Playing Catch Up

One of the main reasons I haven't posted on this blog in quite a while is that I recently--well, six weeks ago--started working at another ESL school, and while I'm grateful to have more hours, I am still figuring out the balance of work. Add some snow days with mandatory make-up classes, and the week feels pretty long, with not enough time to grade stuff on the weekend before the next week hits.

So I've been feeling overly stressed the last couple of weeks, which is annoying. But today, in the middle of lesson planning, it just occurred to me how one of my favorite things about teaching is the fact that I am constantly trying to improve myself as a teacher. I never feel bored of teaching, because if it's starting to feel boring, I can change the lesson plan by taking the students to museum, or watching a movie with them, or playing a game that gets them moving around the room.

Because I'm constantly trying to improve myself (and trying not to compare myself too harshly with my co-teachers at Columbia who has taught ESL for 30+ years), I sometimes feel inadequate or like I'm not up to the task. But I try to remind myself that I'm doing the best I can, and it takes years to become the kind of assured teacher that I look up to--people like my mother, who has written her own pronunciation book, and my co-teacher Frances, who was the editor of the NorthStar book series (only ESL teachers know what that is!).

So I guess I wrote this post to say 1. I'm still keeping a blog! and 2. I'm still figuring out this whole teaching thing, but I think I like it!

Also, on a completely different topic, I secretly wrote this whole post so that I could add a note at the bottom about how THE OSCARS are on tonight. While I realize the Oscars are pretty dumb and out of touch and waaay too long, they are still FUN for me to watch. AND I saw six of the 9 nominees (Her, Dallas Buyers Club, Wolf of Wall Street, Gravity, American Hustle, and 12 Years a Slave), and I think they were all good, so I'm glad some good movies are getting some recognition. Just too bad that Llewyn Davis didn't get nominated for Best Picture, and that Her will pretty much definitely not win. (It's my fave.)