If I thought having a twitterpated, gushy, lovey-dovey sister was bad, having her be engaged is even worse.
Nathan came to pick Deborah up Saturday morning to go "hiking." Course he was dressed very nice, so Deborah decided to get dressed up also. Right as I left I said to mom, "He's going to propose. Nobody gets dressed up that much to go hiking." Later when I came back from running errands, Mom said Deborah had called and I was right. This is Saturday morning.
The date set is Dec 28th. I was planning to be home for Christmas, so this is not a problem. I actually kept getting on Deborah's case about it because I wanted to go visit cousin Alice in Shanghai, and I was waiting for a date so I could buy a ticket.
Here's the thing. Deborah is 26. She's a very immature 26. She has these ideas of how things are to happen. Mom and I were going to the store later and she was saying it was a wedding, not a fashion show or a beauty pageant.
Deborah and Mom have been on the phone since about noon continuously talking about the wedding to other people. Deborah had to call each of her bridesmaids (six nieces and a cousin) to ask them if they would be in her wedding. And then she had to call just about all other people on the planet she knew. The four colors people can wear are: Burgundy, Navy Blue, Mustard, and heather? I can tell you right now I'll need to look up what those last two even are. I think it's safe to say mustard is yellow, but is heather a green of some sort? Whatever.
And you'll never guess who the two biggest culprits are that are encouraging Deborah's drama, princess, it's-all-about-me-mindset. My two older sisters Julie and Sarah. They're talking already about dress colors, matching shoes, hairstyles, and planning a shower.
Awhile back, my friend Lucy and I made an observation between the two of us. We have come across people who are concerned with our love lives. These are people who try to get us to do online dating, make our wardrobe more fashionable, actually style our hair, etc. There's a trend we notice in all of them........................they all had pretty messed up marriages themselves.
So that helped me explain better why Julie and Sarah are so into wedding details right now. Their marriages are horrible. They have been a great example to me of what NOT to do when deciding to marry someone.
Let me clarify here in case my annoyance comes across as bitterness. It's not. I am not jealous of the fact Deborah is getting married. In fact I was telling mom this afternoon, as much as I like Nathan, I don't want to marry him. After seeing many great, functional marriages up close and personal, you just realize it's not all about the wedding.
I keep thinking of what mom and several other women I talk to say. They don't remember the decorations or the colors of their wedding day. They remember the stress and details of putting it all together.
I think of a line from one of my favorite books by Maria Shriver. "I'd wish I'd known in the grand scheme of things, a big expensive wedding is a silly waste of time, money, and angst."
Alright, now that I've gotten that off my chest, the rest of you can bemuse yourselves over it. FYI, I haven't told my family about this blog and I don't think I will. Wouldn't give me the freedom to vent about them.
On that note, I think I'll go search for a picture of bridezilla to show mom.
Saturday, August 27, 2016
End of Celta party!
Well, it finally happened! The class finally ended. It was bittersweet. In a way, I knew it would fly by. We were fortunate overall in that we did have a very nice group of classmates. We had arranged ahead of time that after class ended, Fergus and Lee (our two teachers) wanted to us to all go out to dinner afterwards. From the eleven students, six of us went. We were sitting outside enjoying the fun evening. After a couple of hours Lee and Fergus wanted to continue the party by going drinking.
Now remember, Fergus and Lee are from Europe (Ireland and Scotland), so I had no doubt they could hold their liquor well. See, they wanted to go someplace close to where they were staying so, if necessary, they could "stumble their way home." So we relocated to an area of San Diego called Hillcrest. Basically the equivalent of Broad Ripple in Indianapolis.
This is merely one of many occasions that I am grateful I do not drink alcohol. No need to worry about if I would be able to drive home or not. And then, have you ever been around people drinking where as the conversation gets more in depth, you start to wonder, would they be telling me this if they were sober? I'm not quite sure. Not to mention people definitely get more giddy as the drinks go down.
So I guess I'd better do some background info here. Our last day of class, I was the only one teaching. We had to choose a text we wanted to base our lesson on. I wanted to educate them about something American. I originally thought of the Gettysburg address, but Lee shot that down quickly. Said the english in there would be confusing and not very useful to the students. Okay, fine, I can accept that. So I went to plan B, Halloween.
I chose a simple text about Halloween describing what the holiday was and how it's celebrated in the United States. I then showed them a couple of youtube videos show kids bobbing for apples and trick or treating. Then I showed them some pictures of me dressing up the past several years. The last activity was they had to think up of a costume they wanted to dress up as and then go trick or treating. They "knocked" at my door and had to explain their costume to me so they could get some candy (which I had brought in).
The problem is, there were three guys there (who actually spoke English fairly well) that were refusing to participate. I was not going to let them get off easy, so I said if they were not going to come up with a costume, the rest of the class would come up with one for them. This one guy, Ali, I said, "Why don't we make him a fairy?" To this, I got a bunch of blank stares. So I said, "You know? Peter Pan? Tinkerbell?" More blank stares. Then this guy from Turkey, who looked up the word on his phone, says, "You mean a homosexual?" To which I said, "What dictionary are you looking at?"
