Adventures in Bucolic Children…

In response the the exam question “It is better for children to grow up in the countryside than in a big city. Do you agree or disagree? Use specific reasons and examples to develop your essay.“, one of my students repeatedly used the term ‘bucolic children’. “Bucolic?”, I thought, a puzzled look furrowing my rather unruly brow. Judging by the context, he didn’t mean ‘Beubonic’, nor ‘colic’, nor ‘broccoli’. I made a mental note to look it up, and promptly filed the mental note between “Pecans, while tasty and festive, do not a proper dinner make.” and “Do something with my unruly eyebrows.”

Later that evening, I tucked myself into bed with my daily crossword puzzle and a handful of pecans. As I worked on the crossword puzzle, I was stopped mid-pencil stroke by number 12 down. Bucolic. 5 letters long, and starting with an “R”. Normally, it’s strictly against policy to look up crossword clues in my dictionary. However, I retreived the mental note, and decided to look up the word not for the sake of my crossword, but for the sake of my student. Very noble. I jumped out of bed, grabbed my dictionary, and looked up ‘bucolic’. I then jumped back into bed, grabbed my pencil and filled in #12 Down: R-U-R-A-L.

Just out of curiosity, how many of you, my dear readers, knew what ‘bucolic’ meant before you got to the last line of my story?

Adventures in Everything Else But…

I realize I’ve been post-less for a while. I could blame it on being busy, which would be partly true, since the semester is wrapping up and many things need to be done in the next 2 weeks. However, that excuse wouldn’t be entirely true. A sad, sad, sad amount of my on-line time this week has been spent in (a) making on-line snowflakes, thanks to a link on the Mealey’s blog, and (b) following the on-line drama of Noah’s hair. Friends from Moncton (who now live in the US) are debating whether or not to cut their youngest son’s hair. Mom says ‘yay’, Dad says ‘nay’, and their blog readers have been weighing in to cast the final vote. It’s like the American Idol of hair. Riveting. Both activities have been keeping me amused (and preoccupied) for days.

Today though, I’m back into the real world. My goal for the day is to mark 2 classes worth of exams, decorate for a friend’s bridal shower, enjoy said bridal shower, and plan a 3 hour lesson for a highschool class tomorrow. Oh, and also print up a small map of Asia. During speaking exams, when the questions “Which is bigger, Korea or Singapore?” Half my students know the grammar to answer the sentence, but don’t know the right answer. Also, on the exams I’ve marked, the question “What is the longest river in the world?” has elicited the responses: “Canada is the longest river in the world.”, “The Han River is the longest river in the world.”, and “I’m the longest river in the world.” This semester I’ve also learned that “England is bigger than Canada.”, “Mexico is hotter than Canada.”, “Korea is the smallest country in the world.” and “Tokyo is bigger than Korea.” Sadly, these haven’t been the result of confusing the two items being compared, they’ve been the result of a general lack of geography. Shocking.

Adventures in Blogiversaries…

I just realized I’ve been Blogging now for 3 years (and 2 days). I was just browsing through some of my first posts and realized I’d forgotten how cute the kindergarden kids could be. I don’t miss teaching at that school at all, but I do wonder how some of the little kids are doing.

It’s amazing how interesting (or procrastinative) it can be reading through dull little day-to-day blips from years ago. So many things that would normally be forgotten have now been recorded for posterity, so I can re-read them, then forget about them again and again and again.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading ’em over the years. It’s certainly a mish-mash of “random randomness at random times” to quote the byline of Ben’s blog. Thanks for your readership!