Tater Tots, Tater Puffs, Tater Cakes, Tater Whatever

They're delicious

Did We Start Numbering Months Differently Now?

I know the Koreans consider the number 4 unlucky, but does it have to go to the extent of renumbering April?

I guess in some weird world it could pass as a 4, but is that really what you think when you look at it?

In Other News They Tore Down My Playscape

:-( I now don't have a Sunday hangout right outside my apartment to read.  I'm going to have to find a new spot I guess.

Building Updates

It's almost as if they're just throwing the buildings up behind me at work floor by floor.  It is quite impressive to see how they do it.  With these palette looking concrete molds for the walls and then reinforcing the interiors with rebar.  I'm quite impressed.  So they've got one finished, one still in the works and they're just starting on the third.

It Just Sounds Nasty

It was an amazing surprise to come home from an excellent day of teaching to the Discovery channel here was rerunning the Snake Farm episode of Dirty Jobs.  I loved when Mike Rowe is in one of the snake pits with one of the workers putting the rattlers in a bucket and the guy reminds Mike that there's only one ladder out of the pit and too much screwing around was going to get the worker climbing over Mike to get out of there.  Mike said "oh right" and then went back to work, but started screwing around a few seconds later (who does that sound like?).  He then quickly caught himself having a chuckle in a pit filled with venomous snakes and was like "this falls into that screwing around category eh?"

Tuna Salad Mixins

Got all my mixins ready for making tuna salad last night.  Celery, pickles, jalapenos, yellow onion, green onion, pickled radish, red and green peppers and bread crumbs.  Definitely a hearty tuna salad.

Feel Better Breakfast

What do you do whenever you wake up and you're not feeling tip top?  What do you do when you're having trouble breathing because you're congested?  Have an awesome breakfast that's what.

Oatmeal, orange juice, milk, toast, scrambled eggs and yogurt

Yummy Yummy Yummy

Now I'm feeling better.

New Term, Cockroaches& Sardines

This week marks WEEK 1 of the Spring term here at work and at during the first release of the schedule it didn't look like much if anything was going to change classwise for me for my upper levels.  It was then determined to make sure that the upper level students are exposed to more people and don't begin to get attached to one teacher's style that the other upper level teacher would take the listening classes that I had the students for reading for.  I was all for this as I get his middle level classes and I am super excited about them as I've done both ends of the spectrum, but I haven't gotten to explore in the middle yet.  I also don't like to be viewed as a one trick pony in regards to teaching so branching out like this really drives that point home.
My younger classes this term are the super young kids and then a group of older (younger) kids that advanced from where I had them last term.  I share the youngest of the kids with another teacher and they are absolutely adorable.  The first time I saw them in my classroom they were all chitter chattering and I stuck my head in and went "BOO!" and they all scattered like a bunch of cockroaches.  It made me laugh.  They laugh a lot at me and with me.  I'm going to say that it's mostly the latter, but then again who knows.  They're probably in 1st grade from what I can reckon and so their English skills aren't the best.  I ask them how their day was, *no response*.  I then go thumbs up or thumbs down for your day, *still no response*.  Finally it's smiley face, straight face or frowny face.  Then it's "oh, teacher thumbs up!".  Absolutely adorable.  Monday's lesson was Blue and Red, Wednesday's was Green and Yellow and Friday's is Pink, White, Orange and Yellow.  Definitely a change of pace from talking about the death penalty and the Vietnam War like with my upper levels.  There is also a silly, stupid song that is for each week that I'm going to try to remember to bring my tablet to work tomorrow and record it so I can post it here for your enjoyment.
My upper level classes are also putting a mega-smile on my face.  My Monday class is all repeat students except for one.  It was only two students this week, but that's because several came on Tuesday to make up for it but they'll be regularly attending Monday's class.  Tuesday's class with the makeup students was awesome.  First of all it was 15 people including myself in a room made for maybe 10 plus the teacher.  Luckily I had twelve desks.  I had one girl sit at my desk and then I ran and grabbed another desk and put it in the aisle and we just moved it for break times.  Excellent thing there wasn't a fire as this was probably more packed than sardines in a can because they don't have to deal with desks and chairs taking up space as well.  Not only was the class big, which made me happy, but they were all participating and we on point, and just awesome.  I couldn't have asked for more.  Then last night (Wednesday) I had my upper upper levels which was mostly new students and it was an even bigger class than this class the previous term.  The nice thing about it was I had had the students that had leveled up the previous term and so knew which ones participated and which ones didn't, or so I thought.  This new environment changed them and the higher stakes brought out better responses and better observations from everyone which was great.
The students also have a vocabulary quiz each week for words that they are provided to study that they will encounter in that week's listening passages or readings.  I, last term, would make up small flashcards for my classes that they could utilize and study with if they showed up early as I would leave them up at the front desk.  Nobody used them :-(.  Then I had a student ask if I'd make a set so she could take them home.  I started to think about how many students this would be, how much paper it would use, YIKES.  I resolved the problem by just making a PDF of the flashcards and making it where students could print them off and use them at home.  Now how to get the PDF to them.  Hmm.  Solution? A blog for each class.  A simple web address that I quickly snatched for each class where links to an online version of the PDF vocab cards is posted for each week and they can choose to download and use them or ignore them.  There were a couple students that were super excited about this and I was like "REALLY?!?! because frankly the same thing's been available to you but you've never taken advantage of it, but as soon as it involves being online and a computer you're all gung-ho about it?"  Shook it off and figured whatever helps them is a good thing regardless.

End of Term Dinner

A couple of the teachers and I took a group of the students to a buffet and then they all went to the movie, I wasn't really interested in the movie.  The buffet was nice although our time there was rushed, so we have plans to go back just the teachers (when you're there with almost 40 students you don't get to use your strategic buffet planning like usual).  I still showed the kids what it really means to get your money's worth at a buffet.  Although I don't know if they were more impressed with what I ate, how much I ate or that I used chopsticks to eat 90% of it.  They seemed to talk about all three.

This is one of my upper level girls on my left and her sister.  One of the other teachers was snapping their picture and I jumped in.

Running

I've been stepping up my training as I've got a 10K that is coming up this month and I don't want to look like a Pokey Joe during it nor do I want to feel like a cripple for a week after, not being able to walk.  I've been smart about it to this point so I'm trying not to change that.  Taking longer easier runs to extend my endurance, but also training shorter and harder in order to build the speed.  I'm getting my boss to finalize my signup for one other race this weekend.  It's kind of cool to not have to give credit card information online because the race signups are via bank transfer as well (that seems to be something that's really big over here.)
I'm working on breaking in my swanky new racing flats.  I love them so far.  I just have to tell myself though that running in my Asics on days where I'm going longer is the better idea as they have more padding.
I was joking around with one of the guys on a running forum I'm on that you definitely know you're getting older when you spend more time stretching and warming up on interval days than you do actually running.  This has definitely been the case for me a couple days lately.
I've been upping the intensity of using the workout machines on the trail.  I only use the two days a week, but it used to be more focused on the run and less focused on the individual workouts.  Now it's split time with both.  Incredible dashes from machine to machine plus pushing myself a little harder on the machines.  I hate running with water, but there aren't really fountains so I bought a bicycle lock for my backpack and I keep my jump rope (trying to work on getting my calves like they used to be) and a water in there and have it chained to a railing.  Who knows if someone would actually steal it, but now at least they've got to put a little effort into it.