Apparently it was urbandictionary.com, and I found out that day calling someone a "fairy" was another way of saying they were gay. I had never heard this in my life and when I asked Mom about it later she says she's known that for years. My classmates in the back were absolutely rolling with laughter. One of them said later what made it even more hilarious was it was blatantly obvious I had no idea about the alternative meaning of the word.
Back to the drinking scene. I got teased about that the rest of the night (the fairy story). Lee went on to tell me when he was having to grade me during lessons, it was difficult at times. He said he would be sitting there thinking in his head, "I don't know how that would work, but somehow with her personality, she is able to pull it off." Not quite sure what he meant by that.
Then he goes on to say (granted, this is after a few drinks), "Rachel, I can give you the most boring subject in the world and I know you would be able to make an interesting lesson out of it." So, is that a compliment? Not sure.
Either way, as the evening progressed, we covered all topics. Religion, relationships, politics, etc. I can honestly say I'm glad we did this after the course was done. If I had to go to class again on Monday, I'm just not sure I could look at my teachers the same way again.
I decided to head home once Lee's speech was getting slurred to where I couldn't understand him. European culture. It is what it is.
Next week and a half will be getting more preparations done to go. But in the meantime, I'm going to enjoy not worrying about school anymore.
Now remember, Fergus and Lee are from Europe (Ireland and Scotland), so I had no doubt they could hold their liquor well. See, they wanted to go someplace close to where they were staying so, if necessary, they could "stumble their way home." So we relocated to an area of San Diego called Hillcrest. Basically the equivalent of Broad Ripple in Indianapolis.
This is merely one of many occasions that I am grateful I do not drink alcohol. No need to worry about if I would be able to drive home or not. And then, have you ever been around people drinking where as the conversation gets more in depth, you start to wonder, would they be telling me this if they were sober? I'm not quite sure. Not to mention people definitely get more giddy as the drinks go down.
So I guess I'd better do some background info here. Our last day of class, I was the only one teaching. We had to choose a text we wanted to base our lesson on. I wanted to educate them about something American. I originally thought of the Gettysburg address, but Lee shot that down quickly. Said the english in there would be confusing and not very useful to the students. Okay, fine, I can accept that. So I went to plan B, Halloween.
I chose a simple text about Halloween describing what the holiday was and how it's celebrated in the United States. I then showed them a couple of youtube videos show kids bobbing for apples and trick or treating. Then I showed them some pictures of me dressing up the past several years. The last activity was they had to think up of a costume they wanted to dress up as and then go trick or treating. They "knocked" at my door and had to explain their costume to me so they could get some candy (which I had brought in).
The problem is, there were three guys there (who actually spoke English fairly well) that were refusing to participate. I was not going to let them get off easy, so I said if they were not going to come up with a costume, the rest of the class would come up with one for them. This one guy, Ali, I said, "Why don't we make him a fairy?" To this, I got a bunch of blank stares. So I said, "You know? Peter Pan? Tinkerbell?" More blank stares. Then this guy from Turkey, who looked up the word on his phone, says, "You mean a homosexual?" To which I said, "What dictionary are you looking at?"
Apparently it was urbandictionary.com, and I found out that day calling someone a "fairy" was another way of saying they were gay. I had never heard this in my life and when I asked Mom about it later she says she's known that for years. My classmates in the back were absolutely rolling with laughter. One of them said later what made it even more hilarious was it was blatantly obvious I had no idea about the alternative meaning of the word.
Back to the drinking scene. I got teased about that the rest of the night (the fairy story). Lee went on to tell me when he was having to grade me during lessons, it was difficult at times. He said he would be sitting there thinking in his head, "I don't know how that would work, but somehow with her personality, she is able to pull it off." Not quite sure what he meant by that.
Then he goes on to say (granted, this is after a few drinks), "Rachel, I can give you the most boring subject in the world and I know you would be able to make an interesting lesson out of it." So, is that a compliment? Not sure.
Either way, as the evening progressed, we covered all topics. Religion, relationships, politics, etc. I can honestly say I'm glad we did this after the course was done. If I had to go to class again on Monday, I'm just not sure I could look at my teachers the same way again.
I decided to head home once Lee's speech was getting slurred to where I couldn't understand him. European culture. It is what it is.
Next week and a half will be getting more preparations done to go. But in the meantime, I'm going to enjoy not worrying about school anymore.
Sasha, my english teacher friend from St. Petersburg, in front of Sea World
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Coincidence or freak of nature? Haven't decided
So I've kind of wondered sometimes as I embark upon this journey if this is really a good idea or not. I mean, in some ways, I'm going regardless. But some moments, I wonder if I'm making one of the biggest mistakes of my life. But then, every once in awhile something happens where it makes you wonder, "Is this a sign, or what?" So how about this.
So first, I have my living situation lined up. Staying with a girl named Mari and her sister. She is a lawyer that works for an NGO. I spoke with her on the phone last week and she sounds so sweet and nice. She actually is arranging a taxi ride home for me from the airport. Which is good because I am arriving at 12:20 am in the morning and have no clue how to get around Lima.
