Shaking Things Up

...It's a terrible title, I know. (At least I didn't make the Godzilla comment again.) But it encompasses the theme of this particular blog update. Namely, the earthquakes in Japan, and the more metaphorical way my life's been shaken up lately.

First of all, don't worry, I didn't even feel a tremor over here in Korea. All the earthquakes seem to be moving eastward, and since I'm west of Japan, no problems here so far. I'm donating some money to the relief fund like I did for Haiti, but I couldn't send one of those fancy texts. So, there's a Paypal option at www.globalgiving.org, and I've donated $10 there.

As for the metaphorical shaking, it's not a super big deal, but it's adding a bit of stress to my life right now. A couple weeks ago, my co-teacher Nana and I were told we'd be teaching morning Kindergarten classes. Brand new curriculum and materials, completely separate of the things we're teaching in Library Program or even the regular Global Star curriculum the other teachers are doing. We only just received those materials a few days ago, and due to being busy with my other classes, I hadn't had much time to look them over (and I forgot to take them home this weekend).

On top of that, this morning I got a text message saying that the classes would start an hour earlier than we were previously told, which means I'll have an hour less prep time than I thought on Monday morning. This means I'll have about thirty minutes to plan a brand new lesson for twelve kindergarten kids using materials I've never used before.

Not only that, but Monday is my busiest class prep day, making sure I have all of my materials ready for the week's classes, and this new class is going to cut into at least an hour of that prep time (the half hour of prep and the 30 minutes of class itself). So, needless to say, Monday is going to be an incredibly busy and stressful day for me. If we manage to get everything ready on time and the class goes off without a hitch, it should be fine, but that's going to take some serious ass-busting on our parts and a heaping helping of luck.

In other news...

It appears that people DO read this blog after all. Thanks to everyone who commented! It's nice to see some of the lurkers come out of the woodwork. ;)

Gus is doing well. I just got paid, so that meant Gus got fresh food, litter, and hay this weekend, which made him a very happy bunny. He's currently napping in his cage.

Here's a video:



I think I'm going to do a Q&A post next time. So, here's your chance!

ASK MARIA ABOUT KOREA!

Got a question you've been dying to ask me about Korea? Ask me a question before that never got answered? Well, here's your chance! Any questions I get in the comments here will be answered in next week's blog post. So you have until I start working on the new post to get those questions in!

That's it for now.

Bai bai,

-Maria