a lot of time with my awesome in-laws and nephews. I enjoyed shopping with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law, taking our nephews to the zoo, going to church on Christmas eve, and opening presents with my in-laws on Christmas Day.  I then drove to Virginia to spend time with my parents and brother, which was also great. (And also involved lots of good food and shopping with my mom ;) )   J came to visit for a few days (after a not-so-fun-and-exciting adventure getting there!). We decorated Christmas cookies together with my mom.

Cookies!

Conway and one of his new toys :)

For New Year's  Eve I had my usual party, which was small, but awesome. I love getting to see this group of friends and (now) getting to watch their kids grow up. On New Year's Day I ran my usual 5K and then J, Conway, and I headed back to Cleveland!

New Year's Day 5K

January:

We started off January with a fancy wedding with J's family. I loved getting all dressed up and we had a great time!

Since then, I've started my online teaching for the semester and have been doing new student registration sessions for my "real" job. Another week and a half before I go back to my regular teaching schedule. I'm trying to be productive and cross a few more things both off of my "should do" list and my "want to do" list. We'll see what actually happens...  Wish me luck!


Hope everyone is having a great year so far!

I think I'll stay away from Pittsburgh for a while ;)

Don't get me wrong. There's absolutely nothing wrong with Pittsburgh. It's just that I / we have driven there twice in the past 10 days and I'm ready to be done with that drive for a little bit :)

It's been another busy couple of weeks, but things are winding down.  I hope! My graduation was great. It was really nice to see my family and my dissertation advisor and to get a little closure on the whole PhD process. The commencement speaker (Charles Bolden) gave a great speech that hit close to home. I finally found the text of the address and am looking forward to really sitting down to re-read it and process it, but this is a part that definitely spoke to me:

"Be bold, be fearless, dream big, and by all means, don't listen to anyone who tells you can’t do something or you don't belong. Don't waste your time trying to explain yourself or your identity to anyone. Don’t feel like you have to justify why you are where you are. This applies to the workplace or anywhere else."

A couple of pictures from the big event:

Starting the day off at Eat'n Park!

Getting my hood from my dissertation advisor

  

Obligatory Moscow Mule after the ceremony :)

This week has been busy in the classroom. My grades for my online class were due this week, so I spent a lot of my time early in the week grading essays. I'm very happy to, for the first time in 16 weeks, NOT have to wake up super early on Monday morning to do my grading for that class before I go to work! We're also wrapping things up at my ESOL job (three weeks left!) and were doing testing last week. I could write a whole blog post about the tests, but I will spare you my rants on standardized testing :)  All I will say is that it felt so wrong to do testing this week in my beginner class when I have 6 students from Nepal. My heart is breaking for their country after the earthquake.  Please keep everyone in your thoughts and prayers.

On a much, much lighter note - a student in one of my classes brought in an English textbook published in 1965 in Moscow. There are some of my favorite pages from it:

  

Page 1 of the Lenin poem

Page 2 of the Lenin poem

This weekend has been great and the weather has been beautiful! Friday I finished sewing my first maxi skirt of the season :) No pictures of it yet, but I'll try to remember to get one next time I wear it. But it's awesome, trust me ;)

Saturday I ran 8 miles - my longest run since the Columbus Marathon in October 2013. I really, really want to run a fall half and I'm just trying to figure out how to keep my stomach issues at bay while I ramp up my running (said stomach issues being the primary reason I have NOT been doing distance running these past two years). But I miss it so much and I'm ready to devote some more attention to solving this problem. After the run on Saturday, I made Smitten Kitchen's Not Derby Pie Bars (amazing!) and went to a potluck at our friends' house.

Today I drove to Pittsburgh (again!) to meet up with some of my favorite running ladies, who finished the Pittsburgh Half Marathon this morning. It was a long day, but seeing them was totally worth all the driving! :)  Can't wait until the next time (and I hope to be running with them when that happens!)

And now it's back to reality and lesson planning for me. Have a great week everyone!

The path appears when you take the first step

This past week has been a pretty good one. I love spring. I love the spring-time holidays and spending time with family and friends.  The semester for my online class is wrapping up and my official PhD commencement is just a few short weeks away! (I officially graduated last August, but will participate in the graduation ceremony this month)

On Saturday I had a fantastic run, despite the snow on the ground. It was sunny and I listened to a "This American Life" podcast. Did 6.5 miles, which is my longest run in a very, very long time.  I'm very happy about increasing my mileage and really hope I can continue to do so.  I'm pretty sure I owe miss Tess a half marathon together sometime in the future.

