LanguageLover's Weblog

I’ve discovered that in the summertime, I don’t like being on the computer.  I have to be a fair amount of the time because of my various jobs, but my blog has certainly suffered because of my summertime feelings.  Part of it is certainly because I’m simply too busy.  I’m nearing the end of the busy part of my summer and I will have much more time quite soon, so I may start blogging again after that.

Another part of it is a personal downsizing I’ve been going through this year.  I simply was involved in too many activities and I needed to get rid of some of them.  So, I have dropped a few items from my schedule.  Will this blog be one of the things that drops?  I’m not sure.  I’m not sure if I have enough to say.

Either way, I’m still here and I may start writing more again soon.  On the other hand, I may decide it’s not worth the effort.  Of course, I still use my blogroll to check up on the blogs I find interesting, so I may continue to read, but not write as much.  I don’t know.

Not really sure if I had a point today.  I am just putting some words down.

I am the language lover and these are my thoughts.

After all of our trials and tribulations, we had our class performance today.  Based on audience reactions, it went well.  It’s always amazing that despite a lack of effort and inability to memorize lines and no committal from the actors right up until the moment and audience walks in.

Then, magic happens.

Even the most uncaring student is suddenly focused on the job at hand.  Energy levels jump up.  Scripts are studied with intensity.  And they feed off the energy of the audience.  Anyone watching the performance yesterday and comparing it to today’s would almost think I had hired look-a-likes to fill the roles.  It was that much improvement.  The audience laughed and really enjoyed the performance.

Not to say it was great.

If we had a regular run of performances, though, we could take this and build from here.  They’d finally found focus and would be able to move forward.  Unfortunately, this was it.  One show.  One shot.  One grade.

I’ll still chalk it up under the Wins column, but I won’t look back on it fondly.  It was tiring and frustrating, but the old theatre magic made it finish well enough, though.  If it wasn’t for magic, who knows what would have happened.

I am the language lover and these are my thoughts.

I’m nearing the end of summer school.  One of the biggest problems is attendance.  If students miss 6 hours of class, they are dropped from school.  The other is attitude.  Since most of the students are there because they failed during the school year, they aren’t excited about being here now.

I’ve got one student who is trying to do the “I’m only going to do enough to pass” plan.  Nearly every day, he has come late.  Once he came two hours late.  So, he’s up to about 5 hours and 45 minutes of absence.  If he’s late again tomorrow, that’s probably it for him.  Does it bother him?  No.  Last night, he went to the midnight movie.  So, he overslept today.  And he’s tired and unfocused today.

The class is an English elective about drama.  The purpose is to actually put together a play.  We build the set, assemble costumes, learn makeup, rehearse and then the final is a play performance.  For the final, they have to memorize lines and perform adequately.  Makeup, costumes, acting, and striking the set are all part of that final grade.

This cool guy who is late all the time, though, doesn’t have his lines down.  Instead of working on lines when he has down time, he falls asleep.  He just doesn’t seem to care.  It’s so frustrating in this type of class because they are all in this together and one lazy student can make the rest of them feel ridiculous.  And the performance can be terrible because they’ll all have to wait as he tries to get the lines down.

It doesn’t help that I didn’t want to teach this class, but I was begged until I did.  This student is merely solidifying the idea that this is a bad class to offer for summer school.  I don’t know if I have a point.  I just needed to vent.

I am the language lover and these are my thoughts.

I like using Facebook. It has put me in touch with people that I haven’t been able to talk to in a long time. I can keep track of what my friends and relatives are up to. It’s easy to share photos and videos of my kids.

