Grace in Small Things – 142

• Watching the Snowbirds with Sylvain yesterday. He enjoyed the heck out of it, and I covered my eyes at the scary parts and said, “They shouldn’t do that. That’s not safe.” But he says I’m a cool girlfriend anyway, just for going along.
• Finding super amazing deals at Windsor Crossing yesterday while Sylvain shopped for chinos. I shouldn’t spend money right now, but when I saw things I need for the fall and winter marked 70% off, it was hard to resist.  I am now the proud owner of a red raincoat with a hood, which I’d been needing. Now how am I going to resist getting some Wellies?
• Cool, sunny weather lately. The squirrels are starting to look busier.
• Being disappointed that a series of books I need to reference often costs $64 per volume x 5 volumes, then discovering that the university of Windsor library HAS the set. Since I’m not a U of W student, a year’s borrowing privileges cost me, but less than one of the volumes would have been for me to purchase.
• Getting a phone call tonight from my first cousin once removed (my late father’s cousin), who is a priest stationed in Brazil. We have never met, but are connected by our shared interest and work on the family genealogy.

Unblocking

My practicum teacher promised me it gets easier. She remembers her practicum and how  many bloody hours went into preparing each lesson plan. In fact, she had her mom come and live with her during that week so she wouldn’t have to cook or run out for food or anything other than churn out the lesson plans and activities.

But of course it gets easier, or teachers would burn out in the first six months. She said that.

I know she’s right.

But for now, I still spend HOURS and HOURS in the planning stage. Every time I think I’m headed in the right direction, I think of an “uh oh!” I can’t do that, they haven’t even learned xyz yet. How can I use xyz to teach abc if they don’t know xyz yet?

Or like tonight as I was headed in a new direction with Family Tree as my theme…. I was envisioning myself having drawn the family on the chalkboard and talked about MY MOTHER and MY FATHER and all of that. Then I turned to one of the students and asked, “Fatima, do YOU have a mother?” That’s the elicitation, where you get the students to try out the new structure you have just modeled.

I was suddenly struck by the awful feeling that Fatima’s entire family was killed back in Somalia. Suddenly my question was not just insensitive, but horribly cruel.

Hey, don’t think it can’t happen. In every LINC class there will very possibly be refugees with dead, missing or tortured family members. In Toronto they have special classes just for victims of torture, with specially trained teachers.

This is just one example of the myriad “what ifs” that plague me and send me twirling first in one direction then in another during the planning stage. Sometimes I end up staring at the wall, banging my head, jumping up and down in hopes I can shake myself out of it, going for a walk or just berating myself and sighing.

But there’s good news. I am learning ways to get unblocked.

I’m a detail person. I usually rely on someone else to provide the framework before I can fill in the details.   I realized that one reason I wasn’t able to produce these three linked lesson plans for my final project was that I could not envision the 8-week curriculum into which my lessons fit. I kept coming up with a zillion questions for an experienced ESL teacher, like “Would you teach this before that, that before this, or both on the same day?”

Finally, through trial and error and stumbling around in the dark, I hit on something that worked. I used the Canadian Language Benchmarks list of grammar items that are typically introduced in Level One (they don’t tell you in what order, their list is in alphabetical order). I put each item on an index card and then put the index cards in order by how it made sense to me to sequence them over eight weeks. Day one: “Hi, my name is _____. I am from _____. Nice to meet you.”  Using common sense and memories of language classes I’ve been through, I put all the cards in order. Of course there’s not one right answer to what order to put them all in, but what I came up with is good enough.

Back at the computer, I put together an 8-week syllabus in a table with three columns: THEME/VOCABULARY, FUNCTION, Grammar Item. I worked backward from the grammar items to arrive at a logical context or theme in which to introduce the grammar item.

Whew! There. Now that I have a complete 8-week syllabus fleshed out, it is much easier for me to tackle the assignment of coming up with the three lesson plans all linked by a common theme that introduce a grammar item! Because now my detail-oriented brain has had the bigger framework supplied and can envision how the plans fit into the whole.

