IT`S THE WEEKEND !

After years of teaching experience I can now confirm : TWO MONTHS OF VACATION WILL MAKE YOU STUPID !

Yes ladies and germs , after 8 weeks off , busy doing not much, it can make a pretty YET very intelligent ( ; woman quite slow.
I caught myself saying to my husband very excitedly this Wednesday : " Hey honey we`re off 3 full days this weekend woohoo! " If I were not a teacher and heard someone say that I would have beaten him or her senseless. The truth of the matter is that my brain needs it.
A strange phenomena happens : your brain gets very slow while you`re not doing much . Getting back in the real world IS difficult . Life is just so fast you hardly can keep up.

People who know me very well can tell you I have no short-term memory. I can`t remember what I ate an hour ago and certainly won`t remember what I have to do 2 hours from now even if my life depended on it. Well listing all the things I shouln`t have forgotten which I ended up forgetting anyway would be too time consuming . Do you want the whole list or the top ten ?
Like the Tin Man said in The Wizard Of Oz : " If I only had a brain ! "
Ì can `t wait for October, I`ll be so darn smarter and faster !!

Oh and another thing : my bilingual brain is so screwed up at the beginning of the year . My students ask me the simplest stuff ( a translation ) and my brain goes : which side of my brain is supposed to be working ? The French one or the English one ? Let`s try the Frenglish side . I often end up talking like someone from New Brunswick :" Check la girl l`autre bord d`la street." Thank God I only speak English in class.
So if you ask me how my transition back to school is doing after my holiday , I`ll have to admit it is painful.
This weekend, I promised my brain a RESET with occasional exercises. Not too much input and more output.
I went grocery shopping with the kids, went for a ride with the family in the Mustang, had dinner at the restaurant with my family and in-laws, read, picked up my dog`s poop with the greatest little gadget I like to call : The Pooper Scooper 2000, cover my kids` school books, clean house and finally some laundry. And I suvived ! Takes more time than usual but as they say : slowly but surely. And best of all, no one was harmed or injured in the process !

I must apologize to all of you who wanted to write their comments on this blog. I just totally blocked all of you out without even knowing . Blame my vacation !
Thanks to my pal Pat Bernier who informed me of the problem I could remediate it.
Please send me comments and / or questions. I love them to death.

For those who are wondering what my kids are up to this week in Intensive English, well we are working hard already. There`s no time for the lazy in our class.
Here goes :

Sec.2
One day after setting foot in my classroom I dared to ask my kids to present an oral production . I do this every year and Pierre likes to tell me " Wow that`s quick ! "
Let me explain : my kids are always very nervous before their first oral of the year so why suffer we start with a bang. It doesn`t count on the report card and they have to introduce someone in class which permits me to get to know them better right off the bat.
One group has already presented and they did just great. Let me tell you that the students in Intensive English LOVE oral productions and it shows.

Sec. 4
We went to the library on the second day to pick up our novel so we can start as quickly as possible after I tell them about the author, the characters and the premise of the book. One group is reading The Outsiders while the other group is reading Rumble Fish. Both are from S.E Hinton. They have no idea they are about to read something they will never EVER forget!
Swing by later for the official dates of the chapter quizzes.

Before I go I want to congratulate my sister Nadia for her new job and responsibilities. Go get `em girl -you can do it !
To all my students in Sec.4 : welcome back . You are just as lovely as when I had you in Sec.2. You are interested , interesting and you laugh at ALL my jokes. Bonus points for all of you!

I finally DID learn how to post some pictures. Thanks Pat B. and Pierre. Pictures of my school kids in action will soon be posted.

Tata for now,
Annie