There are things, though, that irritate me about Facebook friends. For example, I don’t think I should be Facebook friends with high school students, even if they aren’t my students. Other teachers in my school don’t have the same compunctions as I do. So, I get requests periodically and have to turn them down and try to explain that it’s not them, it’s just that they are students and I think it’s improper. But then, when they graduate, I have to allow them to be my “friend” or risk being rude. I don’t like being in that position, because sometimes I end up being “friends” with people I don’t really want to know about. (No school policy on this, by the way)

Similar to that, I have become Facebook friends with former classmates from high school. I thought it would be cool. However, some of these people put too much information in their status updates, or post the results from every quiz they take, or otherwise irritate me. I’d just as soon not be their friend any more, but I don’t want to be rude, either. (This is apparently called “defriending”) But is it worth being rude to avoid hearing all about someone’s marital problems, or how bored they are, or how drunk they were, or how much they like the F-word? These aren’t things I want to know, but it’s hard to avoid their status updates.

I don’t think there are really established rules of etiquette in social networks. Are there? Even if there were, it doesn’t seem to me that many of these people would care. So, for now, I’m just putting up with it. Maybe I’ll get irritated enough sometime to get rid of a few “friends.”

I am the language lover and these are my thoughts.

So, the class I’m teaching in summer school is an English elective in which we put on a play.  All of the students build the set, find and create costumes, assemble props, and memorize lines and work on acting skills with a final performance at the end of the class.  It’s kind of a fun class, sometimes, but it’s a challenge because summer school attendence is pretty bad.  Despite the fact that students can only miss about a day and a half of class before they are dropped, many students still manage to try and take as much absence as they can.

One student in particular has come late every single day this week.  Sometimes only fifteen minutes late, or up to an hour late.  In an ordinary class, this is an annoyance.  In a class where we are trying to practice for the play, it’s difficult to practice if there are missing people in the production.  It’s hard on everyone.  So, after working on various things for two hours, I finally decided today was a movie day.  We put in a dvd and starting watching Noises Off, which was appropriate for the class I believe (I have the tv edited one without Michael Caine’s two F words) and fifteen minutes in, the missing student arrived.  Awesome.

Only one more week left.  One way or another, we’ll be done.

I am the language lover and these are my thoughts.

Oftentimes, I will visit one of my regular sites and read a discussion that is already underway.  Everything I might want to say has already been said, so anything I was to add would simply add another voice and might confuse the issue.  So, I read and consider the points being made, but often don’t comment.  No one knows I was there.  If this person is one of my “blog friends” I want to let them know that I’m still visiting and reading and not ignoring them entirely, but I don’t have anything worth saying, so I don’t.

I’m not really sure if I have a point here other than to say that just because there are no comments on a post, doesn’t mean there aren’t people reading and enjoying the posts.  They just have nothing to add to the conversation.

On the other hand, many people comment who really have nothing at all to say, but want to make their presence known.  These comments can often be just annoying.  I don’t want to be annoying, so I don’t.  If you are one of my blogrolled people, know that I do indeed stop by your site fairly often.  I’m just not as chatty as some, unless I have something to say.

I am the language lover and these are my thoughts.

I often joke that one reason I became a teacher is that I don’t have to rely on any other adults.  Once I close the door to my classroom, I’m king of the kingdom and I have no one to count on but myself.  Other jobs make you be a “team player” and you have to pick up the slack if one member of the team doesn’t come through.  Or you have to wait while someone else finishes a job before you can do your job.  Other than waiting in line at the copying machine, I don’t have to do that most of the time.  There are some exceptions, of course, but mostly I only have myself to blame if something goes wrong.  I don’t have to count on other people.

It’s when I work other jobs that I discover how much I dislike having to count on other people.  Rarely do I find that other people have the same motivations as I do.  I delegate and check on the progress of others, but sometimes the number of things that didn’t go according to plan add up and really freak me out.  Part of me would really like to do it all myself.  Then, I would know if something got done or didn’t get done.  Of course, that would make a lot more work for me, but is it worth it to work hard, but know–really know–if things are happening according to plan?

As a play director, I have an assistant director, a stage manager, not to mention set construction heads, lighting and sound operators, box office people, choreographers, etc… that are in charge of several aspects of putting on a play.  If each of those people takes responsibility for their job, than I can focus on my primary responsibility, but in the end, I’m responsible for it all.  If that stage manager doesn’t take care of props, then the rehearsal doesn’t work out.  If I double check every thing she is supposed to do, though, I’m not sure that I”m really saving any time by having her do it if I have to double check it all.