I think that’s where the block was coming from. I am a visual learner. I had to SEE the syllabus on paper/screen before I could create the lesson plans to fit within it. Does that make any sense?

So, yay! I think I got to the reason behind my block. From now on, I will try giving myself the framework laid out visually. Then, hopefully, my brain will unfreeze.

Added bonus: I can append the syllabus to my final project. Extra points?

Grace in Small Things – 141

• Having two tall ships docked at the marina this morning. I pulled my scope and tripod onto the balcony to check out the youngsters crawling up and down and all around the deck and masts, tying things down and all. They were the Pathfinder and Playfair out of Toronto.
• More farmer’s market fun today. This time I got a spaghetti squash, some potatoes, apples and more peaches than last time.
• After three days brainstorming and doing preparatory research for my final project, I’m closer to the writing stage. Much closer. And if I can’t manage to start writing tomorrow, I’m going to bonk myself on the head with Thomson & Martinet.
• Sylvain won the fish! He won the fish! I managed to convince him that fishie really wants to live with me. Well, at least some of the time. We may have to work out a shared custody arrangement. Thank you, Lynn, for your wonderful prize giveaway.
• Does this ever happen to you? Months or maybe even years after you post something, you get a new comment on it from someone out there? Today I got a comment on my “Purple Starfish” post, which follows:

Yah i wanted to know what the real name is for them, cuz like me and my family saw some -B.C. Canada- and we wanted to know about them but i cant find anything on them by looking up ‘purple startfishs’ so i would REALLY love to know the real name of them, thanx xoxo
Taylor

To which I replied:
Hi, Taylor. Check out THIS website.  I think we are talking about a sea star commonly found on the coast of BC. The scientific name is pisaster ochraceus, I think. What do you think? Is this what you saw? Kelly

And Taylor wrote back:

omg yes! thanx so much!
Taylor.

Two Movies in Two Days

Well, normally if I can’t say something nice, I don’t say anything at all. So I wasn’t going to say anything about The Girlfriend Experience. Plus I am no film critic. But one of you asked, so I’ll give you our impression.

S leaned over about 20 minutes into it and whispered, “This movie sucks.”

I wanted to see where it was going. After all, Soderbergh is a good director with a good rep. So we sat through the whole thing. And also neither of us wanted the disruption it would have caused had we made out way out after it started, since we were among our little group of regulars at the gallery and not in some chain cinema.

During the drive home, we tried to find the method to the madness.

The movie is about an “escort” who gets $2000 per night to make her client feel like she’s his girlfriend. Her boyfriend is a personal trainer. The story is set in the US during the recent race between Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin. There are about a million references to the financial crisis and its depressing effect on everyone’s lifestyle and livelihood.

“Ok, I know,” I said. “Maybe the high dollar prostitute SYMBOLIZES the USA.”

Sylvain said something to the effect that yeah, but it was still bad.

“Ok, maybe it was all shallow because that’s the point! It’s about the entitlement generation… it’s about spoiled brats who bring an entire nation’s financial infrastructure to its knees with their insatiable need for self-indulgence!”

Whatever. Not even for the sake of art or experiment or satirizing capitalism can I sit through reams of vapid conversation between characters I don’t care about.

Sylvain said he might be able to sit through all of that for enough good…um…scenery, if you know what I mean. But there wasn’t much of that, either.

============

Movie #2, seen tonight, was “The 500 Days of Summer,” which totally made up for last night’s debacle. It was adorable, just adorable. And that’s all I have to say about that. Oh, except…frikkin killer soundtrack. (Performed by Feist, Simon & Garfunkle, The Smiths, Black Lips, Spoon, Wolfmother, Carla Bruni and more.)

Grace in Small Things – 140

• A good, industrious day spent getting my CV in order. I want to email it to the agencies that offer LINC classes now, giving them a heads up that I’ll be looking for employment toward the end of this year when my certification is done.
• Date night! I am already wearing my Windsor International Film Festival tee shirt in anticipation of going to the Art Gallery Windsor to see Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience.
• Plans to share my summer ratatouille with Sylvain before we head out to the film.
• Very vivid and interesting dreams of late.
• Thank you to Empress of Dirt for this link.

