up to my neck....

Well...the semester is getting harder. I'm sitting at Panera trying to get through the massive load of reading I have for this week: 4 essays by Gretel Ehrlich (who I totally recommend reading, she's great), 8 more sources for my German Children's Lit paper so I can write up an annotated bibliography by Thursday (so far I've read 2 articles, I have 4 books and another article found, still need to find 3 more sources), and a hefty excerpt from Orientalism by theorist Edward Said.

I spent all day yesterday at a conference on the teaching of composition called the Spilman Symposium at VMI (Virginia Military Institute). It was actually a really great experience. The conference draws English faculty and administration from a lot of surrounding universities and public school systems. This year's topic focused on bridging the gap between expectations of students in high school versus college English classrooms. I got in contact with the English Dept Chair from Blacksburg High and I might look into doing an internship there next semester working in an English classroom. I'm excited by the possibility of getting experience in the classroom in general next semester. I begin teaching my first class, a section of ENG 1106 Writing From Research, the second half to the 2 course sequence most entering freshman are required to take at Tech. I've said for a really long time that I might want to end up teaching high school English, so this will be a great way to see if I really like it. It also turns out that several of the teaching practice and theory courses I'm taking for my GTA position also qualify for required courses needed to gain Virginia state teacher's licensure. So there's a good chance by the end of my Masters I might be able to get certified to teach 6-12th grades.

I'm also continually adding to my skills set. This past Thursday night I learned how to operate one of those big popcorn machines like they have at movie theaters with the red and white striped roof and popcord basket that all the popcorn springs from. I did manage to severly burn the first batch and bleed on a later batch after cutting my finger...but I have no blood-communicable diseases, so I think we're all safe. This was for a movie night hosted by the Cranwell International Center on campus. We watched Curse of the Golden Flower, a pretty big budget Chinese film that I really enjoyed (although it was soooooooo depressing). The scenery and costumes were extravagant and absolutley beautiful. It gets a bit bloody at points, but overall not bad if you don't mind subtitles.

This coming Thursday I'm helping to put on an Oktoberfest with the German Club. I'm in charge of baking something yummy and dessert-like (they obviously don't know me very well). I had originally wanted to do an Apfelstrudel but I've looked into multiple recipes and they seem pretty intricate. I might resort to cookies of some kind.

Friday I'm working for the international center again helping them with a Fall Social for the exchange student friendship program that Tech has. Tech draws a TON of international students, a large number of them for graduate study, and a large number of those students bring spouses and children. So Tech has a friendship program where Blacksburg residents and other Tech students can sign up to kind of sponsor an international student or their family. Basically they befriend them, show them around town, maybe invite them to celebrate holidays like Thanksgiving which many international students have never done before. I briefly debated doing this but I just don't have the time.

I do have an English conversation partner though, young person from South Korea. I think we'll be meeting this coming week some time. This is another Int'l center program where Tech students sign up to meet once a week or so with international students to help them practice their English in a very informal, friendly environment. So who knows, I might learn a few words of Korean as well.

Well this has been a fun exercise in procrastination. I should get back to all my reading and subsequent responses to my reading. I can't wait to see family up in DC for Thanksgiving and then the other side of the fam over Christmas break. I miss Florida warm weather already! The high today was only 54F :(
Much love to you all!!