Random Confessions

Just ordered another dress in hope to be 'it dress' for my bff's wedding. Gosh, I HATE such occasions, I own maybe 3 black basic dresses and one pair of black stilettos and black is not exactly a wedding colour. And now, I calculate everything in 'how many competitions I could go for' value

Maman discovered, according to her, an 'I-must-inform-all-my-friends-to-come-and-overspend' thrift store last week, and she bought me 6 new blouses. To be honest I don't care much for shopping or new clothes, as long as I have clothes that are decent and reasonably comfortable I'm perfectly content. But you don't refuse clothes from your mother unless they happen to be hideous, and they were decent, so into my closet they went. Then, last Sunday, the powers above that exist decided to temporarily bring back winter to the peninsula for some reason, and so the new blouses (plus a light pastel blue jacket, she went back to the aforementioned store for seconds) are stuck in my closet. And that is why maman is not happy with the weather

Speaking about the weather, the heating's on back again at the academy because of said revived winter, and the gusts of hot air come out from the celing heater right into my face. I'm that person who needs chapstick in August. Send help.

NoNameFace said:

Just ordered another dress in hope to be 'it dress' for my bff's wedding. Gosh, I HATE such occasions, I own maybe 3 black basic dresses and one pair of black stilettos and black is not exactly a wedding colour. And now, I calculate everything in 'how many competitions I could go for' value

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Have you looked into Chic by Choice? I think it's a European version of Rent the Runway where you can rent dresses instead for occasions instead of buying them outright.

I just bought a dress last week that I had had my eye on for a while, and just wishing I worked in an office that was less Brooks Brothers/Vineyard Vines and more downtown chic.

Thank goodness I have a place to spill out my jumbled trains of thought here, I am simply incapable of holding them in right now. Wish I was David Foster Wallace, I could make something out of these observations and self-contradictions. But I am not as educated nor as witty as he was, if I had half his talent I'd be a published author and not an aspiring writer/lit student. I hate being young and naïve and inexperienced (existential crisis sigh)

- I finally had a story pop up in my head in, like, a year, and I was writing away until Tuesday when I returned from the gym with a irritated throat that started being sore like hell. Now the story won't flow out of me as it's supposed to, my cat of a muse is either fickle like a cat or is extremely hygienic and doesn't want to come to my coughing arms. Yes, my muse is a cat. A grey one with blue or green eyes (except when they're amber/yellow, it inexplicably happens sometimes).

- Teaching requires a lot of water. Add a sore throat, you need even more water. But the academy is understaffed as usual, I barely have the time to drink from my bottle of hot tea, so no time for a bathroom break. My dad happens to be a nephrologist, a good thing that he's not going to hear about this.

- The new toy drone finally came, and 6-year-old Esther proudly claimed it today. She's wondering what she's going to do with the leftover stamps now. Dan had better let her use it as much as she wants, she got more stamps than he did.

- New kid came today, 8 and very fluent. Says she's going to stay a year in Florida next year, if she's going there to learn the language I say she's fluent enough already, and if she's going for other reasons why waste time and money when you're going to live in an English-speaking environment for a whole year. Not my business, but still left me puzzled. On a tangent, this girl I know got thrust into Boston for a year and a half when she was 6 and barely knew the alphabet, I help her out with Korean when she has to prepare for exams because her Korean isn't 100% of a native speaker's. As she says it, she speaks zero languages as a native tongue. Hope it doesn't happen to the new kid.

- I was digging up my 10th grade MLA-style essays to provide examples for the two starting essays this month (Min, my official favourite, and another 11-year-old, Elle (which I still find weird as a name because I can't help but read it in French), and I came to the depressing conclusion that the quality of my writing has regressed drastically from my high school days. Maybe I should've taken pedagogy, maybe that would've helped me better now. Why am I a literature and language nerd

- And I learned that I was a very strongly opinionated 10-year-old as I went on to torture Min and Elle with those essays. I was expecting to see them struggling on finding a topic to write an essay on, but I was not prepared for their blank looks when I asked them where they stood on the issue. At least Elle figured out an easy topic from her book ("People should care more about their neighbors"), Min got stuck with me (sounding hoarse and continuously coughing) lecturing her on the varieties of love and how the definition of 'good' can change because she got A Wrinkle In Time. Which was recommended to the manager by yours truly. I did give her a bunch of gummy worms as an apology (plus a simple topic along with fully outlined arguments for her to reference), but I am earnestly hating my over-enthusiasm all over again. I keep forgetting not everybody enjoys overthinking on everything (crawls into corner)

