6th Journal

This week was my first official week on the schedule as a "real" consultant and it didn't go exactly as I had envisioned it would. I had three appoints over the duration of the week and none of them showed. I was quite hurt and disappointed mainly because I was super excited to help people that had made real appointments with me. I did have a good few sessions with the same gentleman who is English 90, and had to write a paper that would take the writer out of the expreience and make it almost completely descriptive. Other then that I just sat around and watched everybody else's appointments show up rather then my own.

I quite enjoyed the reading this week on working with ESL students. The majority of the walk ins and sit ins I've done have been with ESL students and like I said last night if I were to make a scale of the students that come in that I admire most, ESL students would be at the top for the impressive determination and focus. I know that Melissa also said that that is ther "lot" in life, but still, I mean its impressive to see ANYONE work that hard for anything.

Ialso found the contridictions within the different readings also very interesting and didn't really pick up on it until it was mentioned in class last night. I also liked the different theories of language aquisiton that were presented. I haven't really dabbled in linguists much, mainly because as an art major, it doesn't come up but with my english minor I'll take a few linguistics courses. I'm really excited to take more courses in the english field and have been debating changing my major until about a week ago when I discovered the perfect way to say WHY I'm taking a more aesthetic approach to teaching rather than with writing and composition. (Though the connection between art and writing is still very strong, at least within myself, with thoughts also provoking artistic expression as well as with writing,the visual arts are just another form of language to express ideas.)

I almost want to double major but then I'd be trying to kill myself and I don't think thats the best way to do it. If I go into graduate school, writing could be something to consider. I don't know. I'ma habitual planner, and I like to have all these crazy ideas cooked up to make myself feel like I'm actually doing something interesting and crazy unique.

Class was a riot last night and I want to give Melissa giant KUDOS for having a Kolln review. It made a lot more sense then if I were to read it. I also put in my discussion Q's (for Zach if he feels like helping me out with this if he reads this entry) that I'm trying to formulate a visual way to get grammar to work for me. I've been trying mneumonic (SP?) devices to try and help me remember stuff and it seems to be working... kind of. I need to look over all the handouts and materials we have in the center so that I can become more aquainted and familiar with them for future use with native students as well as ESL or ELL or L2 (3,4,5,6?) students. Those acronyms are crazy!

All in all, looking forward to my next appointments next week and making $24 a week! WOO! Can I consider a few hours on friday/saturday? Or longer hours on Wednesday? I stay on campus anyway once I'm done so if it would help out to have me stay longer, that would be cool too. I don't mind tacking on another hour or so a week. I think I can handle it. :D

Also I wanted to leave a nice little chuckle for you guys at the end of my journals now since I'm all Chuck Norris'ed out and what not.
So here you guys go!