Grace in Small Things – 139

• Another rather productive day. I finished the household filing (all lesson plans and related materials will get their own place soon), read sizeable chunks of the Canadian Language Benchmarks 2000 and CLB Guide to Implementation, and did more preparatory reading for my part I final project.
• Cool, rainy weather. Why do I like so-called “bad” weather? Because it means I can stay indoors doing my geeky indoor hobbies all day without peer pressure to do otherwise!
• Stopping by Sylvain’s house to wish his dad a happy birthday.
• Going to meditation group after all these weeks away. One friend gave me a little note that said, “It’s about time you came back!” And I got lots of long hugs.
• That I am learning to decline invitations to do things I know I won’t enjoy, such as group outings. Sometimes it’s harder than other times, like when the person inviting is highly extroverted (and hence has trouble getting where I’m coming from)  or is a pushy person.  I’m working on declining and being gracious at the same time, which is harder with some people than with others.

Grace in Small Things – 138

• Being fairly productive today. I worked on my TESL part I final project for a while, continued organizing my “to file” stacks into the hanging files in my new file box (this is my first dwelling in a long time not to have a proper file cabinet),  sent the ailing sewing machine off for a tune up/ timing adjustment AND finished converting the right half of my pantry into a place to store and organize all my office and craft supplies.
• The cicada that landed on my balcony while I was sitting out there. It settled in and started making that incredibly loud cicada noise, which I observed it accomplishes without moving legs or wings!
• Warm summer evenings.
• A whole day of not using the car and not buying anything. That’s something to aim for more often.
• Skunky smell outside right now. I like skunks.

The Benefits of Avoidance

pp. 238-239 of Callings by G. Levoy

When we say no to our callings, we’re like the blind, who can keep forever intact their visions of the way things look, the ideal and the real never confronting each other. We can keep intact our fantasies of how talented we are by not putting our talents to the test, of how indespensable we are to a company or a community by never leaving it, of how safe and secure we are by just staying put.

There are payoffs to saying no, benefits of safety and security, that we receive in not having to face fear and limitations, and there is a lot to be said for safety and security. When we fear something, we don’t reach out and risk, but when we don’t reach out, we also don’t get burned as much (though we reinforce the fear).  ….

For a lot of us, refusing our own impulses is desirable for the simple reason that it feels familiar. One of the most confounding human habits is that we continue to do what hurts us just because it’s familiar, it’s the pattern we know, it makes us feel at home. It reminds us of what our oringal home life was like, an almost physical memory that is of magnetic –of gravitational–power. We swing back to it again and again, obviously not learning something we need to learn. We repeat to ourselves the same criticisms our parents leveled at us. We distract ourselves from our desires with the same diversions–food, money, a quick change of subject–they used with us whenever we cried out. We adopt the same addictions our parents used to cover up their own passions and pains. Sometimes we find ourselves repeating the relationships our parents had to work and to love, patterns we swore we’d never emulate, and the awful realization that we ended up emulating them anyway can itself be a wake-up call.

The psychologist Rollo May touches powerfully on this subject…when he discusses the phenomenon of “imprinting,” in which newborn animals–mostly birds, a few mammals–will follow whatever creature, or object, they first encounter, thinking it kin. He described having seen a full-grown duck following a rabbit around because that was the creature to which it originally imprinted, even though the annoyed rabbit routinely turned around and bit the duck to drive it away.

Even though we don’t enjoy feeling stuck and frustrated, or living with unworkable situations and nagging desires, when we refuse our calls, we may still benefit from saying no when there are rewards for conformity. We can, for instance, congratulate ourselves on being stable, reliable, faithful to our responsibilities, obedient to our faith.