- The computer on my desk is apparently resenting me for replacing Ms. Annie as its user, it keeps on resetting the preferences I changed. No, print in color as a default. No, print on both sides. No, I'm never going to use Microsoft Edge. Yes, I am going to stay logged in, remember my damn password. Damnit, why do you insist on making my eyes suffer and flare up 100% on brightness? My throat and my skin hate me already, maman is worried that I'm taking way too many meds and my liver is going to be damaged and I have to use a (bleep)ton of concealer to hide all the purple/brown marks all over my face and jawline. The last thing I wanted was Ms. Annie suddenly quitting and making me, a part-timer, do almost all of the regular teacher's work, you moronic pile of metal

- I wish I could do an accent. Or accents. English, Scottish, Irish, Aussie, Kiwi, US Southern, all would be useful.

- Why is the author of toddlers' books of Italian descent, how the (bleep) am I supposed to explain to kids who have a hard time wrapping their head around the fact that English phonology is crazy and letters can have multiple sounds (Korean letters have just one single sound each, at least on surface level) that 'Capucilli' is pronounced 'ka-poo-chil-lee' (bleep) Or am I just supposed to give up and pronounce it 'ka-poo-silly'

- Apparently Ms. Natasha learned Russian when she was in college, I didn't get to hear much because of the 8 year old sitting in front of me but that explains the name. And maybe that could also explain why she keeps on dropping articles. Am I being condescending here

Someone who picked on me for being Russian in high school now has a license plate with "HUJ" in it, which is a possible transliteration of a vulgar Russian word for the male anatomy. JUSTICE.

hanyuufan5 said:

Someone who picked on me for being Russian in high school now has a license plate with "HUJ" in it, which is a possible transliteration of a vulgar Russian word for the male anatomy. JUSTICE.

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In Polish this word is spelled with 'CH' at the beginning, meaning same. Karma is a witch sometimes after all...

Came by this thread by accident, thought I'd give it a try

I'm going to a wedding in Portugal this month, and I'm freaking out a tiny bit wondering what kind of dress and makeup should I wear in order not to overdo it, but also not underdo it

^same boat, but today I ordered a bag and now I have dress, shoes and bag with me/ordered. I am SO RELIEVED. Instead, I would love to order tissue paper, wire, florist tapes and bunch of other craft crap.

I am not big on jewelry, so probably just a small earrings. Dress is with various floral pattern on dark material, calf-lenght, shoes are nude and will be comfy once I will break them in. I won't maybe look super glamorous or sophisticated, but I will feel good

NoNameFace said:

^same boat, but today I ordered a bag and now I have dress, shoes and bag with me/ordered. I am SO RELIEVED. Instead, I would love to order tissue paper, wire, florist tapes and bunch of other craft crap.

I am not big on jewelry, so probably just a small earrings. Dress is with various floral pattern on dark material, calf-lenght, shoes are nude and will be comfy once I will break them in. I won't maybe look super glamorous or sophisticated, but I will feel good

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Those are nice news! I'm going shopping next week

Vandevska said:

Came by this thread by accident, thought I'd give it a try

I'm going to a wedding in Portugal this month, and I'm freaking out a tiny bit wondering what kind of dress and makeup should I wear in order not to overdo it, but also not underdo it

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https://www.liveabout.com/what-to-wear-to-a-wedding-4115662

This might help.....:

Jeremy Abbott skated an exhibition at the adult championship in Salt Lake City last week- I was so distracted by his amazing footwork I almost missed him doing a backflip!

I also have already eaten 90% of the candy that I got after skating...

elbkup said:

https://www.liveabout.com/what-to-wear-to-a-wedding-4115662

This might help.....:

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Thanks!

I confess that I haven't watched WTT, the World Cup season for rhythmic gymnastics has started and I'm occupied with it. Also, it has been a hectic week at the academy, and since I finally stopped coughing this morning (which is noon, but I am a nocturnal creature) I had more than enough reasons to not have the energy to catch up with WTT. Anyway, here are some more trivial tales from the academy, I have bored maman to death with them so I'm bringing them here I thank you for your indulgence.

