Valentine's Day Themed Class

First off, I really like being back in the office. My office mates are all really nice and plus everyone is so generous and likes to share stuff. I've only been back since Sunday and I already got 4 different kinds of candy from Beijing, a little cake from Taiwan, some beef jerky, something called "fish candy" (which I only had one piece of so far), and some sort of prune candy. I try to do my part too. I brought back candy hearts and shared some of my chocolates. Last semester I shared candy corn, smarties, and reeses. I try to just share stuff that people send me, AKA that you can't get here.

ANYWAY...so I mentioned before my big classes are gone, so I see each class three times a week instead of four. The other change this semester is that I am supposed to teach two classes of writing and one of speaking. I think that's a little weird. Last semester it was three classes of "English" and one of writing. Ahh well.

I started doing poetry with my students but they looked bored out of their skulls. They had more fun with today's class. I am doing Valentine's Day themed stuff. First off I had them "translate" a Robert Burns poem from Scottish/Ye Olde type talk to modern day English (ex: "bonnie lass" to "pretty girl"). Then I passed out....CANDY HEARTS!
I gave each group of students a cup of candy hearts, which they were super excited about. I had them write a story using as many of the phrases on the hearts as possible. When they were done, they got to eat the hearts. Yum! They had fun writing and eating.

Last night I had dinner with Charlotte. The plan was to go "somewhere other than Blue Frog" because she was apparently sick of it. As we were heading out we saw Chris, Becky and Adam going to Blue Frog. We ended up going with them. Ha. Later Stephanie showed up too. We swapped vacation stories. Chris and Becky shared with us the worst vacation story I have ever heard. They met a couple that went scuba diving and while they were out their beach hut burned down. That means they lost EVERYTHING except the bathing suits they were wearing. Passports, money, laptops, cameras, clothes...everything. Ugh. After dinner and drinks I went back to my apartment and had a video chat with Rose. :-)

I am surprised how fast my first week back went by. I have a stack of holiday homework from my students to read this weekend. I have plans for Saturday brunch and knitting with Isabelle and then possibly a night out dancing and drinking with Lucy and her friends. And I seriously need to clean my apartment. I haven't even been back for a full week! Why do I have a sinkful of dirty dishes and a messy floor!?

Happy Valentine's Day if I don't post until after then.

Love,
Stephanie

P.S. I was eating the little cake from Taiwan while I was posting. It looked like cornbread but it was filled with a sweet pineapple filling. Delicious!