Ugh.  It’s hard depending on people.  Especially when they don’t come through.

I am the language lover and these are my thoughts.

Tomorrow, I start teaching summer school.  I’m not sure how it’s done anywhere else, but in our school district, it is mostly used for students who failed other classes and need to make up a semester class.  Some students can use it to get ahead or take a class they couldn’t fit in during the regular school year.  There are also the students who take summer school the summer after they were supposed to graduate, but they didn’t quite get in all of the credits they needed.  This summer, over half of my class is composed of these “super seniors” who need to pass my class to get their diplomas.

The nice thing about this is that they are highly motivated.  Our summer school course is four hours per day for three weeks.  It’s a pretty quick way to make up a semester of class.  These students know that if they can just stick it out for three weeks, they are done.  It’s usually all the incentive they need.

On the other hand, there’s a number of reasons that these students didn’t graduate on time.  Sometimes those reasons come to the surface during these three weeks and make it very hard to continue.  Personality problems, life conflicts, peer disputes, etc..  Oftentimes there is more at work here than a lazy student who didn’t get all of his work in.  Last summer, two of my students were taking the course because they missed a semester of school to have a baby.  One of those two had strong emotions all of the time.  She was loving, hating, crying, laughing–all within one day.  Eventually, the angry part of her personality took her out the door.

I wonder sometimes, though, if our summer school plan is actually a good one, or if we’re just going through the motions.  If it is good, it probably says something about block scheduling.  If it is not, I don’t know what that says.  I just know that I don’t look forward to summer school like I look forward to the regular school year.

So, I am just as excited as most of my super seniors to report to school tomorrow.  Yay.

I am the language lover and these are my thoughts.

Those who know me are aware that I’m always biting off more than I should chew.  Notice the use of the word “should”.  I can almost always handle the multiple projects I’m tackling, but it means that my days start early, run late, and I get run down at times because I hit the peak of multiple things to do and I fly from one thing to another just trying to keep up.  Most of the people I know think that I am nuts for doing this.  And, for the most part, I agree.

However.

I wonder two things when I look at my schedule:  One.  Will I regret not doing something for sake of having “free time”?  I always try to live by the philosophy that you should not look back in regret at things you could have done, but didn’t.  That doesn’t mean that I do everything I want, but if it’s important enough that I will regret it, I try to make it happen.  Two.  Am I happier when I’m busy?  When I am involved in multiple projects, I am usually more productive.  During my down time parts of the year, I often don’t accomplish very much.  I take advantage of the free time by watching more tv and surfing the internet.  Time drags by.  But, when I’m busy, I carefully use the time I have to accomplish my goals and have very little wasted time during the day.

So, I think it’s better to be busy.  But not all people feel that way.  I obviously think I’m right, but I wonder if there’s a valid argument for being less busy. Hmm.  Too busy and tired.  Time to move on.

I am the language lover and these are my thoughts.

This spring, I thought I would try to make a documentary.  After two months, I finished with a not very good 20 minute video.  There are moments that are ok.  I think if I had trimmed it down to about 12 minutes, it would have been an ok video.  I simply cannot believe how much harder it is to make a video like this than I thought it would be.  Wow.

In my defense, I began this project with a dozen young helpers and that number dwindled to one until I found another student.  The three of us did the bulk of the work.  Had I known that was going to happen, I probably would not have started on the project.

I’m glad I did, though.  I learned a lot.  Should I ever tackle anything like this again, I will be more prepared.  I hope so, anyway.  Also, it was a lot of fun when a particular section came together.  The crew and I had a good time, but it was also a lot of time that really drained me.

Again, I tip my hat to the moviemakers out there.  I had no idea the time you spend.

I am the language lover and these are my thoughts.