I've had my first snow day... but then again, so has Buffalo.

I'd like to think our snow day was more thoroughly snowy. It's been a beatiful weekend since then, so I hope nobody's feeling sorry for me. Perhaps feel sorry for the amount of planning I have yet to do tonight, but I have no one to blame for that but me, so never mind.

I had a bit of a frustrating short week this past week. Three days away was enough that the students had forgotten how well they had started to behave in the class by the end of the previous week - I wonder if I'll encounter the same thing tomorrow? Also, in many cases, it became apparent that even though they are starting to catch on to some of the things I'm teaching them, the pace of the class will have to be a lot slower than I'd like it to be. If I get to it today, I'll already be on revision #1 of my long range plans.

Successes from this past week included applying what we've been learning about labelling patterns to playing "Simon Says." (i.e. Simon says touch your head, simon says touch your toes, repeat a few times, Simon says what kind of pattern was that? "An AB pattern.") I felt like a genious when that one worked. I think I may work in at least one game of "Simon Says" per day.

Another fun event this past week was playing volleyball with a bunch of the locals. I was invited to the week before, but got stuck preparing for class the next day all night. It was probably the highest level volleyball I've ever played, and I held my own, including a number of key and well-placed serves and a left-handed spike (seriously! A spike!) that I think surprised me as much as the guy trying to block it! Also, it was great to feel that welcome in the community - most of the time if something funny happens, they laugh about it without commenting on it, so I don't think it was me being laughed at that often...

Ok, picture time... I used up most of my good ones in the previous mini-update, but I have a nice contrasting pair left over... What a difference a week makes!