Finishing off July

If I type fast, this will still be a July post... 12 minutes to go until August!

I apologize for not writing on the blog more this last month. Things have been hectic to say the least. It is the end of the term here, and since I was teaching mostly first year students this time around I got sucked into the abyss of attendance modification. You see, students must have a minimum number of class hours to pass, but if they are short, the teacher can make extra assignments or teach extra lessons to drag the students to the finish line. This becomes especially important for first year students because if they fail first semester, they have to wait a full year before they can start the English track again. Since English is at least half of the first year curriculum, most students that fail the first term of English don't bother to continue - and that reflects poorly on our school. So there's at least a little pressure to help students that are close to the mark.

Our method of choice this year? 8;00 special classes to make up credits. Great in theory, but someone has to teach them. I already come in before 8:00 on most days, so I volunteered to cover the classes. A few kind souls did volunteer to take some of those from me so I didn't need to teach all 5 classes, but it was still a lot of extra work. That coupled with panicked students packing the office and all the test writing and paper grading has kept me pretty busy.

Other than school I have done very, very little of late. The one thing Russell and I have kept up is running, and Swing to a lesser extent (though we skipped this last week for band practice and paper grading). I am proud to say we just ran our first 5k tonight. Hooray! Now to do it faster and with less dehydration at the end!

I am so glad its almost August... August means a trip home and I am seriously ready for that.