You know what I thought would be a great idea? Traveling to Spartanburg on a Thursday, Columbia on a Friday, Lexington on a Saturday, and then back to Pawleys that same Saturday, all the week before Spirit Week and Homecoming. Turns out, not so much. 😆 So, Friday in Sparkle City: My grandmother celebrated her 90th birthday on February 2nd by having a luncheon for 12 women who have been important in her life She asked me to say a blessing before the meal. If you know Nana, you won’t be at all surprised that she loved the crazy speech I decided to make instead. Despite everything, you have to admit I know my audience: “I want to share a quote with you from a book I recently gave Nana: My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry. It’s about the relationship between a grandmother and granddaughter, Granny and Elsa. ‘Granny and Elsa used to watch the evening news together. Now and then Elsa would ask Granny why grown-ups were always doing such idiotic things to each other. Granny usually answered that it was because grown-ups were generally people, and people are generally sh*ts. Elsa countered that grown-ups were also responsible for a lot of good things in between all the idiocy – space exploration, the UN, vaccines and cheese slicers, for instance. Granny then said the real trick of life was that almost no one is entirely a sh*t and almost no one is entirely not a sh*t. The hard part of life is keeping as much on the ‘not-a-sh*t’ side as one can.’ I chose this quote because it sounds like advice Nana has given me, and probably given some of you, but also because I knew when Nana asked me to say the blessing, she would be thrilled if I also managed to say sh*t (insert total non-sequitur of a traditional Episcopalian blessing here).” From Spartanburg and my 5 minutes of fame for injecting profanity into a ladies’ luncheon, I drove to Columbia to stay with my aunt and uncle before the South Carolina Foreign Language Teachers’ (SCFLTA) Conference at Lexington High School the next day. Seems like lately I can’t visit Columbia without some kind of tire-related car trouble. This time the trouble was I hadn’t bothered to rotate or replace the tires. Ever. They were all bald! So I headed off to Lexington the next morning in my uncle’s borrowed car (#thanks) to present at SCFLTA 2018 with my awesome co-worker Abby. For my first time presenting at any kind of conference, I felt good about the experience. You can access our presentation about listening activities for different levels of French and Spanish learners, “Stop, Drop, and Listen!,” here. I definitely can think of ways to make next time better, including some basics: have your water available, scan the room for different teaching levels by a show of hands, and include an “About me” slide. At SCFLTA, I also got to meet the rest of the awesome AATSPSC (American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, South Carolina Chapter) board members. I recently joined the team as the new National Poster Contest Coordinator, and I’m so thrilled about my students’ amazing designs for this year’s theme! Check out my TPT page for free lesson plans for incorporating the poster contest into your classes! I also really enjoyed Bethany Battig Ramseur’s session “Social Media in the Language Classroom,” and she gave me the confidence to start using Google Voice to record student presentational speaking. I’ve used it three times since the conference, and so far, so great! Basically, I’m shocked March is here (and shocked I haven’t blogged since January), but February was crazy-full of awesome stuff! Speaking of, shout out to my amazing co-workers: we rocked the Myrtle Beach Marathon Relay this weekend! Teachers who run together, stay together? 😝 It was a great day. Bring it on March! (My birthday month!)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorSC native, Salvadoran at heart, Spanish teacher, trivia nerd, and novice blogger. Archives
January 2018
Categories |