Good Day(s)

Monday I had a day off from work –my first in over two weeks– but I had to spend it working on my lesson I presented yesterday. I taught the class a section in the chapter on Ancient Rome. It covered Caesar, Augustus, the Early Empire and the Pax Romana (all the important stuff about Rome). It went so well. I finished with just enough time to give them a review quiz and summarize the chapter before the bell rang. The class seemed genuinely interested in the lesson –something I contribute to the material and not necessarily my instruction– and they asked a ton of questions. I did a PowerPoint presentation which I think they really liked. I’m so used to professors using PowerPoint that I’d forgotten how little it was used in high school. Today in class, one of the students even suggested that the teacher use PowerPoints from now on because it helped her learn and another told me the way I taught made it easier for him to take notes yesterday.
After school yesterday I went back to work and it seemed like an eternity since I’d been off –I’ve grown so accustomed to being in uniform and pouring coffee and whatnot. Yesterday night I went over to my Grandparents’ to watch the Sabres stomp the Leafs on the road which was sweet.
Today went rather smoothly and I had the day off again. Surprisingly, I was not called in and I was able to get some errands run which always makes me feel good. I found out I have over $1000 in the bank for the first time since the summer of ’07 so I’m pretty damn proud of myself about that. All in all, I’m feeling pretty good. I’m not even worrying too much about my thesis right now, I’m just trying to not let things get to me and I have to admit it is so much better this way.
I watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall just a couple of hours ago and I thought it was great. It’s probably due more to my overall mood these past few days but I laughed out loud all by myself watching it. It was hilarious and Mila Kunis definitely redeemed herself for her role in Max Payne because that movie was definitely not good. I’m sure if I had watched it at any other point in my life, it wouldn’t have seemed so good to me but I did and so it did.
That’s it right now. Just wanted to put down some thoughts on how good I’ve been feeling.

Improvements and Procrastination

My life at present is not much better off than it was when I last posted –in some areas (notably my thesis), it’s quite worse due simply to the fact that it is has now been three weeks since then and I haven’t worked much on any of the things I wrote about before. My daily schedule is split into two halves –the first, in which I am at the high school doing my internship– and the latter, in which I go to work at Ardenwoods. I’m working weekends and about three weekdays and on my days off I usually do something when I come home from school like get called into work. So needless to say, I have resolved my schedule situation at work –or rather it has been resolved– I don’t take credit for its resolution. I can now a afford a plane ticket but it’d still be nice to have some back-up money before I leave (in just over a month now), so I’m gladly working every shift they wish me to.
This isn’t the reason I haven’t worked on my thesis –that’s due to my laziness and procrastination. I dunno what I’m gonna do about that and I don’t even want to think about it right now.
I’m glad I did start posting now, before I left the states because there were some things I’d even forgotten entirely –like contact my family in Germany. I’ll do that soon…
All in all, I am very ready to leave. I feel like I’m waiting and I can’t really do anything until what I’ve been waiting for is over. I know as soon as I get there I’m going to feel a thousand times less stressed than I am now and being so close but so far away from such relief is only further adding to my current stress.
But it’s not all bad; I taught my first lesson today. I was nervous, of course, and I taught it much faster than I had anticipated and finished up with too much time than what would have been considered acceptable if I was the teacher. But matters such as this are not what worry me about going into the field. I know it’s just nerves. And pacing can only be learned with practice so I’m not concerned. Instead, I’m happy with how well I held the students’ attention and how efficient I was relaying the material to them.
I believe that’s all I wanted to write for now. Hopefully the next entry will bear better news about my thesis and such.
Peace.

Realizations

I set this blog up now because I realized today that I will be in Germany in less than two months time.
I've yet to give this much thought --despite how life-altering this experience is sure to be. Lately, I've been concerned with other things going on in my life. Things such as my internship which begins next week and which I am apprehensive about. Or my senior thesis which is nothing more than a list of books on a working bibliography --practically all of which, I have no idea how to get ahold of. Or trying to find a way to make some money so I can get out of debt and afford a plane ticket to get there because I'm hardly getting any hours at work because they're severely over-staffed.
I've wasted away winter break and most of January watching the first seasons of Heroes and the Tudors on DVD, playing FIFA 06 and working on a novel because my muse is with me at present and i hate to not take advantage of that. I know that I've got to get off my ass and be productive though. I began looking at ticket prices today and my lack of funds made me depressed so I decided to start this blog now rather than later as a way to start the preparations I know I'm going to have to make. I have to contact my family in Krefeld because I know it'll be harder for me to do so while I'm there, despite being a mere 40 miles away instead of 4300. I have to practice speaking German quite a bit because being able to read it is not going to cut it. I have so many things I know I have to do but it's so hard for me to come up with a list on cue and all of them swirling around in my subconscious just out of my reach is beginning to drive me mad.
I feel like I'm rambling now and I really don't want you all to become disinterested because I want you to continue to read this --I know I'll need that connection with you all while I'm there. So I will leave this first posting at that and will no doubt post again soon and will continue to do so occasionally until I get to Germany when I will begin to post daily.