The More the Merrier...

Every person is defined by the communities she belongs to.

~ Orson Scott Card (Speaker for the Dead)

Two stories for you today, about the (non-sewing) communities that I belong to:

First, an update on my ESL class.  Enrollment continues to swell – I’ve got about 20 serious students.  They don’t all make it each week, so I’m usually working with 16-18 students per class.  They continue to be a lively, motivated and energetic group!  Think “happy chaos” and you’ll pretty much capture the feel of our class.  ;)

Last week our topic was the weather.  I used a bunch of cute little weather icons (thank you, internet!) and made up two activities for them.  The first was a whole-class listening comprehension activity.  I showed them seven sets of weather icons (three icons per set), labeled A-G.  I verbally described one of the forecasts (“It will be warm and sunny today, with a chance of afternoon showers.”) and they had to figure out which set of icons I had just described.  (Repeat 6 more times.)  They really aced that one! 

The second one, a small group activity, was more difficult.  I made up index cards with weather forecasts (again, three icons per forecast).  One person would draw a card.  The other people in the group would have to generate and ask yes/no questions about the activities and clothing that were appropriate for the day.  For example, “Do I need an umbrella?” and “Can I build a snowman?”  Finally, the group would try to guess the forecast, based on the answers to their questions. 

This was me trying to sneak in practice on a wider variety of topics than just weather – forming questions, clothing and activity vocabulary, etc.  Not surprisingly, it proved to be more challenging for them.  (I did put up some example questions for them to refer to…)  We could have easily spent another 15 minutes or so on this activity – our 90 minute class time just flies by so quickly…  :(

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Next up – there’s a shake-up coming in the Campbell household! 

Do you ever find yourself a bit tired of the fact that my “gratuitous kitten pictures” only feature two cats?  (Hint: the correct answer is, “Oh my goodness, no!  How could I ever be tired of seeing pictures of the two most handsome cats in the whole wide world?”) 

Well, that situation is about to change.  For the last three weeks, a very sweet and very friendly stray cat has been hanging around our front porch, trying to run into the house whenever we open the door. 

I know what you are thinking, but this is NOT (completely) our fault.  We didn’t start feeding her until she had been there for a good 24 hours!   Anyways, after putting her picture up all around our neighborhood and hearing nary a peep in response, we finally gave in to our fate and took her to the vet’s office earlier this week. 

She passed her exams with flying colors (i.e., she is disease-free) and, just several hundreds of dollars worth of surgery later (i.e., we had her spayed) she is ready to join her new home and... totally freak out Oliver and Popeye.  ;)

I am not looking forward to the next week or so, but we’ve done this before and I know we’ll survive.  So I have the pleasure of introducing to you the next star of my “Gratuitous Kitten Pictures” series:  

Sophie