one week down, four more to go

I've just completed week one of the intensive TESOL course. It feels like a month! I've gotten, at max, 6 hours of sleep a night, the apartment's a mess, my laundry looks like a mountain, and I've only had a snatching of free time. I've barely seen Tom, with our conflicting schedules. The most I've talked to him is during supper, and then I head to the computer or my class reading or making lesson plans...

But I like the course, all in all. The trainers are very nice. One of them's originally from the Ukraine, and he is as cute as a button. He's always enthusiastic and good humored. The other day I saw him in Bryant Park during lunch (the building where the classes are is on 42nd St., near the main New York Public Library), just wandering around in this kind of quiet awe. He said he was looking at the trees. The other trainer is a Canadian, who is the absolute picture of what I think Ted might look like in 15 years--only a little heavier. For those who know Ted, you get the picture. They (the Ukrainian and Canadian) both know their stuff and seem to enjoy themselves immensely.

My classmates are cool. Yira (she's from the Dominican Republic) and I have really hit it off. I thought she was a lot younger than she is--she has a son who's fifteen!

Well, the weekend's here. I plan on sleeping in, doing laundry and trying to clean the apartment somewhat. We'll see what happens.

complaining new yorkers, past and present

I will not do it justice. So I merely refer you to the Times and will let you read about the complaints that have been shared with various New York mayors since the 1700s. The letter at left is my favorite.

the jeans gods have smiled again

I found another pair of thrift store jeans, this time they're "just" Gap, but they fit the best of all my new pairs! And this store had all women's jeans half off, so I got them for 6 bucks!! (Shall I make another sentence that has multiple exclamation points? Yes!!!!!) I really think luck comes in groups. I had a thrift store stint like this last fall.

I think I'm really into school mode. I want to do everything but the task at hand. I'm blogging more, cleaning more, shopping more, reading more. And now there's a farmer's market that's come up at last to Harlem. (I guess the farmer's market gods have decided that minorities like fresh organic food just like white people. Imagine! Of course, I have a sneaking suspicion it's only because there's more gentrification going on up here, rather than original thinking. The amount of white folks I've seen in the neighborhood just this week confirms it.) I want to go, but I've told myself I can't until I get a section of my homework done.

responsibility or some such nonsense

The clock is ticking on my free time this week. On Monday I begin an intensive course on teaching English for Speakers of Other Languages, (TESOL) at Rennert Bilingual for a month. For most of July and the first week of August I'll be heading out the door at the god-awful hour of 8 a.m. for a 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. class five days a week. During those hours I'm going to try to stuff as much methodology and experience into my head as possible and hopefully clean up my grammar as well. When I emerge from this course, I will hopefully have earned a certificate in TESOL and will be on my way to getting some form of employment. We'll see what happens. I already have an assignment due on the first day of class: a fourteen page questionnaire. It doesn't look too difficult, it just is something I need to sit down and do. And my mind has been on vacation too long to make much sense of it.

This weekend Tom had a four-day break from work, so we did only hedonistic things. I shopped, Tom read this giant book he bought at Housing Works, we slept in, ate out, spent way too much money and last night tried to see the fireworks with Lady L but because of a very slow subway ride we got out at Rockefeller Center and merely watched the fireworks' after-light reflecting on the buildings around us.

It was a lovely weekend, to steal a word from Thomas's blog. We ate and drank in Lady L's air conditioned apartment, had spaghetti outside, drank tea and had a McFlurry with S and A, and ate sushi in Central Park by a pond surrounded by gnats. Lovely indeed.

But, responsibility calls me to the task...