Life lessons

This weekend I started another side-job with a coworker who gives English lessons out of his home.  I taught two classes on Saturday: one group which consisted of three 13 year olds and another group of nine 11 year olds.  It was definitely a change of pace from teaching college students!  I also taught another class on Sunday which had three 14 year old girls, who cracked me up the entire time.  I am really looking forward to seeing them next week. 

Basically I did things like "The Hokey Pokey", "Never Have I Ever", "Categories", and this activity where I cut pictures out of magazines and the students had to tell me how to move my body to make myself look like the model in the photo.  This is not a hard task when you are speaking in your second language.  Directional words and propositions really trip students up! 

Alas, I have lost my weekends to even more teaching, but at least I am getting paid extra money and really enjoy the experience of working with pre-teens. 

我住了在德州/ I lived in Texas!

Today in my Chinese class, 田老师 asked me if there were many 杀人 (murderers) in America.  I paused, grumbled a bit, and asked him why he was wondering.  Then he said that there were towns (plural) in America where people were killed by 电链锯 (electric chainsaws). 

Turns out he watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and now thinks that there are places in America where people are murdered by Leatherface. 

This is exactly what America needs in the minds of people around the world.  I wish I had something witty to comment about this, but I think the conversation stands alone.

ROAR!

I was Skyping with my adorable 3-year old nephew, Alex, today when he decided to put on his dinosaur costume.   He calls me "E.E." the name for "mother's sister" in my mom's dialect.

Alex: EE, where is your dinosaur costume?
Me: I don't have one.
Alex: It's okay, you can look at mine.
Me: Yes, it is really cool, little dude!
Alex: Why don't you go and buy one?  You should buy one.  Mommy, I told EE to buy a dinosaur costume.
Me: That sounds like a great idea!

Moral of the story: I need a dinosaur costume and it should be more acceptable for anyone to walk around as a dinosaur saying "roar!"