Friday was the first night of Passover. It was also the 7th anniversary of my first date with J according to the Jewish calendar (Our first date was the first night of Passover, so we always joke about celebrating our anniversary according to the Jewish calendar ;) ) We had a lovely time at a family friend's Seder and got to spend time with some awesome people we see very rarely. 

Sunday was Easter. For me, Easter is a time for happy spring dresses and spending time with the family.  We also got to see some adorable little animals at church! (They had an Easter egg hunt, party, and mini petting zoo for the kids at church).  This was all followed by brunch with J's family, an afternoon walk with our dogs, and Skyping with my adorable nephews.

Our own animal, however, is kind of a goofball.

It's been fun to talk about holiday traditions with my students. Many of them have learned the American Easter traditions, but fewer of them know much about Passover, so I make sure to discuss both. I also talked about Dyngus Day with them. While it's not a major holiday, is definitely becoming more of an event in Cleveland and I thought they should know a little about it. I also discovered many of them celebrate something similar in their home countries (such as Romania, Hungary, and Czech Republic). And speaking of my students, I had a fabulous moment this morning when going over words for the house and yard with my class this morning. I asked my students "What is the chimney for?" and one student said "For Santa Claus."  Brilliant.  (and, on a side note, I'm a big of The ESL Teacher's Holiday Activities Kit. While it's rather dated, it makes a good jumping off point for lessons!)

I've been finding myself feeling rather reflective lately. I almost never talk about my weight, but I was thinking this morning about how it's been *ten years* since I had my "oh shit something has to change" realization about my weight/health and how different on SO many levels my life is now.  On the most superficial level, I am literally fifty pounds lighter than I was then! But my hopes, dreams, interests, and priorities in life have all shifted as well.

Speaking of self-reflection, this is also the time of year where academics (which many of my friends are) have to start to think about not only "what am I going to do now that I didn't get a job?" but "*who am I* now that I didn't get a job?" I am happy where I am now, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't still wonder that sometimes and I definitely still wonder where I'm going to end up.

This Sunday at church, our minister said something that really stuck with me. He was talking about the Passover story and how, if you read the scriptures, the Red Sea doesn't part magically as Moses approaches. It parts when he steps into the water. "The path appears when we take the first step."   I need to keep reminding myself this. I have taken so many "first steps" this past year, but I have a feeling there will be many more until my path appears. 

And, because I wanted to end on a lighter note, I spent a little bit of time with my dear sewing machine this afternoon. As I mentioned in my last post, I haven't been crafting as much as I'd like to be. But today, there was an urgent task that had to be completed in a timely manner:

Yes, folks, the home opener is tomorrow and I needed a new headband to wear :) Cross your fingers that it brings us luck... and that the weather holds out!  

Hope you all have a great weekend :)

Bringing your passion with you

I feel like I start every post with "I've been so busy!" And this one is no exception. I'm coming off of a three-week stretch where I've been working all day for one or two of my usual days off (staff meeting, professional development, meeting with my online students, vendor event for Thirty-One) and it also happened that two of those three weeks I also had something going on Tuesday night, my usual evening off.  So here I am, nearly a month later and no blog posts. But, as you all understand, a girl only has so much brain power! I really hope to get more consistent with my posts..  (in part so you don't feel obligated to read so much at a time!)

I feel like I've had so much going on and so many thought-provoking things to say these past few weeks and I want to share them briefly, but not inundate you all with a dissertation-length blog post. So let's break this down into sections. The first are more updates on my daily life. The last couple start to get really deep :)

1. We've done some really fun things these past few weeks, like seeing a favorite Irish Band (not Gaelic Storm!) on St. Patrick's Day.  I also saw Carbon Leaf (one of my all-time favorites) last week. I've been a fan for 14 years and I swear they just keep getting better and better.  Some things I'm looking forward to in the next few weeks are the Passover Seder and the beginning of baseball season!

Carbon Leaf, always amazing!

2. My college students took their midterm exam the week after spring break. Which meant I was answering a lot of emails. And then grading ~60 essays.  And we had an in-person meeting the week after! I am glad things are slowing down in that class for the moment. 

This is why I struggle doing yoga at home!