- Faye, the 7-year-old changeling, hates frogs with a passion. Her reason? Well, one of them goes something like this: "It's because, when my mom was a little girl, she went to a creek, and there was a toad, and it was a big, uuugly toad, and it scared mom, and so, she almost slipped into the creek. And, frogs, they're almost the same as toads, and I don't like toads, because a toad scared mom, and, because frogs are almost the same as toads, I don't like frogs." Yes, she talks like that, just not in English. It's adorable.
But the thing is, among the curriculum for her level there's this series of books with a frog as the main character. And adorable as that faerie is, once she gets started on a subject I have to drag her back on topic. Yup, all hell breaks loose when she gets one for her lesson for the day. I was too a talkative child who went off into tangents so I'm not annoyed or anything, but I do have a time limit (about 10 minutes give or take), and getting her back on track is backbreaking work.
Well, on Wednesday, she got another one of those damn Froggy books. Long story short, she got started on how frogs are disgusting ("They eat flies, and when they eat flies, their tongues zip up, and it's gross, and flies are gross, flies sit on poop, and their legs have poop on them, and frogs eat flies, so they're eating poop too, it's gross," and on and on) and refused to talk about the book for about five minutes. I tried persuading her with logic (failed miserably), affectionately pinching her cheeks (she went on with her cheeks caught in my fingers, so another fail), and begging (spectacularly failed, my pleas of "Please, chérie, we don't have much time left, and disgusting frogs eating disgusting poopy flies aren't worth the time" sent her into a giggling fit), all to no avail.
I finally resorted to pretending to be upset (which I don't like to do, I consider it babying the kids and my principle is that kids should be treated as intelligent beings). I put on my best pout, told her I wasn't going to speak to her until she got back on topic, and started scribbling in my notebook, facing away from her. This is what I wrote (verbatim, I write my notes in English because the kids are nosy): 'Dear lord chérie, I get you don't like frogs and you did manage to make me laugh like no other, but we do have a lesson to do...'
Well, it did the trick, and I somehow managed to get through protocol. The manager was there for once to witness the whole thing, and so she was actually quite understanding when I finally asked her if those Froggy books could be skipped for Faye. She got Amelia Bedelia for Friday, and looked like she didn't terrorise Ms. Natasha with it(she comes earlier than my start time on Fridays).

- On Ms. Natasha, well... Let's just say, she's not the best English speaker. But she has more experience in teaching (she's quite a bit older than I am, so of course she does) and does the administrative stuff that Ms. Annie used to do, so it's not like I'm in a position to undermine her methods. Still, the number of times I was when the kids were like "But Ms. Natasha said (insert issue)" when I pointed out where they got stuff wrong on their worksheets... It wouldn't be so big a problem if she only did lessons for the level 1 kids (students who have just learnt the alphabet), they don't try/need to use prepositions or passive voices or gerunds. But the thing is that she tends to try to get the higher-level kids for her lessons, which causes a)headaches for me when I have to address those issues when I'm the one looking over their work b)the kids to be like when I do tell them they need to fix said issues and c)the lower-level kids to be waiting for their lessons when her shift is over (she leaves at 5:30, I leave at 7). This results in the higher-level kids getting confused over learning proper grammar, the lower-level kids rushing over to me because they've been waiting for some time, and my wits being scattered all over the place because I have to deal with everything at once. The manager said she's going to try and evenly sort the kids, but she did tell me that I'm going to need some fast thinking and good timing to not let Ms. Natasha get all the higher-level students. I suck at playing mind games... (deep sigh)

- I'm truly better with the higher-level kids because a)I'm not that experienced b)I'm not good with little/hard-to-communicate kids c)I consciously have to dumb down my vocabulary for the lower-level kids and that makes me stammer and d)I remember/know more about the books I read when I was about 9 or 10 than the books I read when I was 4. I have no idea why some level 1 kids said they'd rather get lessons from me than the manager. I mean, thanks kiddos, but Ms. Ellen would be a better teacher for you, never mind the fact that I'm drained after dealing with you lot.

- The only level 1 kid that doesn't completely drain me is 6-year-old Esther, Dan's younger sister. The reason for that is the fact she's quick to adapt and to grasp the syntax of the sentence. Also, Dan is a sweet kid, and he's living proof that my methods work (When I first met him his sentences were a mess, he spoke in all verbs and occasional pronouns. I basically rebuilt his syntax structure from ground up, I remember the jubilation I felt when he actually used an object in a sentence.), so my affections extend to Esther as well. But she desperately needs some vocabulary drilled into her, she's the opposite of her brother as in while Dan is slow to get something but once he does it stays, Esther quickly gets it but also quickly loses it. Wonder if her mother knows about the issue, I do write my reports but the manager is the one who talks to the parents.

