Bad parenting

Listening to: Traffic on Cumhurriyet outside my window, India Arie, Woody Guthrie, Over the Rhine
Reading: Ha, funny. Someday...

I've been a woefully negligent parent with the blog lately. Care and feeding of Tales stopped altogether due to time (too little), energies (again, lacking), and stress (abundant). The main source of stress was actually not my CELTA course, but rather the throbbing headache that was working for a sub-standard language school. That has been dealt with and life has returned to bloom, somewhat.

I promise more is forthcoming, including an activity I dreamed up for a free-teaching session today where I had intermediate students copying masterpiece paintings. Yes, I've put them to work making forgeries. O.k., no, but we did have a good time once they got over the idea that they had to get the painting "right". They got valuable listening and speaking practice in an unusual and fun way. I came up with a great lesson that could be spun off in a many directions while satisfying my creative soul. I'll write more about it later.

I am also experimenting on two friends, both of whom more than earned the title by not running away when the word experiment was uttered in regards to them, about the use of original music in teaching English. I did mention to one of them, however, that if I ever mention the word experiment in relation to cooking he should turn on his heals and run.

I've got some nascent ideas kicking me in the ribs that I want to put up on the blog. For now, I need to get my lesson plan ready for Friday. It's a reading lesson about Ikea, which will be highly amusing to my friends in Atlanta after our endless trips to their blue & yellow behemoth to resolve shelving issues. In addition, I need to get back to spending my Thursdays at the MoMA in Tophane. You can find me in the library at 10am, researching the collection and blissing out amidst the creative energy. And then there's all that research into economics and the major business sectors for the possible writing job...

Salaam.
And gobble gobble to all the family gathering this week in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Sorry you couldn't be here.