Second, my mom comes home last week and says she ran into a woman at the temple who is in my aunts ward. They were talking a bit, and my mom mentions I'm heading to Peru, and the woman is from Lima. Her name is Marlett. Marlett gives mom her phone number and tells Mom I need to call her. So I do Sunday night and we have a very nice conversation. THEN she asks where I'm living and I say, "Miraflores" and she says, "Oh the bishop of Miraflores is a personal friend of ours. He's actually stayed here in our house with us."
So tonight I get an e-mail from him basically saying he's awaiting for me to arrive.
I don't think I'll ever quite get used to these freak of nature things happening to me. I strongly suspect there's some guidance by God/listening to the spirit phenomenon going on or something. Not sure.
Tomorrow is my last day of class. After that I'll be hanging around for a week to get things done and wait for Cousin Kevin's wedding, which is Labor Day weekend. After that, the real adventure begins. Speaking of which, I need to talk to mom about a ride to the airport.
So first, I have my living situation lined up. Staying with a girl named Mari and her sister. She is a lawyer that works for an NGO. I spoke with her on the phone last week and she sounds so sweet and nice. She actually is arranging a taxi ride home for me from the airport. Which is good because I am arriving at 12:20 am in the morning and have no clue how to get around Lima.
Second, my mom comes home last week and says she ran into a woman at the temple who is in my aunts ward. They were talking a bit, and my mom mentions I'm heading to Peru, and the woman is from Lima. Her name is Marlett. Marlett gives mom her phone number and tells Mom I need to call her. So I do Sunday night and we have a very nice conversation. THEN she asks where I'm living and I say, "Miraflores" and she says, "Oh the bishop of Miraflores is a personal friend of ours. He's actually stayed here in our house with us."
So tonight I get an e-mail from him basically saying he's awaiting for me to arrive.
I don't think I'll ever quite get used to these freak of nature things happening to me. I strongly suspect there's some guidance by God/listening to the spirit phenomenon going on or something. Not sure.
Tomorrow is my last day of class. After that I'll be hanging around for a week to get things done and wait for Cousin Kevin's wedding, which is Labor Day weekend. After that, the real adventure begins. Speaking of which, I need to talk to mom about a ride to the airport.
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Last week of school and a twitter pated sister
Last week of school, and in some ways my classmates and myself are looking forward to it, at the same time fearful of it. What will we do once the class is over with? This has become practically our entire life for the past three weeks. We've forgotten how to do anything else.
Okay, so maybe it's not that bad. As one of my classmates said though, "I'll be looking forward to having my normal life back once again." And I will be looking forward to not having to fight traffic everyday. Blech!
Back in late spring, my little sister Deborah told me about a boy she had started dating named Nathan. I spoke with him on the phone once and he sounded like a really nice kid. Well, after being home for three weeks and seeing him on more than one occasion, I'd have to say I'd gladly trade my sister in for him.
Deborah and him are "engaged to be engaged." She's already got the date picked (Thanksgiving weekend) and is looking for places to hold a wedding and checking out wedding dresses. I think my brother Matthew said it best, "Can we at least have an engagement ring and proposal before we start doing all this?"
The thing is, while I think Nathan is a great match and nice kid, Deborah is so obnoxious about it! He'll be over and she'll say, "Does he have nice biceps?" "Isn't he handsome?" "He's just amazing." They have to FaceTime each other EVERY NIGHT they are not together. I won't forget when I met up with Mom, Dad, and her in Dallas for Cousin Paul's wedding a few weeks ago, she walks off the plane and says, "We need to text Nathan." To which I said, "Did you struggle with the few hours you were unable to communicate with him?" And she affirmed she did.
She's just so gaga and gushing, which, as many of you know, I'm not. The other day she drove up to LAX to pick him and his family up from the airport. But she couldn't just pick him up. She had to make stuff for them to have in their fridge for when they got home. The next day Nathan was saying how thoughtful she was because she cleaned the house and vacuumed it and everything. To which I said, "Great. Now can you get her to start doing that here at home."
My big grievances with Deborah are that she doesn't tell Mom and I when crowds of her immature silly twenty something friends are coming over, and she doesn't do her dishes. Deborah is 11 years younger than me physically, and I would say 20 years younger mentally.
What's that expression? Once the baby, always the baby. So true. The irony is Mom practically asked her and her friend Maria to come live with them because she didn't want to have only dad for company.
All I have to say is if this wedding does take place in November, I am SO glad I will not be around for the preparations. She's already driving mom crazy. And I'm annoyed at her also because she's not asking me to be a bridesmaid. Our conversation went as follows:
Me: "What is this you're not asking me to be a bridesmaid?"
Deborah: "Do you want to be a bridesmaid?"
Me: "No I don't, but you didn't give me a chance to turn down the offer."
Okay, so maybe it's not that bad. As one of my classmates said though, "I'll be looking forward to having my normal life back once again." And I will be looking forward to not having to fight traffic everyday. Blech!
Back in late spring, my little sister Deborah told me about a boy she had started dating named Nathan. I spoke with him on the phone once and he sounded like a really nice kid. Well, after being home for three weeks and seeing him on more than one occasion, I'd have to say I'd gladly trade my sister in for him.