Ichatdelune said:

c)I consciously have to dumb down my vocabulary for the lower-level kids and that makes me stammer

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Lol, this is why I avoid talking to kids as much as possible.

I hope things get less hectic soon!

I can't stand Denerys. She is the most annoying movie character in the history of films. Pompous, arrogant and pretentious. Every time she says this "bend the knee" bs I am hoping there is some wight somewhere in the corner. And that annoying character is played probably by the worst and dumbest actress in Hollywood. She puts no life into that already dead role.
I am hoping she is consumed first by white walkers.

I’m spending far too much time watching Billie Eilish live performances today and neglecting my work.

What is it about them

It seems ridiculous to care about entering contacts into Outlook or expenses right now.

The following post will be 60% rant, 20% trivia, 10% drama, and 10% train of thought. Apologies.

- So the manager bought some pens that look like carrots, pineapples, bananas, and whatnot for the prizes kids can 'buy' with their stamps. Well, about four of those pens disappeared on Tuesday, and as I was working overtime again I saw the manager looking over the security camera footage. Damn, turned out that I had checked the thief in question's worksheet that day, and it was after she took those pens. She's seven and can't remember what 'will' means. Even the manager wasn't expecting her to be the one. Anyway, I heard the manager call the boss before I went home, so I thought some action would be taken. Well, apparently nope, because a)it's re-registration period and if she's exposed she won't continue coming to the academy b)the parents probably won't accept that their child did something like that c)it'll cause bad word-of-mouth among the parents and d)it's re-registration period. Just a notice posted above the prizes that there is a security camera watching, and everything is to be as normal. The mother did make an appointment with the boss (I assumed she had realized what her daughter had done, now I'm not too sure), but I still have no idea if she was taught her lesson or not. I mean, I did a stupid thing when I was seven not even realizing I was doing something wrong, but I was caught, reprimanded, and got my lesson after crying tears of shame and guilt (maman later chided me for not just asking her to buy me one of those bead strings, I cut out about 3 cm out of it and it was approx. 3 dollars for 60 cm). She came today smiling as usual, and both the manager and the boss acted as nothing had happened and called her "sweetie" and "cute as a button" and so on. I couldn't look her straight in the eyes and keep my smile on my face, so I just avoided eye contact when she came over to me to get her worksheet checked. Re-registration period sucks.

- Another reason re-registration period sucks: Progress Reports. It's just the collection of the kids' worksheets and an 'evaluation note' on top, but since every sheet has to be marked with the date and name, signed, and arranged in chronological order, it's time-consuming work. I was told by the manager to always mark the date and names during every lesson when I started working (I do it religiously) and for every kid I teach I always stack their worksheets in order in their folder, but (sigh) guess who doesn't. My gripes with Ms. Natasha can come later, checking whether those stacks of paper are in order or not isn't my biggest issue with the PRs. It's the fact that on the manual for writing those evaluation notes, there's this: "Rating Speaking - If the whole lesson can be carried out in English, mark 'average'. If not, mark 'improvement needed'. Same for Listening." Like, why have the 'Excellent-Good-Average-Improvement Needed-Poor' scale if you're only going to use two? I needed a moment when I first marked Min 'average', and still I die a bit inside every time I mark very good listeners and speakers of the language 'average'. My notebook is filled with my analysis of the kids and their reading skills, listening comprehension abilities, size of vocabulary, syntax and structure, usage and preciseness of grammar, summarization skills, level of confidence, and whether they actually have an opinion and if so whether they can back it up with evidence (along with their tastes in books, candy, and animals, interesting episodes and/or quotes from the lesson, and other potentially useful information). Re-registration so sucks.

