Zonked at the wheel

Zonked at the wheel

Sometimes I find the best ideas when I am half baked. I wonder if many other people find it the same way?

Sometimes while working as a teacher, being half asleep makes the day go by quicker, or perhaps it just seems that way.  I get in these auto-pilot modes where things just flow and I follow my lesson plans as well as innovate where necessary. I think this is quite common for a university language teacher where little issues pop up and often you have to decide whether to deal with them. Also, some things you thought would be somewhat of interest turn out to be more exciting (or boring) than you thought they would be.

Getting into that ‘zen’ frame of mind takes time or does it come naturally? Sometimes I’m not sure as a little sleep deprivation can make you feel relaxed, but it can also make it more difficult to concentrate. It’s a fine balance between being aware and be willing to dare and just be flexible enough to not have to always conform to a fixed lesson plan and semester schedule.

This also allows your students time to do things at their pace rather than always thinking about what you want to fit in your planned class time. I often am making  a mess out of my lesson plan books, as things that i thought we’d have time for don’t come off as planned. Sometimes it’s the time needed for directions, other times how students spend time on doing a task (including messing it up, which itself is a learning opportunity), and finally if you allow time for review of the task or not. It all adds up, and making productive use of the 90 minutes or so is a real challenge.

Revving up

I recently am almost chasing my own tail as I try to kick my social life and my work life up a notch. Doesn’t always seem to be working. Sometimes it seems I don’t have the energy to do both, and I wonder if I’m playing two different games, neither of which I particularly relish, at the same time.

Revving it up

Running in place has never appealed to me, yet it seems like this treadmill I’m on doesn’t go any slower. Now, there is more weight attached to my end as well, as my significant other has too much time on her hands, and doesn’t seem to know how to use it.

Of course there are times when I too have too much time, and that’s why I can work on this blog, ha ha!

Blogging in the blood

Well, I have just added my 4th class on a  blog, and it definately takes some getting used to. The idea is slowly gaining ground and the students seem to like as students who feel shy can think and post outside of class anytime. Of course, the more blogs you have, the more time you need to invest updating them and reading student comments.

I think it is useful for getting students to think outside ‘the box’ of the classroom as being the only time when you learn (or at least I hope so). Let’s hope I can keep it up and get a wiki up and running next semester.

Much later

Much later, I had a number of blogs running this last semester (ten) and found it not too bad. Still haven’t gotten to the wiki stage yet, that might be the next thing to do.

We’ll have to see what the future brings, tech and other wise.

Buzz time for getting wired

Recently I seem to really need my caffeine fix. Don’t know why, but the days seem longer, and I definately want to ‘run on’. The beginning of semesters are always busy, but this year I am also laminating for the future, have set up some blogs to try out for different classes, am considering using wikis in the future.

Face book time? Not really, not my cup of tea. But who knows what will happen as technology worms its way into my life. I might even buy an ipod! Well, I won’t go that far yet, I like music, just not into plugs in my ears. Don’t know why, I just don’t.

So anyway, life is buzzing by, but it always seems like things are moving somewhere, but not necessarily the way you’d like. But is controlling where events go living? maybe not, maybe not. But one would like to think that some aspects of destiny could be controlled that way, wouldn’t one?