Deborah and him are "engaged to be engaged." She's already got the date picked (Thanksgiving weekend) and is looking for places to hold a wedding and checking out wedding dresses. I think my brother Matthew said it best, "Can we at least have an engagement ring and proposal before we start doing all this?"
The thing is, while I think Nathan is a great match and nice kid, Deborah is so obnoxious about it! He'll be over and she'll say, "Does he have nice biceps?" "Isn't he handsome?" "He's just amazing." They have to FaceTime each other EVERY NIGHT they are not together. I won't forget when I met up with Mom, Dad, and her in Dallas for Cousin Paul's wedding a few weeks ago, she walks off the plane and says, "We need to text Nathan." To which I said, "Did you struggle with the few hours you were unable to communicate with him?" And she affirmed she did.
She's just so gaga and gushing, which, as many of you know, I'm not. The other day she drove up to LAX to pick him and his family up from the airport. But she couldn't just pick him up. She had to make stuff for them to have in their fridge for when they got home. The next day Nathan was saying how thoughtful she was because she cleaned the house and vacuumed it and everything. To which I said, "Great. Now can you get her to start doing that here at home."
My big grievances with Deborah are that she doesn't tell Mom and I when crowds of her immature silly twenty something friends are coming over, and she doesn't do her dishes. Deborah is 11 years younger than me physically, and I would say 20 years younger mentally.
What's that expression? Once the baby, always the baby. So true. The irony is Mom practically asked her and her friend Maria to come live with them because she didn't want to have only dad for company.
All I have to say is if this wedding does take place in November, I am SO glad I will not be around for the preparations. She's already driving mom crazy. And I'm annoyed at her also because she's not asking me to be a bridesmaid. Our conversation went as follows:
Me: "What is this you're not asking me to be a bridesmaid?"
Deborah: "Do you want to be a bridesmaid?"
Me: "No I don't, but you didn't give me a chance to turn down the offer."
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Fergus and Lee
My classmates and I are fortunate to have two very experience teachers with us this session. Fergus is from Ireland and at 6 ft 7 in he is one of the sweetest beanpoles you will ever meet. I don't know how much more Irish you can get with a name like Fergus Fadden. He originally went to school to study to be a lawyer and worked in corporate law for two years. One day (I have yet to ask him the story) he decided to switch and left the country to go teach English all over the world. I know so far he lived in Spain for two years, most recently was in Brazil for four, and currently is in Novia Scotia. He is the youngest of a family of eight. Like my little sister Deborah, he was a caboose in his family as there is a seven year age gap between him and his other 7 siblings. He pretty close with them all though as he tells us all the time he spoke with one brother one day and another sibling the next. In fact, our vocab lesson this morning was about odd terms his father had for things around the house. I can understand why his dad calls the remote control the "clicker," but as to why in the world he calls the microwave the "shlammer" is beyond me. I told Fergus we had a term in English for "slammer" to which he then informs me his dad was a cop. Not sure if there was meant to be any correlation.
Lee on the other hand is British. It is really hard to tell when he's trying to be funny and when he's not. We did find out he is married, his wife is pregnant and they are expecting in December. One of our sessions was suggesting ideas for names. He didn't like any of the Hungarian ones I recommended. I guess his wife and him currently reside in Venezuela. He has been through 63 countries.
These two have been involved in the world of English as a Second Language teaching for years. They've made careers out of it. From what I can gather, it sounds a little like a vagabond sort of life style. They both have come to San Diego to teach this class, and of course, to explore. Just this past weekend they took off to go to the Grand Canyon. I thought they were brave because we were having a hot weekend in Escondido. What the temperature was in Arizona, I don't want to know.
Overall they've been great. Believe it or not though I've somehow become the class clown of the group. Nobody seems to crack jokes or make others laugh as often as I do. Just the other day Fergus was laughing at something I did. After teaching a lesson I had to put on my self reflection sheet what I had learned from the lesson. My response was, "Grammar is painful." Well, I really think it is. To Learn AND to teach.
I took Sasha and JayJay to La Jolla Cove Friday night. Out on the rocks there were seals all over the place. We could walk right up to them and they didn't flinch at all. They were so used to humans. I even saw a baby one curled up with it's mom. Sasha says so far that has been her favorite part of her trip.
She came over for dinner on Sunday also. Deborah was having some people over and cooking, so I though she could get an in-depth look to how things are done in the USA. When you're away from home for a time period, it's always nice to be in a cozy home that's stable.
Life plods on at home. This past Sunday I reflected on the time periods when I actually enjoyed going to church and felt I got something out of it instead of feeling obligated to go and dreading it. We picked up Martha once again who was wearing her helmet, hot pink tight leggings, and a white t-shirt that said San Diego on it.
I guess she's okay making a continual fashion statement.
Lee on the other hand is British. It is really hard to tell when he's trying to be funny and when he's not. We did find out he is married, his wife is pregnant and they are expecting in December. One of our sessions was suggesting ideas for names. He didn't like any of the Hungarian ones I recommended. I guess his wife and him currently reside in Venezuela. He has been through 63 countries.