- There are too many kids with the same or similar names. In an English context, let's say that among the girls there is an Allie, two Ellies, an Elsie, an Ella, two Emmas, a Gemma, a Bella, an Alice, an Elise, and an Alexis. There's also a boy Alexis, and among the boys there's an Alex, an Alan, an Adam, two Liams, an Ian, an Ethan, a Nathan, and a Mason. So, these kind of things happen:
1. the manager says to me "Could you do Emma's lesson?" and I'm like "Um, which one?" and the manager has to check because she's confused too now
2. I'm told to check Alexis's worksheet, I go over to her desk, she's not even started on it yet, I smack my forehead because oh wait the boy Alexis is also here too and there he is chatting with Alex
3. a parent comes and looks for her girl, I look at Allie, Elsie, and Alice and spiral down into a mass of confusion because the name I heard could be any one of them
4. Liam Smith, Liam Jones, and Ian Jones (unrelated) are all present and I'm a)supposed to check up on Liam (whichever one it is) and b)one Jones boy spooked me and I said "Whoa, Mr. Liam, I nearly had an heart attack" and I freak out because if it's actually Ian he's going to be mad at me
5. I call out to Nathan with a sore throat and Mason's like "Who me?" or I call Gemma and both Emmas, Bella, Ella, and one of the Ellies look up but not the actual Gemma
6. Elise's little sister Alyssa also comes, the manager says "Here Alice" by mistake, and Alice, sitting in front of me, looks at the manager confused
and so on.

- Introducing Sean (which is actually quite similar-sounding to his Korean name, his mother had good sense), a bouncy rubber ball of an 8-year-old. He's actually pretty smart, but to know that you have to actually make him sit still and concentrate on the given topic. How is that possible, you may ask, he is eight years old and cannot stick to a single topic without going off about explosions or robots or exploding robots. Well, I found out through that a certain brand of jelly (it's kinda like Sour Patch Kids) works magic on him;set a timer and promise if he gets the lesson done in time he's going to get his packet of jelly, voilà maximum concentration. How did I find this out? I had bought a box of that jelly to give to my favoured students when I got Sean for the first time. In no time I got an aching headache, and in desperation tried the race against the clock. He wasn't interested in Mentos (which the academy provides) so I (with a deep sigh) got out the jelly. He looked suspicious at first, I told him to try one (if it wasn't to his taste I was to have the rest), he did and (à la Mary Poppins) snap he's all for it. I thought it was just a lucky break, but then he comes again later in the week, points at the computer screen (I use an online timer), and goes off "We're doing it again, right? If I finish in time, I get the jelly?" Now, if he starts going off-topic I just sigh and say "Hmm, Mr. Sean, I guess you don't want your jelly today", he fervently repeats his burning desire for the jelly and I can get him right back on track.
Last week, the manager asked me how I manage Sean so well, and I told her the secret. She was about to order candy for the kids, so she bought the magic jelly laugh as well and gave me two boxes, one original soda flavoured and one mixed fruit flavoured. He came on Monday, and I gave him the mixed fruit flavoured one for a change. I asked him later whether he liked it, he's all sparkly-eyed when he says "This has five flavours. Five. So I really, really like this." He still digs the original too (sigh of relief), still as he goes out to his waiting mother he holds the empty wrapper dearly in his hand. His mother threw it away when she saw it was empty, and Sean went off "Why did you throw that away?!!" loud and clear, ringing across the hallway

- Ms. Natasha's son apparently got the flu, so she's coming late on Friday. That is a very understandable situation, but still that doesn't change the fact that I had to do the PRs all by myself. And the preparations for tomorrow. I clocked out an hour late, hungry and with a headache. But maybe it was for the better, there's less fuss with the kids when I do the preparations (sigh) I have no idea why a Russian major would teach English, like, if she was a French, German, or Spanish major it would've been understandable, but articles are one of the most difficult thing to teach the kids (Korean doesn't have them) and her second language also not having articles doesn't help (deep sigh) Just, she told a kid that he's "doing very well but needs to sound more like a natural English speaker with his pronunciation", and a)I have no idea what her image of a 'natural English pronunciation' is, since even if just counting the places where English is the first language there are a whole bunch of accents that sound wildly different b)whatever it is, she doesn't have that 'natural' pronunciation and c)how the everloving (bleep) is pronunciation his biggest issue when he speaks like "Jack and Annie is going to tree house to go originally time" His pronunciation is actually passable, sure he doesn't roll his r's or place accents on the right syllable but you can tell what kind of words he is using. What he needs first and foremost is syntax, but well I guess asking for a person who doesn't have stable syntax to recognize that is illogical of me (deep, deep sigh)

I should be finishing up a concept board for tomorrow but I've been staring at the computer for nearly 2 hours now, with... nothing. It's like the well that is my brain has completely dried up and in the words of Keiji Tanaka in Kenji's Room interview: I'm both nervous and screwed.