Surprise Inspection

Stress levels went through the roof last night at work when it was announced that some of our classes would be evaluated by our boss's boss, Jan. I was already in the middle of a crazier night that I had expected. I had to teach a class with less than an hour's notice and running home to grab cooking supplies for another teacher's class. Luckily, I had planned a decent lesson plan for the class earlier in the week, but I was going to get evaluated during the second hour of the class, which is never as good as the first. Plus, I'm just a person who doesn't like those kind of surprises.

Everyone was on edge as the boss man wandered around the school. We were all on our best behavior. I was able to find some spare moments to punch up my lesson plan for him a bit! My small star classes in the morning were good, but I only had about half of my students in them since many families have already left the city for their hometowns.

In the afternoon, I spent my first hour of the class reviewing the material from last week and starting to introduce the concept of "then" and "now" or past and present. Jan arrived in the second hour, computer in hand. He took a lot of notes, but he told me to not even introduce himself to the students. I was teaching about personal pronouns, and we had to go back to what a noun is, which was a bit painful, but I should have been expecting that! The only feedback I got was at the end of the class, when after I dismissed the students, they continued to stay to work on their project and creating a baby dragon and describing it back "then" and an adult dragon to describe what it is like "now" and Jan told me it was a good sign that they were wanting to stay. I'm going to take that as a compliment. I hope I will get some more feedback though. I've only had one other non small star class be evaluated in September.

However, we ended the day pretty pumped because instead of going to work tomorrow, we are getting paid to go skiing! That's right, I'm going skiing for the first time! I hope to take lots of pictures to share with you!

Walking home from the gym tonight, I started to really feel Chinese New Year in the air! For about the last week, I've grown accustomed of fireworks being set off all over the city. Last night, my class and I listened to a bunch of booming fireworks being set off in the neighborhood. Today, my favorite fruit market people have closed up shop to leave for their hometowns, and my apartment complex now has their festive lights turned on! I feel excited, like it's Christmas time. I just feel that it is going to be a special time that I will never forget!

Well, I better get packing for tomorrow!