These two have been involved in the world of English as a Second Language teaching for years. They've made careers out of it. From what I can gather, it sounds a little like a vagabond sort of life style. They both have come to San Diego to teach this class, and of course, to explore. Just this past weekend they took off to go to the Grand Canyon. I thought they were brave because we were having a hot weekend in Escondido. What the temperature was in Arizona, I don't want to know.
Overall they've been great. Believe it or not though I've somehow become the class clown of the group. Nobody seems to crack jokes or make others laugh as often as I do. Just the other day Fergus was laughing at something I did. After teaching a lesson I had to put on my self reflection sheet what I had learned from the lesson. My response was, "Grammar is painful." Well, I really think it is. To Learn AND to teach.
I took Sasha and JayJay to La Jolla Cove Friday night. Out on the rocks there were seals all over the place. We could walk right up to them and they didn't flinch at all. They were so used to humans. I even saw a baby one curled up with it's mom. Sasha says so far that has been her favorite part of her trip.
She came over for dinner on Sunday also. Deborah was having some people over and cooking, so I though she could get an in-depth look to how things are done in the USA. When you're away from home for a time period, it's always nice to be in a cozy home that's stable.
Life plods on at home. This past Sunday I reflected on the time periods when I actually enjoyed going to church and felt I got something out of it instead of feeling obligated to go and dreading it. We picked up Martha once again who was wearing her helmet, hot pink tight leggings, and a white t-shirt that said San Diego on it.
I guess she's okay making a continual fashion statement.
Saturday, August 13, 2016
CELTA training and life at home
Needless to say, it has been a busy past two weeks. I
started a class in downtown San Diego called CELTA training. It stands for
Certification of English Language Training for Adults. It’s a program through
Cambridge University in England. The career of English language training is
huge throughout the world. It looks like after awhile somebody noticed that
there’s a bunch of teachers out there doing all this English language teaching who had no clue what they were doing.
So Cambridge
University collected a whole bunch of research, and came up with this course called
the CELTA. There’s other forms of English language training certification, such
as a TESOL (Teaching of English as a Second Language) or a TOEFL (Teaching of
English as a Foreign Language), but they are a couple of weeks, and can be done
on-line. The CELTA is considered to be top notch and what makes it really
valuable is it requires you to teach. The course involves teaching eight
lessons to English Language learners on areas of vocab, grammar, Language
Function, reading, and listening. Kind of a crash course in how to be a teacher.
The course is held in downtown San Diego, so lucky me, I get to fight traffic everyday. Actually, San Diego traffic is not that bad. At least it moves. There were times in Washington D.C. it didn't.
The class could only have up to 12 people, and we have only eleven. I had thought earlier that there would be some international participants there, and sure enough, I was right. There are only three people from the class who are actually from San Diego. For many others, this was just a nice vacation spot to stop. We spend easily 9 hours a day with each other, so my classmates and I know each other well. It's been only two weeks, and there's two more to go. Here they are:
Forge-a guy in his 40's who grew up in San Diego. He graduated from San Diego State University in civil engineering (and he also started out his college career at UC Davis, my old stomping grounds!) decided he hated it, and somehow got involved in English language teaching. He has been living in Saudi Arabia for the past 20 years. Is married, and has four kids. I thought he was possibly a Mennonite when I first met him because of his long beard, but then he told me he lets it grown out because of living in the Middle East. He is nice, but that engineering personality of his has not gone away. Sometimes when we're working on some linguistic concept, Forge just has to beat the concept TO DEATH! Covering EVERY, POSSIBLE detail. It is downright annoying sometimes. His last name is actually Hammerman. I think his parents sound a little odd personally. Especially one day in class he told us his dad wanted to name his younger brother Jack. Fortunately his mom stepped in and said no.
Malachi-a native of Compton near LA. He is in his 40's. He had a degree in early childhood education and always had a lifelong goal to learn Arabic and got an opportunity to go over and teach English in Saudi Arabia also. A company there gave him a very lucrative offer, and with that he moved his family over. They've been there 16 years, he has five kids, and they absolutely love it.
Ibriham-in his late 20's and early 30's. He grew up here in the US, but has been studying the past 4 years in the Middle East. I'm guessing he has a family background there. The guy is super tall.
Adam-in his 40's, has a Master's degree in something. Lives here in San Diego. He teaches writing at a for profit school called National University. Says he would like to go abroad, but doesn't know when.
Alex-short for Alexandra. She is 20 and from Colorado. Wants to go abroad. Came to San Diego because her brother is out here in the Navy right now. Not sure when she'll go. She currently works in retail back at home. Talks about being a Colorado country girl quite a bit.
Asha-I would say she's in her 50's. The sweetest, nicest, most helpful woman ever. I think she used to live in San Diego for awhile and then moved to Wisconsin where she works for a branch of Kaplan University out there. She is hoping to have more opportunity at work to teach English as a second language to international students they have at the school.
