Language lessons

I decided last week that it would be fun to learn some basic phrases in all of my students' languages. My students get a giant kick out of listening to me butcher their mother tongues, which for me is the whole point of doing it - they enjoy being the teacher for a few minutes everyday. The hard part is that among my 30ish students, there are eight languages to account for. I do pretty well with Spanish, French, and Portuguese, and am not half bad at Japanese, but Arabic, Chinese, Korean, and Sinhalese are hard. The Arabic-speaking men in my classes are the best cheerleaders; they try to think of mnemonic devices to help me and nod encouragingly as I try to cough and wheeze my way through some of the more difficult sounds. So far, this is what I have learned to say - good morning, goodbye, and thank you in eight languages:

Spanish: buenos dias, adios, gracias (I minored in Spanish, so this was a freebie.)

French: bonjour, au revoir, merci

Portuguese: bon dia, chau, obrigado

Japanese: ohayou, sayonara, arigato

Arabic: sabah al kheer, ma'a salama, shokran (one of my students said to think of "sugar" + "ran")

Chinese: zao shang, zai jian, xie xie (the intonation is the hardest part)

Korean: an-yong, an-yong (with different intonation), kam-sa-ham-ni-da

Sinhalese: suba udesanak, tata, stuti

Aren't I accomplished? Eight languages! Now if only I could remember all of them all the time...

Midterm

So we have officially reached the midpoint of the semester, and everything is chugging along. I gave out midterm grade reports at the end of last week, and was pretty surprised when all the failing students accepted their grades gracefully. I usually have at least one freak-out, so it was nice to not have to deal with that. The freaking out actually came from the A students, many of whom wanted to know why they had a 96 instead of 100. "Teacher, WHY?" Perfectionists.

So after that, I needed a vacation. Enter spring break! Perfectly timed to come after midterms. Cary and I had a house blessing and housewarming party the first Saturday of the break, which went really well, but had me cleaning like I have never cleaned before all week. I dusted furniture crevices that will never be seen by anyone. My mom was really proud when she got here the day of the party to help set up. The clean gene is totally dominant in her, but not in me at all. I am just like my dad - where I drop something when I come in the door is generally where it belongs. I've gotten tidier since I got married, because Cary is very organized and clutter stresses him out, but this degree of cleaning was a real stretch for me. And in the end, the house looked beautiful and the party was a success. Who knows? It's taken me almost 25 years to get this organized, so maybe by the time I'm 50, I'll have some semblance of organization on a day-to-day basis.

After the party, I headed down to my hometown to help Suzanne do wedding stuff for the first half of the week. Really, she didn't need much help, as she is totally full-steam-ahead with the wedding planning, but I enjoyed giving it anyway. I went dress-shopping with her and Mama, and she found a really beautiful dress. She looked great in everything, but the dress she found was truly stunning on her. I wish I could post a picture, but sadly, I can't. I can post a picture of my bridesmaid's dress, though. I am thrilled that it's not super bridesmaid-y.

See? Very glamorous, and not something that I will cringe at when I look at pictures 10 years from now. I also got to help taste-test wedding cake - obviously a crucial job for the matron of honor. Other than that, I had a restful half-week at my parents' house, while Suzanne and Mike and my mom ran around meeting photographers, videographers, etc. How nice it is now to help with wedding stuff and not be the bride!

I came back home on Wednesday and have been relaxing ever since. I had lunch with Cary at work yesterday, and checked out five books from the library, which I've read two of already. Tomorrow Cary and I are having a date day, which I'm really looking forward to. So overall, a lovely spring break! I love my job, but sometimes I wish I were independently wealthy so I could just do fun stuff all the time. But I imagine it would get old.