…

Grace in Small Things – 137

• Free movies on the National Film Board of Canada website… a great resource in these frugal times.
• The scrumptious summer ratatouille that I made out of all the local veggies I got yesterday at the Farmers’ Market.
• How wonderful it is to wake up and walk out onto the balcony to have my cereal while gazing at the lake before the mist lifts.
• Spending some time painting some little wooden Ikea frames for Patti’s cards. Oh, it feels good to be able to sit and work with my hands for a change. One frame is blue, one is green, one is orange and one is red!
• Sharing fried green tomatoes with Sylvain.

Grace in Small Things – 136

• The new Downtown Windsor Farmer’s Market! Back from Toronto, I finally got to see for myself what this new little market is all about. I love it! There was a little trio singing and playing numbers like “You are My Sunshine” on banjo & squeeze box. I found all the veggies I need for tomorrow’s masala dish, all local! Sylvain found honey and strawberries. There were strawberry rhubarb pies, wholewheat flour from locally grown wheat, peaches, tomatoes, three kinds of zucchini, pears, garlic, onions, potted basil plants, sweet corn, cauliflower, fresh eggs, broccoli and more!
• Breakfast together at a quaint diner.
• Sharing the crust of our toast with a little group of sparrows afterward.
• Nice emails from classmates.
• Thanks to Sylvain’s thoughtful neighbour who has a garden out in the county, I got to fry myself up some green tomatoes for my supper today. Oh, man, these were the best…very big and hard and green. Those have such a nice tartness to them when fried. YUM!

Inglourious Movee Taste?

“I wonder how many pacifist, Buddhist-leaning meditators go to Tarantino films…and love them?” I asked Sylvain on our way out of Inglourious Basterds.

I like and have always liked Tarantino films.  Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill volumes 1 and 2… the whole lot. This is hard to explain since I happily pass on MOST films with blood and gore. I’m sensitive and have to cover my eyes lest I end up haunted by the scenes and sounds for weeks to come.

But I love Tarantino films for the same reason I loved Pontypool even though I have no use for the horror genre. It was so much more than a horror film. It was also a film about linguistics…AND clever, AND tongue in cheek.

Tarantino? His violence is so over the top that it doesn’t bother me. Is that anything like saying Mick Jagger is so ugly, he’s cute? And anyway, I don’t see his films for the violence, I see them in spite of it…a small inconvenience I am willing to put up with in order to get to some of the most killer DIALOGUE ever written.

Oh, and how the man uses pregnant pauses! He is a master of building tension between two speakers.  Laughter! I am in awe of how the man uses laughter to show when power shifts between two characters.

I realize that saying I love Tarantino films for everything but the gore is a bit like saying you read Playboy for the articles, book reviews and jokes (and don’t look at the photos).

I am a Tarantino fan because the man is a master of his craft and takes the genre to new an inimitable level.

How do I reconcile my adoration of his films with the fact that I abhor violence in real life? Am I not supporting something that is toxic to a world trying to rise to new levels of (peace-loving) consciousness?

Maybe.

Or maybe this is a relatively harmless way for my Shadow to get a day-pass.

Grace in Small Things – 135

• Opening my stack of mail this morning, I had a box from Patti containing a gorgeous post card with my name beautifully lettered and the set of art cards I won in a give-away on her blog. They are so wonderful that I can’t bear to part with them all. I am going to frame some of them for my wall.
• And I had a card from my “auntie” K in California that says, “Nothing is more important than reconnecting with your bliss.” Inside was a cheque to help me with my back to school costs.
• Finding 70% dark chocolate bars on my breakfast table–a gift from my sweetie.
• Date night! There are so many movies playing right now that we want to see, we are going to see two in one weekend.
• Getting a copy of my university diploma in the mail. I long ago discarded the original in one of my material purges preceding a spiritually motivated adventure. I never believed in putting credentials in frames on walls or any of that pretentious garbage. But I had to order a copy for my certification and so, what the heck, went and bought a frame for it. It’s fun to discover that I am now okay with that…after 20 years of poo pooing such things.