Yoshi-an English teacher from Japan in his late 40's, possibly early 50's. He says he teaches english to middle school and high school students. I asked him why he came to San Diego and he said he had always wanted to learn how to teach English in English. You take your geeky Japanese overachiever who is all work, study, and booksmart, that is him. Sweetest guy ever, but his lesson plans are like 10 pages long versus mine is about a page and half (barely).
Jayjay-I would guess in his early 30's, late 20's. Is originally from Algeria. He set out to teach English as a second language and ended up in Russia. He said quality of life is so much better there, he decided to stay and currently has no other plans to go anywhere else.
Angelica-looks to be in her mid to late 20's and in my opinion, is nothing short of a spoiled brat. Supposedly right now she is an English teacher in Monterey, California. She doesn't hesitate to let the class know she speaks five languages (supposedly), comes to class with make up on, and wears expensive clothes. She is very vocal about she's a Seventh Day Adventist, hence she can't do ANYTHING on Saturday's (okay, I get trying to keep the Sabbath Day Holy), she's divorced (shocker), she used to be a model before she became a teacher, and she supposedly already has a job offer in the works to go to Switzerland. Anybody who's eyebrows are plucked as meticulously as hers I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get along with very well. There's been no animosity between us, but I've worked on keeping my distance from her.
Sasha-sweet, quiet, timid English teacher from St. Petersburg, Russia. Works for the same school Jayjay works at. Apparently Jayjay spoke to the director there that he was going to San Diego to do this class and they decided one of their other teachers should go with him. There was a contest done at the school for an all expense paid trip to come to San Diego and take the course. Sasha won, and as she told me later, she never thought she would. She has a 5 year old daughter at home that she misses. I've been nice and taken Jayjay and her around to see that city. As a result, we have become good friends. Sunday I hope to have her up for dinner to experience some authentic American food and American Apple pie.
My teachers are worthy of another post, so I'll save them for another time.
Life and home though trudges on. In the morning, Mom, Deborah, and myself are off to our respective places. Dad is home while his caretaker comes. I usually leave home a little after 7 and get back around 6 pm. After that I usually have some coursework to do. Mom has been good about not expecting too much from me. Except for the fact that she NEVER makes dinner. Ever! If Deborah or I don't make it, I don't know what they would eat. Seriously, there's been plenty of nights we don't eat dinner till 7 or 8 pm. Oh well, benefits are I don't have to do the dishes. I have two more weeks to go of this course and it has flown. There have been some perks such as I went to go help Mom out in the temple last night. She works there every Thursday and has become the initiatory queen (as she calls it). She's didn't tell me that for the past five years, almost all the names they've had in the initiatories have been Hungarian. The temple staff were happy I knew how to say them and I left them a little pronunciation guide as a future reference.
I will tell you though, the honeymoon is over. Those little irritants about being home are starting to get to me. So in another month, I'm pretty sure I'll be ready to leave.
The course is held in downtown San Diego, so lucky me, I get to fight traffic everyday. Actually, San Diego traffic is not that bad. At least it moves. There were times in Washington D.C. it didn't.
The class could only have up to 12 people, and we have only eleven. I had thought earlier that there would be some international participants there, and sure enough, I was right. There are only three people from the class who are actually from San Diego. For many others, this was just a nice vacation spot to stop. We spend easily 9 hours a day with each other, so my classmates and I know each other well. It's been only two weeks, and there's two more to go. Here they are:
Forge-a guy in his 40's who grew up in San Diego. He graduated from San Diego State University in civil engineering (and he also started out his college career at UC Davis, my old stomping grounds!) decided he hated it, and somehow got involved in English language teaching. He has been living in Saudi Arabia for the past 20 years. Is married, and has four kids. I thought he was possibly a Mennonite when I first met him because of his long beard, but then he told me he lets it grown out because of living in the Middle East. He is nice, but that engineering personality of his has not gone away. Sometimes when we're working on some linguistic concept, Forge just has to beat the concept TO DEATH! Covering EVERY, POSSIBLE detail. It is downright annoying sometimes. His last name is actually Hammerman. I think his parents sound a little odd personally. Especially one day in class he told us his dad wanted to name his younger brother Jack. Fortunately his mom stepped in and said no.
Malachi-a native of Compton near LA. He is in his 40's. He had a degree in early childhood education and always had a lifelong goal to learn Arabic and got an opportunity to go over and teach English in Saudi Arabia also. A company there gave him a very lucrative offer, and with that he moved his family over. They've been there 16 years, he has five kids, and they absolutely love it.
Ibriham-in his late 20's and early 30's. He grew up here in the US, but has been studying the past 4 years in the Middle East. I'm guessing he has a family background there. The guy is super tall.
Adam-in his 40's, has a Master's degree in something. Lives here in San Diego. He teaches writing at a for profit school called National University. Says he would like to go abroad, but doesn't know when.
Alex-short for Alexandra. She is 20 and from Colorado. Wants to go abroad. Came to San Diego because her brother is out here in the Navy right now. Not sure when she'll go. She currently works in retail back at home. Talks about being a Colorado country girl quite a bit.
Asha-I would say she's in her 50's. The sweetest, nicest, most helpful woman ever. I think she used to live in San Diego for awhile and then moved to Wisconsin where she works for a branch of Kaplan University out there. She is hoping to have more opportunity at work to teach English as a second language to international students they have at the school.