3. I took Conway to a specialist today to talk about some issues he's had pretty much since we got him nearly 3 years ago. We'll be trying a strict elimination diet (his new food is made of, no April Fool's jokes here, kangaroo. I'm... not really sure how I feel about this!) and then seeing a DIFFERENT specialist in the next few weeks. Never a dull moment with this little guy. But if we can make him feel better, then it's worth it.

4. Thirty-One stuff is going well. I did a Pet Expo two weeks ago which was great fun. And I just finished up a party for a dear friend of mine. Nothing huge on the radar for Thirty-One this month, which is fine with me. May's customer special is seriously awesome and I look forward to sharing it with you! I'm also going to be a vendor at wing cook-off in June. So come visit me there!

5. I tried a new running experiment recently. I've been hearing more and more about shorter run:walk intervals. I tried 30 seconds on:30 seconds off. It drove me a little crazy, but I felt great. Did 5 miles like that. I'm likely going to try it again.  Short intervals seems to help my stomach feel best when running... Looking forward to finally being home for run club this weekend (assuming I don't eat so much at the Seder Friday night that I feel like I'm doing to die ;) )

6. I've done approximately nothing craft-related these past three weeks and it makes me sad. Maybe tonight we'll watch a movie and I'll do some knitting. My regular Thursday-evening band rehearsal is cancelled for Maundy Thursday. I have been doing some fun cooking, like a totally meat and cheese lasagna (even the "noodles" were meat!). Tonight I'm making crepes and I'm searching for a good muffin recipe to make this weekend... 

These last few all relate to my ESOL teaching job and are much more thought-provoking :)

7. A few weeks ago, my yoga instructor said something that really spoke to me about teaching.  She talked about the difference between being a teacher and being an instructor.  I wish I had blogged about it earlier so I could remember it better, but the short version is that a teacher tells you what you need, and an instructor guides you and gives you ideas for how you can help yourself. Her point was, in yoga, we are the teachers (we tell ourselves what we need when we step on the mat) and she is the instructor. I really liked this as a metaphor for my ESOL teaching. My students all have such different needs and they really need to be aware of what they want to get out of the classes. I am there to give them guidance, but I can't *make* them learn. 

8. I heard an amazing episode of NPR's Ted Radio hour about success. As someone who isn't employed full-time in a career related to my degree, sometimes I struggle with things related to the notion of "success." One of the Ted talks focused on the idea of "status anxiety" which spoke some to me for sure. (Hello,I have a PhD and am a Thirty-One consultant! I do it because I seriously love it, but sometimes it's hard not to feel a little strange talking about it with certain people.)  But the one idea that really, really stuck with me was that we should not "follow our passion". We should "bring it with us."  I think this spoke to me because, had I just "followed my passion" - I would never have found this job that brings me so much joy. Instead, I've taken my passion with me and poured it into my unexpected career change/detour/whatever. I care so much about my students. I love teaching and goshdarnit I'm good at it and I'm going to do everything I can to be the best teacher possible.

9. Finally, my students are the most amazing people in the world. Every day they surprise me with their dedication, their humor, their passion, their struggles, and their genuine good hearts. This week a student brought me seeds for my garden. One said "Teacher, you look beautiful today." Another student asked if it was ok with me if he used his food stamps to buy coffee and snacks to share with the class. A student scheduled her cancer radiation treatments around our classes because that's how much learning English and our community means to her. My students shared their struggles with me and with each other about having to truly start over again. About having a Master's Degree or being a teacher with years and years of experience in their home country, but only being able to get a job at WalMart because no one accepts their credentials or believes they can do the work. If this all isn't inspiration to give it my all to make a difference in their lives, then I don't know what is. 

I've never felt more inspired than ever to just focus on a simple, one-word mantra: believe. 

Apparently it's spring break..

You wouldn't know it from all the snow outside or the fact that our high today is about 15*, but I'm (slightly unexpectedly - long story! Ask me privately if you really want to know) officially on spring break! And feeling very anxious to catch up on my to do list, which includes updating this blog!

But first, I just hit my 1000th blog view! So thank you to whoever that was :)

Things are going well here, just a combination of being very busy and having terrible weather which makes me want to hibernate. We just set the record for the coldest February in Cleveland since the 1870s! Average temperature for the month was 14.3*. No wonder I didn't want to leave the house.