GiST 134 – The Million Joys of Being Home

• Making it through the storms in one piece; they hit as we were driving back
• Hugs and kisses from my sweetheart
• Being able to recline in a bath full of hot water and stay there until every inch of me is scrubbed clean
• Seeing my Jen Lemen poster on the wall
• Being welcomed home by the pot of rosemary Sylvain has been nursing for me. It has grown!
• Slipping into my summer jamma pants and softer than soft tee shirt…the one with holes in it.
• In the kitchen, pumping some olive coconut hand lotion into my hands and smelling it. Ah, that smells like home.
• Hearing geese honking as they pitch into the marina for the night
• That fresh, grassy smell, the one you don’t get in the middle of a metropolis
• Knowing that tomorrow when I wake up, I’ll have more than five choices of what to wear
• Access to all those little amenities I left behind to save space in my suitcase
• Being back among people who smile and chat in the elevator
• Myyyyyyyy mattress

Grace in Small Things – 133

• That there was enough time this morning for a reading of the Toronto Star over a cup of green tea.
• That soup this good can come in a box. The flavour is so wonderful that I am mentally transported to a sunny corner table in a certain restaurant in Ithaca.
• This encouraging story that Victoria linked to. The photo of the boy buying an apple made my cry.
• Having 100% health coverage while between jobs.
• The fact that–no matter how irrational, vile, kneejerk or even violent the debate might become–at least Americans are talking about health care reform. I believe the conversation must take place, sooner or later, even though it is bound to become very ugly before all the dust settles.

Getting Certified to Teach ESL

Since a few have expressed interest in the course I’m taking, I thought I’d put the answers to the questions in a post.

There are many institutions that offer training for ESL teachers. If you are in Ontario, visit the TESL Ontario website for a list of institutions that are accredited and recommended by them.

I chose CCLCS because they have a good reputation and because there was a new session starting the week after my last day in cube land. I opted not to stay in Windsor to get the certificate from a local community college because that would have been a longer, more drawn out process. I wanted to do a short, full-time, intensive program so I could get back into the work force as quickly as possible. Also CCLCS’s tuition was reasonable, I thought.

Prerequisite for program admission is a four-year degree in any field.

There are two tracks you can follow depending on whether you plan to teach in a private school or abroad, or whether you hope to gain employment in a government-funded program that offers free classes to immigrants.

For the former, you need only do part I, which I’ve just completed:

Core Class (100 hours) and assignments, plus 10 hours observing a real class, two simulations where you write a lesson plan and present it to your peers who pretend to be ESL students, a take-home grammar test (if you pay attention in class, this is not hard test), a 5-day practicum where you are teaching a 90 minute lesson each morning and a 45 minute activity each afternoon. The rest of the time you are actively observing your mentor.  And there’s a final project whereby you have to write up three linked lesson plans and one unrelated grammar lesson script (can be done after practicum but must be turned in within 3 months of last day of core course).

During the core classes, they cover methodology, pedagogical theory, classroom management and teaching skills, linguistics, assessment and testing, techniques for teaching, how to write a speaking lesson, a reading lesson, a listening lesson, a writing lesson, a grammar lesson, a vocabulary lesson. They cover pronunciation, intercultural awareness, lesson and unit planning, curriculum development, materials analysis and development, professional conduct and practice.

You are given tons of tips on where to find resources, what to expect if you go to teach overseas or in a private school or in a new Canadian settlement program.

You have to join TESL Ontario and keep your membership in good standing from year to year, which includes attending a professional development workshop each year.

If you only do part I and you pass, you can apply for your TESL Canada certification.

For TESL Ontario certification (also known as TESL Canada Standard II), allowing you to teach in the federally funded classes, you also need part II for a total of 316 hours.

Part II consists of:

• 110-hour core course
• 5 hours of observation in any adult ESL program
• 21 hour Pronunciation module – 7 evenings – starting after the final day of the core course
• 5 hour Anti-Discrimination Workshop (Saturday)
• 10 hours (two Saturdays) of CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning)
• 5 hour Professional Development Workshop (Saturday) 
  (recommended to be taken during Part I)
• practicum (one week/daytime/25 hours) – at CCLCS

I have been told to expect part II to be more intense and time-consuming, and that they get more into theory in part II. M will be presenting Chomskian theory of language acquisition, for example. At this point, that’s about all I know.