Yoshi-an English teacher from Japan in his late 40's, possibly early 50's. He says he teaches english to middle school and high school students. I asked him why he came to San Diego and he said he had always wanted to learn how to teach English in English. You take your geeky Japanese overachiever who is all work, study, and booksmart, that is him. Sweetest guy ever, but his lesson plans are like 10 pages long versus mine is about a page and half (barely).
Jayjay-I would guess in his early 30's, late 20's. Is originally from Algeria. He set out to teach English as a second language and ended up in Russia. He said quality of life is so much better there, he decided to stay and currently has no other plans to go anywhere else.
Angelica-looks to be in her mid to late 20's and in my opinion, is nothing short of a spoiled brat. Supposedly right now she is an English teacher in Monterey, California. She doesn't hesitate to let the class know she speaks five languages (supposedly), comes to class with make up on, and wears expensive clothes. She is very vocal about she's a Seventh Day Adventist, hence she can't do ANYTHING on Saturday's (okay, I get trying to keep the Sabbath Day Holy), she's divorced (shocker), she used to be a model before she became a teacher, and she supposedly already has a job offer in the works to go to Switzerland. Anybody who's eyebrows are plucked as meticulously as hers I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get along with very well. There's been no animosity between us, but I've worked on keeping my distance from her.
Sasha-sweet, quiet, timid English teacher from St. Petersburg, Russia. Works for the same school Jayjay works at. Apparently Jayjay spoke to the director there that he was going to San Diego to do this class and they decided one of their other teachers should go with him. There was a contest done at the school for an all expense paid trip to come to San Diego and take the course. Sasha won, and as she told me later, she never thought she would. She has a 5 year old daughter at home that she misses. I've been nice and taken Jayjay and her around to see that city. As a result, we have become good friends. Sunday I hope to have her up for dinner to experience some authentic American food and American Apple pie.
My teachers are worthy of another post, so I'll save them for another time.
Life and home though trudges on. In the morning, Mom, Deborah, and myself are off to our respective places. Dad is home while his caretaker comes. I usually leave home a little after 7 and get back around 6 pm. After that I usually have some coursework to do. Mom has been good about not expecting too much from me. Except for the fact that she NEVER makes dinner. Ever! If Deborah or I don't make it, I don't know what they would eat. Seriously, there's been plenty of nights we don't eat dinner till 7 or 8 pm. Oh well, benefits are I don't have to do the dishes. I have two more weeks to go of this course and it has flown. There have been some perks such as I went to go help Mom out in the temple last night. She works there every Thursday and has become the initiatory queen (as she calls it). She's didn't tell me that for the past five years, almost all the names they've had in the initiatories have been Hungarian. The temple staff were happy I knew how to say them and I left them a little pronunciation guide as a future reference.
I will tell you though, the honeymoon is over. Those little irritants about being home are starting to get to me. So in another month, I'm pretty sure I'll be ready to leave.
Monday, August 1, 2016
Tinfoil chair
Sunday evening mom decided to head up to Auntie Jeri's house in Valley Center. For most of my younger years, Auntie Jeri had eight kids with her first husband. Summer after eighth grade she married Uncle Karl and had two more. With our mom's being close friends, us kids got to see each other quite a bit growing up and still do. In fact, Cousin Nathan, whose house I was at in Utah, is the youngest of the original group of eight.
I walked into her house to see a really nice sofa chair covered in tinfoil. Yes, you read that right. Course, being our family I didn't think too much of it, but I did inquire before I left.
Okay, first you need to know Auntie Jeri over the last decade has become a self admitting "Crazy Cat Lady." They currently have five. Now granted, Uncle Karl has a good size orange grove on the property, so I'm sure if there's any mice issues, the cats are taking care of it. They definitely have plenty of room to run around on.
We spent a pleasant evening having dessert, talking of how everyone was doing. Mom and Auntie Jeri retired to her bedroom to talk genealogy, Deborah and I facetimed with Cousin Alice who is in Shang-hai right now.
Right as we were leaving though I asked Auntie Jeri about the foil covered chair and she said she sat in it to get special transmissions from aliens that giver her secret coded messages telepathically. Now if this had been Cousin Charles (Cousin Glenn's brother) that wouldn't have surprised me at all and there would have been a small possibility he was being serious. (Even his own brother and sister think he is a strange bird.) Cousin Charles is his own post alone, so I might mention him later.
Being Auntie Jeri though, I knew there had to be another reason. Auntie Jeri said that she had had several pieces of furniture ruined by the cats and she read somewhere cats hate tinfoil. So she decided to try this out of covering the chair with tinfoil and she's finding it works! The cats are leaving it alone. I figured this was picture worthy so I had cousin Emily take a few pictures to show off the chair and my new haircut.
This is to show off my new haircut
Cousin Emily sporting her style of furs
Yes, you are seeing that picture right. That is a real live cat hanging around her shoulders. I asked her the cat's name and she said, "sheep." I said why not "socks" with the white markings on it's feet? Emily said there's that picture we see often in our church of Jesus carrying a sheep around his neck and shoulders. They figures since the cat likes to hang out up there, that's what they would name it.
