oh boy do i need a vacation. i've got 2 weeks off. i'll be spending 5 days in chicago with no real plans other than seeing faces i've sorely missed, catching some chicagoland professional sports and partaking in mischief that can't be done the same in macau. then on christmas eve, i hop on a plane with the familia and head to costa rica for our bi-annual family reunion of all-inclusive glory, relaxation and hopefully some scuba on the side. then straight back from costa rica to macau for the rest of the year. i'll give a recap upon my return.
on the school side of things, there are a few updates and positive ones at that. i've mentioned this, but i'm in charge of teaching a bunch of creative writing workshops to generate some writing for the school's 80th anniversary publication. this has probably been the saving grace of my entire semester, and probably the big thing that i will point to once my time here is complete to future potential employers. after break i'll really start to grind out the majority of these workshops, but i've basically had my test group these last 2 weeks. the theme of the writing workshop is ekphrastic poetry, using a visual stimulus to generate a creative written response that becomes its own art in the process. i chose this style for 2 reasons: first, for some reason, at ill wesleyan, ekphrasis beat me over the head. i had 3 classes that were almost completely dominated by the concept of taking something that you see and turning it into words, including a class called "ekphrastic poetry" AND my senior seminar where i wrote my 25 page paper on inferno and the role ekphrasis played in dante's composition of it. anyway, the second reason is that i think that ekphrasis can work particularly well for esl students, because sight is a common "language" if you will. they see what they see, then they write about it. also, giving something to write about is much easier than just telling these kids, "write whatever you want." it helps them focus their writing. so far, it's paying dividends. many of the students chose some really cool pictures and paintings and are asking themselves a lot of good questions in the process and creating some really cool stuff. i'm helping them out and guiding their work, but many of the students are really creating some solid work. i'm excited to work with them more and really
shape their writing.
the second awesome thing has been my work in english club. we had out christmas party the other day and my group was the students that learned christmas carols and lead the rest of the club in singing them. i absolutely loved it. i chose the songs and learned the chords on the piano, actually making it almost a mini-music class. and the kids learned the songs and it sounded good. there's now a little part of me that regrets not seriously considering teaching choir rather than english. i was at a school where i could have learned from the best and instead i chose something else. but regrets are stupid. if anything, i got a little bit of my choir fix i've been without for entirely too long.
just one short beautiful week. see you out there chicago!