The costs can be found on the CCLCS website.

Oh, and by the way, they are currently looking for a new co-ordinator. So if you have a masters in education or in educational linguistics or a related field and have taught ESL in Canada for at least three years at any given time…and don’t mind working for the salary range you find at a non-profit, give them a call!

Grace in Small Things – 132

• My last day with my practicum mentor and “our” class today. In just a week, threads of love had already begun to form among us.
• Thanks to my habit of traveling light, it took almost no time to pack.
• The school found me a homestay for October when I return for part II. There will be 7-8 other people living there, most or all of them ESL students rather than aspiring teachers. Maybe they will let me practice and rehearse on them!
• Oh yeah, and my mentor gave me the pass/fail news before I left: “You more than passed.” She also jokingly asked if I could teach again tomorrow, saying her week has been so easy thanks to me.
• What Olivia gave herself for her birthday. I get a huge vicarious surge of a feeling of peace and empowerment from reading this.

With All My Heart

“A good teacher is better than a spectacular teacher. Otherwise, the teacher becomes more important than the teaching.” –from The Tao of Teaching

All week I have been, for the most part, hitting that egoless zone where the dance dances the dancer and not the other way around. But when I read those lines, I realized there was still some “I must be stellar” energy nipping at my heels like a spoiled puppy.

The students are the focus and the learning taking place is the main event. I am not the main event. I realized that I needed to step aside and become even more transparent.  When this awareness came to me, what little apprehension was left about presenting a wonderful, smooth lesson that morning dissipated.  Not necessary.  Your students want a human being in the classroom with them, not a robot. Not a porcelain doll, but a living, breathing, MISTAKE-MAKING, red-blooded human.

I breathed deeply in and out… and smiled.

Yesterday after class, T had given me something to work on improving: making smoother segues from one activity to the next so that the momentum is not lost…so that students’ attention doesn’t have a chance to flag. Rather than saying, “Okay, now we are going to…,” which is creating choppiness, I would say after we finished with handout #1:

“Okay, so for number three, what other responses could we give to John’s good news?”

The students offer, “That’s wonderful,” and “Good for you,” etc.

“Yes, exactly! There are many ways we could respond to Jack’s good news. (Now hold up handout #2.) In the box at the top of this page, you see many different phrases for showing that you are happy for your friend’s good news. Please choose…”

So today, instead of choppiness, I had smooth bridges between activities so as to make it feel like one long activity, not letting the students’ attention flag nor giving them a chance to start thinking about what’s for lunch.

After class, T and I sat down and she, once again, asked me, “So, how do you think it went?”

“Better,” I said. “My transitions were smoother and my directions were clearer.”

“I agree. And you delivered those directions at the right times, in the right order,” she said.

According to the coordinator (T’s boss), it’s not so much how well you do in your practicum that determines whether you pass or fail, but whether you receive feedback well and make progress over the five days. They care about whether you can self monitor and show improvement in your weak areas.

“What I noticed today that you did really, really well… you interact with the students rather than with your lesson plan.” She said that many practicum students get stuck in the sheets of paper in their hands, the script they’ve written for how the 90 minutes will flow, what will be covered…at the expense of flexibility and the ability to think on their feet when students throw them questions they are not prepared for.

T said she sees that I only use the lesson plan to keep myself on track, to pace the lesson and to ensure I don’t forget anything important. But that I am in communion with the students, able to catch curve balls, comfortable, confident, relaxed and able to depart from the lesson plan when that is what’s called for.

I am not reporting all of this to brag–I hope those of you who know me well know that much about me. I am reporting this to be just that–a reporter of my own experience (since this is my only diary), as well as your eyes in that classroom. A few of you have told me you are now considering getting this certificate.

Sylvain is pretty much beside himself because every time he calls these days, I sound so HAPPY.

“I’m in my element,” I tell him.