So if you ever wonder sometimes how I came to be the character/entertaining person you all think I am, look at who I am related to and that should explain a lot.
Church back at home
If there is one thing I was not looking forward to back at home, it was my parent's home ward. Something happened my last few years of high school where it got full of strange people, and hasn't really gotten a whole lot better since.
I remember my friend Alysia who was forced to move from Indy said she had a really hard time adjusting to the Utah ward her in-laws were in. She said it wasn't Carmel. Well, I kept thinking to myself this past Sunday, "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."
Let's start out with Mom and I picking up a woman called Martha. She is a special needs sort of person. We're not sure what sort of mental illness she has, but she definitely has one. Mom, being the kind person she is, will give her rides places, but I wonder sometimes why she does. I guess for a few months she lived in a trailer at the bottom of my mom's property and absolutely drove her crazy.
We picked Martha up who was easily walking distance from the church building. She has to be easily in her 40's and 50's. She was wearing a bright blue shirt, hot pink tight legging pants, bright orange sneakers, and a helmet. Yes, you read that last part right. I guess she has epilepsy and wears the helmet in case she has an attack. Like, she went to Sacrament meeting wearing that outfit.
Sacrament meeting started out with the blessing of several children. I'm used to baby blessings, but these were not babies. I guess there was a single mom who had been inactive for awhile and recently started coming back with her mother. They wanted their children blessed. They did it just as a baby blessing would have been done, except the kids were about 4, 6, and 7 years old. Kind of different.
Second, right before the passing of the Sacrament, the bishopric got up to remind everyone the Sacrament was a time to reflect on Christ and his sacrifice and could all members of the ward refrain from using any mobile devices during that time?
Gospel Doctrine was taught by a former Bishop of mine. In fact, it was the guy who baptized me when I was eight. There was a woman I saw in Sacrament who came into Gospel Doctrine. She fascinated me. She was older and was wearing a dark pink skirt, half red/half white sweater vest, black hat with a zebra print ribbon that had red/white/blue flowers off to the side, and was also carrying a black umbrella. Mom said she is crazy. I guess when she's not at church, the rest of the week she walks around town carrying a suitcase. Odd as she may be, she is a beautiful piano player. She played a pretty arrangement for Gospel Doctrine.
In a way, I wasn't shocked at seeing this type of stuff in Mom's ward. But it did make me a little homesick for the normalcy and vibrancy of Carmel back in Indiana. Oh well, at least I could sit back, and enjoy because I had no calling right now and was not worried about having to do anything for the next month!
Then Mom ran into the Primary President as we were leaving church and mentioned to her I would happy to sub for the next month.
I should have known it wasn't going to last very long. Sigh.
I remember my friend Alysia who was forced to move from Indy said she had a really hard time adjusting to the Utah ward her in-laws were in. She said it wasn't Carmel. Well, I kept thinking to myself this past Sunday, "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."
Let's start out with Mom and I picking up a woman called Martha. She is a special needs sort of person. We're not sure what sort of mental illness she has, but she definitely has one. Mom, being the kind person she is, will give her rides places, but I wonder sometimes why she does. I guess for a few months she lived in a trailer at the bottom of my mom's property and absolutely drove her crazy.
We picked Martha up who was easily walking distance from the church building. She has to be easily in her 40's and 50's. She was wearing a bright blue shirt, hot pink tight legging pants, bright orange sneakers, and a helmet. Yes, you read that last part right. I guess she has epilepsy and wears the helmet in case she has an attack. Like, she went to Sacrament meeting wearing that outfit.
Sacrament meeting started out with the blessing of several children. I'm used to baby blessings, but these were not babies. I guess there was a single mom who had been inactive for awhile and recently started coming back with her mother. They wanted their children blessed. They did it just as a baby blessing would have been done, except the kids were about 4, 6, and 7 years old. Kind of different.
Second, right before the passing of the Sacrament, the bishopric got up to remind everyone the Sacrament was a time to reflect on Christ and his sacrifice and could all members of the ward refrain from using any mobile devices during that time?
Gospel Doctrine was taught by a former Bishop of mine. In fact, it was the guy who baptized me when I was eight. There was a woman I saw in Sacrament who came into Gospel Doctrine. She fascinated me. She was older and was wearing a dark pink skirt, half red/half white sweater vest, black hat with a zebra print ribbon that had red/white/blue flowers off to the side, and was also carrying a black umbrella. Mom said she is crazy. I guess when she's not at church, the rest of the week she walks around town carrying a suitcase. Odd as she may be, she is a beautiful piano player. She played a pretty arrangement for Gospel Doctrine.
In a way, I wasn't shocked at seeing this type of stuff in Mom's ward. But it did make me a little homesick for the normalcy and vibrancy of Carmel back in Indiana. Oh well, at least I could sit back, and enjoy because I had no calling right now and was not worried about having to do anything for the next month!
Then Mom ran into the Primary President as we were leaving church and mentioned to her I would happy to sub for the next month.
I should have known it wasn't going to last very long. Sigh.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)