So it's been a while since I wrote anything of substance or otherwise, so I thought I just might add in a couple of the more fascinating stories that transpired over the past week.
1) Last Monday I randomly decided to go home in the middle of my long school day. On Mondays I teach 4 90 minute classes which means a lot of time spent prepping and trying to get students to talk. In the middle of this mayhem I have a 4 1/2 hour break. Usually I spend that time working on lesson plans, eating lunch, wandering randomly around town and browsing the internet. However, after arriving at school I realized I'd forgotten to bring some pictures that I was going to use for my second evening class. In order to remedy this situation, I decided to walk home after lunch, and maybe even spend a few minutes sitting on a couch rather than a stiff office chair.
It takes about 20 to 25 minutes to walk back to our flat in Skalka, and I enjoyed the extra exercise, even if it meant I didn't have much time to do anything in between. I was just heading down a very steep hill when suddenly I heard the most obnoxious racket. A small dog, maybe 8 inches tall, was yipping wildly at my ankles and the scarf that was fluttering down around my knees. I shouted at it, but to no avail. The drop kick dog continued to bark and bare it's teeth and make threatening jumping movements at me.
Someone had parked on the hill above me and honked at the dog, which brought it momentarily back to it's senses. I continued down the hill, only to have it yipping around my ankles once again a few moments later. Eventually it did concede and back off, but I was less than impressed with it's desire to disturb my afternoon stroll, and I opted to walk back to school along the river so as not to come across it again.
2.) And now the story of Sunday...So Tammy was away for the weekend and Naomi and I decided we would try out a different church. We've really been enjoying the church we've been attending, but since Tammy was with the youth group, and the youth group members are the ones who translate for us, we decided to see if we could find someplace else instead.
Naomi had written out directions, and decided we should leave extra early, just to make sure we could find it. We had no trouble finding the place and were there about fifteen minutes prior to when the service was supposed to start. The church is held in an old folks home, and we went inside only to discover that the door was still locked. Naomi, wanting to keep on the positive side of things, decided we should sit on the bench and enjoy the beautiful paper fall leaves on the windows and the cleanliness of the room that she felt looked like a post office.
As 9:30 came and went, we began to really be concerned about being in the wrong place. Naomi decided to be brave and went looking around, but we were at the only entrance and there was clearly no one there. I said that if they didn't come soon I was ready to leave. At 9:45 she decided we might as well just give up. I wasn't feeling well, but I had lessons to plan, and figured I was only likely to feel worse the next day so I might as well go to the office and get as much done as possible.
I was surprised to find Andrea, one of our other teachers, in the office working on her lessons as well. I proceeded to go over things and then went to the computer to type up a few vocab exercises. I glanced at the clock and was surprised to see that the time was wrong. I'd just recently managed to change the clock (which had previously been about 15 minutes fast) and was frustrated to see that it was now an hour slow!
Clicking on the clock, and making sure I'd read my watch correctly I was about to change it when a thought struck me...D'oh! I felt like a total idiot! I hurriedly tried to call Naomi to let her know of our pathetic error, but she didn't answer her phone. In the end, I decided I really ought to tell Andrea the story, just so I could share it with someone. She found it uproariously funny and couldn't seem to stop laughing. She would stop for a moment or two and then start laughing again. At least I managed to make someone's day :)
Once my lessons were planned I was happy to head back to the house, where I pretty much didn't move for the rest of the day. I watched The Bourne Identity with Naomi, ate our chocolate chip (aka chopped up Milka) cookies, and then proceeded to watch a documentary about the Huns and the Vandals destroying the Roman empire. It was really quite fascinating to see how much the Catholic church has had a hand in the writing of history. Makes me think of The People's History by Howard Zinn. Ah Sophomore history.
Well, my head is all clogged and fuzzy so I'd best end it here before random nostalgia gets the best of me.
As a fellow teacher of our wonderful and beauteous English language, I feel compelled to point out the following:
ReplyDeleteSpelling and grammar
The official spelling is Daylight Saving Time, not Daylight SavingS Time.
Saving is used here as a verbal adjective (a participle). It modifies time and tells us more about its nature; namely, that it is characterized by the activity of saving daylight. It is a saving daylight kind of time. Because of this, it would be more accurate to refer to DST as daylight-saving time. Similar examples would be a mind-expanding book or a man-eating tiger. Saving is used in the same way as saving a ball game, rather than as a savings account.
Nevertheless, many people feel the word savings (with an 's') flows more mellifluously off the tongue. Daylight Savings Time is also in common usage, and can be found in dictionaries.
Adding to the confusion is that the phrase Daylight Saving Time is inaccurate, since no daylight is actually saved. Daylight Shifting Time would be better, but it is not as politically desirable.