Teaching has been up and down. I have some fabulous new students and in general my classes are going well. Everyone is loving my experiment with the self-directed activities. I love that everyone gets to work at their own level and pace for at least a little bit every week and I also love that I really get to spend some one-on-one time with my students. It's so rare when I'm teaching the whole class that I get to sit down and really talk to / help anyone individually for more than a minute or so, but I get to do that during the self-directed activity time and it's awesome. The biggest problem so far this semester has been the weather - K-12 schools have been closed a lot, which means parents haven't been able to come to day classes, and the weather in general just makes it difficult for my students who walk or take public transportation. But hopefully the end is in sight. After tomorrow, the entire 10 day forecast is above freezing!

My other "fun" teaching adventure was driving to monthly meeting with my online students in a snowstorm a few weeks ago. My normally 2.5 hour drive was closer to 4 hours! I was so thankful when I got there and the majority of my students had actually made it to class. Whew :)

Things are also going well in Thirty-One land. I did my second vendor event and feel like a pro now! I have a pet expo coming up at the end of the month (I have ideas, but suggestions for what you'd display are welcome!) and am going to be a vendor at wing cookoff in June and two holiday shows in November/December. I also have a few feelers out for some other events, but I think I'm off to a good start. I have a drinks and desserts open house at my place tomorrow and I'm very much looking forward to having the excuse to hang out with some friends :D

And, even more importantly, I had a very successful fundraiser last month! We raised enough money to buy 127 kits of nail files and tubes of chapstick for Hanna House at University Hospitals. I talked to the director of the activities center this week and will be dropping them off during my spring break next week :) Thanks again to everyone who participated!

We've also been having a ton of fun things going on these past few weeks. J and I went to go see our favorite band, Gaelic Storm. For those new to our story - our first date was to a Gaelic Storm concert and almost exactly two years ago we got engaged at their concert :) This year, we brought a framed and matted copy of the picture taken with the band on the night of our engagement and got the entire band to sign the mat. I can't wait to hang it up!

Gaelic Storm, dancing on the bar at House of Blues

Speaking of autographs, we went to a minor league hockey game last week and J was incredibly surprised to see two-time Stanley Cup winner Ruslan Fedotenko playing for the visiting team. Fedotenko was on J's favorite NHL team when they won the Stanley cup! J and his buddy managed to get autographs :)

And, finally, last weekend we went to our friend's annual Arnold Schwarzenegger movie marathon :) We had a good time hanging out with some awesome people, eating and drinking way too much, watching movies, and generally being lazy.  Since I'm not always good at being lazy, I also made some good progress on the sweater I'm knitting. It's finally starting to look a little bit like a sweater! Since it's my first one, I don't have any delusions that it will be perfect, but I'm really hoping it's at least wearable. I'm pretty happy with how it looks so far. Maybe I'll have it done before next winter ;) My crafting progress is so slow during the school year! I'm hoping to make progress on my Etsy shop stock next week during my spring break, though I have quite a few personal sewing projects I also was hoping to work on. Why do I have a feeling that one week isn't going to be enough for all this? ;)

Stay warm, friends! Spring is just around the corner :)

Going back is hard...

I'll be the first to tell you that I *love* my job. I really do. But going back after 6 weeks off is hard! Especially after a busy, busy weekend.  Last Friday I had an all-day staff meeting. Saturday I had to drive 5 hours round trip to meet with the students from my online class. It's always good to get to meet them face-to-face, but boy does it make for a long day! 2.5 hours driving, 3 hours teaching, then 2.5 hours back home!

And Sunday. Sunday was the bridal show! I think my booth looked quite nice. I think I have a bigger table at the next event, which will help it look not quite so crowded. I met and talked to lots of very nice people, added a few dozen new names to my mailing list, and had a few women express interest in hosting a party! I've followed up with them and am crossing my fingers something will come through. 

The thing that most people liked about my booth was my (slightly obsessive) wedding day checklists. I had a list of ideas for things to put in a wedding day survival kit for your bridesmaids (pictured here). I also had a wedding day emergency kit checklist, and a bathroom basket checklist. All of the brides were very, very happy to get that handout and it will definitely be a staple in my wedding expo toolkit :) Next one is a mall show in February. Let's hope it goes even better than this one.

On Monday I started back at work. I've got some new students and that always changes the class dynamics, but I think it's going to be a good semester. This week we've gotten to know each other with a "find someone who" activity and by interviewing each other. I had my students come up with the interview questions themselves. In my evening class, we laughed so hard that my abs literally hurt afterwards. I love it. 

