Now Blooming...

Evening Primroses, aka Sundrops.

The bees are very pleased.

Semester's End

Well, here I am at the end of another school year. It's amazing how quickly they go by. I get so wrapped up in the day-to-day lesson planning and teaching that it's easy to lose sight of the calendar pages turning. It's been a rough year in some ways... uncertainty about continued funding for my job was a constant stress, juggling a large, multi-level class stretched my classroom management skills, and as always there were one or two problem students that made me want to rip out my hair. But it's been an excellent year in other ways. I've seen enormous progress with so many learners, attendance rates and test scores for my class were at all-time highs, and so many wonderful new people came into my class and brightened up my life with their friendliness and caring. The sweet, kind, warm-heartened students by far outweighed the crabby, complaining, maddening ones. And then there were the wonderful volunteers who came to my classroom and made my job so much easier and more fun... I miss them already now that they've finished their time committments!

For the summer I will continue with the same group of students, so there won't be much change, just a week break and then it's back to work again. But come fall semester and a new school year, I hope that I might be able to teach a different level. It's not that the beginning levels aren't fun to teach, but I think I'm ready for a change and a new challenge. And although teaching the beginning level students is so very rewarding (how powerful it is to teach someone to read for the first time!) it's also very draining. I think for my own good it would be wise to switch to a different level, and I hope I'll be able to.

In the evening, I'll be in the computer lab as I have been for three years now. I continue to enjoy that job immensely, and I'm happy to be able to continue. It's a constantly changing job, especially as technology changes and I need to adapt to the new technology in the classroom. Plus, the evening school students are just amazing! Their motivation to learn and improve their lives is so inspiring. The shame me sometimes with their hard work, juggling full-time jobs (many times with overtime!), 4 nights a week in school, and families too. I feel lazy in comparison... but they energize me! Sometimes I come in to work feeling run-down and unmotivated, but as soon as the students start arriving, the tempo picks up and by the time I go home, I'm in high gear. It's incredible to have a job where I can go home with more energy than I arrived with.

The Wonderous World of an ESL Teacher

Life as an ESL teacher is weird. Fun, but weird. This past Monday I came back to work after having been gone for two days (Thurs. & Fri.) to a conference/training inservice. When I walked into my classroom at 9:00 feeling rather ehrg about coming in to work that morning, all my students burst into spontaneous applause and cheering. Now, that just blew me away. When working with people from other countries who don't get much chance to connect with Americans, you often form close bonds, and especially at beginning levels, students get very attached to their teachers. But I've never been cheered just for showing up at work before. It actually brought tears to my eyes .

And now this evening (I teach in the evening as well as the morning, and have the afternoons off) I took a couple hours off to attend a staff event at the school where I work in the morning. I had arranged a substitute to run my open computer lab hour for me, and informed my manager that I would be arriving about 15 minutes before regular classes started in the evening. So I arrive at work at 6:15 and walk into the staff room to put something in the fridge, and suddenly everyone's talking, asking me what happened, where I was, was I in a car accident, am I OK? And I'm thinking to myself, "What, can't a girl take an hour off without everyone panicking?" But it turns out that my substitute had apparently gotten the time confused and arrived half an hour late, that my manager had completely forgotten that I was planning to take the time off, and that no one had actually bothered to ask my substitute where I was... and so they were worried sick about me. When I showed up they were very relieved to know that I was not sick or hurt or mysteriously missing, but very confused about why no one was there to open the computer lab at 5:30. It's nice to have such a reputation for reliability that if I arrive an hour late for work, everyone will automatically assume the worst--rather than assume that I am just late for work--but it was a bit surreal.

I don't think I know anyone who doesn't work in this field that has such bizarre but heartwarming experiences at work. If I could explain it better, I would. But it's a strange world, and lovely.

Leaf Destroyers

Well, the damage doesn't seem to be too much worse than it was yesterday, and there were fewer bugs today. So maybe the homemade bug spray is working...? I gave them another spraying this afternoon.

Here you can see the nasty little things, and some of the damage they're doing to my radishes, though this picture doesn't show the areas with the worst damage.

I don't know what kind of insect this is, and I can't find it in any of my gardening books. If I find out, I'll post it next time.

The perils of organic gardening

A.B. and I went out to our community garden plot yesterday afternoon to do some work weeding and putting up cages and supports for plants.

And what should I find but an infestation of small, black, jumping insects eating up the leaves on my cabbages and radishes! The community garden is an organic garden, with absolutely no pesticides or herbicides allowed (because it is on the property of a elementary school) so I can't just spray them with an inseticidal soap as I would do at home. What to do?

I looked up alternatives on the community garden website, and found some options for homemade, non-toxic "pesticide" sprays. From these I concocted a spray of a 1/2 cup of rubbing alcohol and a spoonful each of Murphy's Oil Soap, lemon juice, and cooking oil in a quart of water. I shook it up in a spray bottle and headed back to the garden to douse the little buggers. It seemed to have some effect, so lets hope I can save my plants! I'm going to try to get back there this afternoon and do another spraying if I see more of them. Maybe I'll get a picture to post here later. And I'll let you know how it worked!