It feels like this is what I was born to do. It feels like I’m a fish that–after 20 years trying to breathe in the open air through gills that were not meant for air–has finally been tossed into water.

Teaching is damned hard work, and I thrive on challenge.  Teaching takes smarts, and I have a brain that has not ever, with the possible exception of university, been taxed to its capacity.

At the end of class today, one darling young woman from Iran came up to me and–through her precious broken English–told me that I am going to be a wonderful teacher in the future. “You are patient,” she said, “and you are kind.” It was all I could do not to get choked up right there on the spot, so dear were her words to me, and the way she was looking at me with her huge, dark brown eyes.

I no longer worry about anything. I no longer worry how long my savings will hold out or how soon after completion of part II I’ll be able to find a position in Windsor. I no longer worry whether I’ll be able to keep the condo or will have to figure out cheaper lodging for a while. I no longer worry about ANYTHING.

There is no longer anything to decide or think about. Oh, sure, I have to take care of the details like finding a room in Toronto for part II (October-November), worldly details like that.  But I no longer have to fret about “what if I don’t find work” and “what if” and “what if.”  I know those matters will take care of themselves.

All I need do is this, with all my heart.

Grace in Small Things – 131

• All the little ways my practicum mentor reveals that she really trusts me with her students.
• One of the student’s telling me this morning that she saw my picture in a magazine. She went home at lunch and came back with a copy of Iran Javan and opened it up to the centre spread of colour photos from the July 25 march. There I am with my “Iran: The World is Watching” sign. M kept saying, “you are famous.”
• This week’s Joy Rebel mission.  I totally believe in laughter for all the reasons Brandi brings to light. On day two of my practicum, in the afternoon when I was on my own with the class for 45 minutes, they got to giggling because at a certain point in the dialogue, everyone kept accidentally saying “what’s your name?” instead of “what’s your number?” I didn’t know why that was worthy of a giggle fit, but it was contagious nonetheless.
• Already I think of these students as “my” students. I want to take them home in my pockets… especially one older woman from China who is always happy and so very industrious!
• The warm conversations I have with my mentor on the sofa after she is done giving me pointers. Today we talked about the djembe lessons she goes to with her four-year-old.

PS, let’s all send healing energy in the direction of Suaad Haji Mohamud and hope whatever bug she picked up in that Kenyan jail leaves her body soon.

Grace in Small Things – 130

• Thanks to all the help I’ve gotten from my sweetie, I have all the teaching supplies I need on hand: printer, paper, scissors, tape, paper clips, stapler, markers, rubber bands. He even picked me up an exacto knife in case I needed it to cut out pictures from magazines.
• Eckhart Tolle‘s teachings. Today as I was painstakingly cutting out 20 cue cards for a role play and found myself wishing I had a clerk to do the scut work while I got on with brainstorming the next lesson plan, I recalled a Tolle lecture I once viewed on YouTube. He was describing being in a traffic jam. (Falsetto: “Oh, no! I’m here but I want to be there!) In my mind, I do this with half Tolle, half Mr. Bill voice.  I remembered that the present moment is precious. It’s all we have. I slowed down and got into the zen of cutting paper.
• The nice walk I took Friday into the Iranian neighbourhood (Teheranto, ha ha) near where I’m doing my practicum. I found gol-par (angelica powder) and dried rose petals that I’ve been needing for Persian dishes. The former of these ingredients was not available anywhere online nor from the spice shop on Queen that claims to have every spice known to man.
• Getting to use what tiny bit of Farsi I still remember.
• These words, which found me again last night while reading a chapter in Callings before going to sleep: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” –Jesus of Nazareth

Grace in Small Things – 129

• Raw almonds; I carry them with me everwhere I go and haven’t had any mood swing issues since I discovered their ability to even out blood sugar levels
• Being completely finished with one of next week’s three lesson plans and three afternoon activities, even if it took me a whole day to grind it out.
• The reference books I invested in a couple of weeks ago. They are coming in very handy now.
• Kind words
• Strangers who smile, nod, hold doors for others