I mentioned in a previous post that I'm trying some new things in class. I'm starting the self-directed activities with my multilevel classes next week, but I started them with my level 0 students this week. My level 0 class is almost harder than my official multilevel classes sometimes because you make progress SO QUICKLY when you start from nothing. So my students who came in September saying "No English!" are light-years ahead of the student who arrived in the country a month ago and can barely tell you their name. Adding into the mix that a couple of the new students are pre-literate and it gets real interesting.  My students were very skeptical of the self-directed activities at first and really wanted me to tell them what to do. But after three days they are getting much more comfortable. I think it will be really beneficial for all of them.

My current new obsession for my level 0 self-directed activities is the game "Spot It!"  It comes in several different varieties, but it's great for a mixed group. On each card, there are several different pictures. Each pair of cards has exactly ONE picture in common, so the object of the game is to flip over two cards and try to find the matching pictures as quickly as possible.  Some students point to the pictures, others then help them identify them and say the names of the objects.  Plus it's been a great way for students of different cultures to interact with each other (I have two main ethnic groups and they tend to cling together). I've just picked up the alphabet one and the numbers/shapes one and I think we'll play one of those on Monday! 

And, finally, in "never a dull moment" land - there was a fire in the building I teach in today! They only ended up evacuating half the building (not my half), but it was a bit of an adventure as the fire trucks pulled up and the firemen starting coming into the building. I'm hoping for a little less excitement next week!

Starting the new year off right

So far, 2015 has been off to a good start. We've been working hard on getting organized and I've been making good progress getting some new projects off the ground. We've got two huge Ikea bags of old clothes ready to go to Goodwill, two grocery-sized bags of books to take to Half Price Books, and even found a place where we can recycle our old printers (yes, plural!). I've started a new eating plan and so far (*knock on wood*) my stomach's been feeling better than it has in months. Cross your fingers for me!

Yes, folks, that's the t-shirt folding thing that Sheldon on Big Bang Theory uses. J loves it!

Things are starting to move forward at my various jobs/projects.  I just finished my first couple of headbands for my etsy store! I will open that (and start looking for craft fairs) once I feel like I have enough of a stock to really start advertising and selling.  I've also booked two vendor shows as an exhibitor for Thirty-One Gifts. One bridal show and one pet expo! Should be fun. If you're in the area, let me know and I'll give you the details to stop by. I may also have one more bridal show in July. Additionally, I've been putting out some feelers for possible January parties. If you're interested in hosting one, just let me know! (Double hostess credit in January! I do online and catalog parties, too :) )

My online class started this week and I'm trying not to be too overwhelmed by the fact that the number of students I have has nearly doubled. Yikes. But I got my teaching evaluations back from last semester (I'm teaching the same course again) and they were very good. 100% of my students who submitted evaluations said they'd recommend me as a professor (90% said they'd "strongly recommend" me) and 100% said they were satisfied with the online course experience. This is good to hear as I gear up for the spring semester.

I also started teaching ESOL classes again today, though only a three week session for an organization my regular employer works with. This organization helps refugees and they (the refugees) have required hours of English lessons. Since my real job doesn't start back for another 3 weeks, I offered to teach for their clients a few times a week until then. Today I had mostly planned to do introductions and had planned for a very low level class, but it turned out the students mostly all knew each other and were at a higher level than I anticipated. We finished what I had planned for the class 15 minutes into a 2.5 hour session! But one of the things about being an adult ESOL teacher in mixed-level community-based classes is that you have to be flexible and learn to go with the flow. I pulled a couple of picture dictionaries out of the supply closet (I use both Oxford Picture Dictionary and English for Everyday Activities: A Picture Process Dictionary) and we went over a few pages of those books. Then we played a game where I divided the students into two groups by level and gave each group a stack of cards. Each card had two words written on them that were either the same word (for example: "cares cares") or two similar words ("cares scare"). The students worked together to determine if the words on each card were the same or different. With the more advanced students, we also discussed the definitions of the words on the cards.  It actually worked out really well!  I think I'm going to look for some more games to play with this group as a "fun" way to learn English before the official classes start up again in a few weeks. Any suggestions?

And, finally, I thought after 2.5 weeks off - I'd be bored out of my mind and ready to go back. But, alas, I wasn't. It's not that I don't love my job. It's just that I had so much I was going to do to be productive over my break and I didn't even come close to finishing it all! The good news is that I'm only working part time for the next 3 weeks so I still have time to make a little more progress on that to do list. Wish me luck! :)

Stay safe and warm, everyone!