Beauty of Spring

 It seems that I have been reading research papers for two months. Last night, I read the last of them.  Tomorrow, the exam period starts. I was scheduled to proctor and exam, but there are few enough taking the exam that they only need one room. Since I was scheduled for the overflow, I've been released.  In the afternoon, I will receive a batch of essays to read, but their length is limited by the speed with which the students could write the essay for the exam. I also will not have to defend my grade (unless I fail it), and grading in examiner mode is much faster than grading in writing coach mode.

In the last month,  some of the trees have blossomed and shed their blossoms for green leaves. The tulips and irishave bloomed and are now back to being leaves again. Yesterday, while walking home from the prayer meeting, I noticed a rose garden in a park that I pass through. It was still light enough to get pictures. These days, the sun is rising around 5 am and setting at 8 pm.  Here are the pictures I've been saving up to share for the past month.













A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to a guitar concert at a friend's home. The musician was a former student who had gone far. In fact, today he is playing in his master's recital at a prestigious music school in Budapest. The peformance was incredible. 


My next project, now that classes are over, is to sort through all of the evaluations and reflections of my students to propose a more interactive curriculum. I will also be looking at the benefits of Google Docs and exploring the possibilities of using it for my writing classes. It seemed to work well for some of my students this semester. I'll need to sort through the kinks. 

Today, however, I'm resting and thinking about the next steps.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

August Blessings

Image
“Lord, make me a blessing” I prayed as I began my third journey to Sherborne to visit a friend of many years. A pastor I know often says that “blessed people bless people.” I was certainly blessed by her hospitality, encouragement, fellowship, and simple adventures. After a very busy time of administering exams, organizing English camps, navigating my place in the schools where I worked and the church where I served, and endlessly questioning my intercultural and linguistic skills, my stay in Sherborne was relaxing and rejuvenating.   To be sure we did use our language differently. I adjusted to calling dessert “pudding”, though there was no pudding. I learned to call the sidewalk “pavement” and paved roads “tarmac.” We hung the laundry in the garden, which I would have called the yard. The yard, short for courtyard, is where we sat on sunny days to eat lunch or entertain guests who came for tea; I would have called it the patio. I already knew that my British friends called...
Read more

Fall Colors and Cityscapes

Image
 October 21, 2024 Last week, I learned from my university students that Monday and Tuesday were fall break. (This does not coincide with fall break at the vocational high school  which is for a week starting next Monday or the high school which is for a week starting next Wednesday) With an unexpected holiday, a friend in Budapest suggested a hike on Gellert Hill to look at the fall colors.  I almost missed the train. I was up at 6:30 for my daily Bible reading with the gang in Shanghai, which we finished quite early this morning and all my picnic preparations were done last night, but 8 o’ clock still creeped up on me and caught be by surprise. I had to look for my letter from the university that gives me a 50% discount on train fares and my ID. I also looked for my charger to make sure my phone would have peak performance. Somehow I had it in my mind that I was taking the train at 9:44, but I had told my friend 8:44. I stopped at the ATM on the way and arrived at the tr...
Read more