H to O

My day was filled with subways and buses! I spent the morning getting ready for the adult classes that I teach at Starfish in the afternoons. I was able to make real lesson plans after learning where all my students are at from last week.

It wasn't so hard to get to the office today. I still had to call to ask for help about which door to go into! I accidently walked into someone else's house! Whoopsie!

There was only one student in my Intermediate class. It was really nice though, even though all my lesson plan ideas were meant for a bigger group. She told me she just wanted to practice speaking and we did. We learned a lot about one another. I watched the movie Eat, Pray, Love last night and the main character, Liz, talks about a friend of hers at the start of the movie who was a psychologist and was asked to counsel immigrants. The friend told her that even though those women went through hell, they still wanted to talk about their relationships. I found this with my student today. I know she's been through a lot to get to a better place in her life, but she still wanted to talk about boys and clothes and music. It was awesome.

I'm still feeling a little silly teaching adults the alphabet in my Beginner class, but we just have to start from the beginning. It's amazing how much we get across in just gestures to one another. I tried to teach the sentence structure "I have..."

I was starving by the time I got to my "home" subway line and decided to treat myself to an awesome dinner. I went to the Lama Temple Hutong neighborhood back to eat at the Vineyard. I had a Shirley Temple and the best garden burger ever. I went for the delux one this time that had mushrooms and more vegetables! It was awesome and tasted so good after a day of running around. I think a big reason that I like the place is because they play Ella Fitzgerald and other big band music! Even though I really enjoy Chinese food, it's nice to have "American" food once in awhile!

I came home tonight and got to work on my NanoWriMo novel! It was a nice evening to curl up in a blanket, listen to music and just write!

Hope you are enjoying the heat wave, my Portland friends!