Social Saturdays

With a new outlook on life, I endeavor forward. Feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the ups/downs and responsibilities of life, I decided that, instead of doing the masses of homework and other tasks to do (trillions of things, in fact), I set out to the beach. Sandy Beach, to be exact and it is probably the farthest away from home I've been all semester. I spent about five hours at the beach. It was fabulous. I went with Autumn and Julie and we swam (with some massive waves! they made us tumble, sommersault, and think of a tragic death, but it was exciting all the same) and we talked, but mostly we lounged. I listened to the ocean, I soaked up some sun, I watched the clouds forming and passing by. It brings a new sense of peace and I feel recharged to move forward with this semester which is proving to be a challenging one- academically, professionally, and personally.

So despite all the millions...sorry, trillions of things to do this weekend, I spent all day at the beach, came home and wrote this message (after washing out the sand), and now I'm off to the mall to catch a bite to eat (maybe do some homework) and then go to a friend's house for a little partying. What am I thinking?!

Well, here is my to do list for the weekend (mind you, this only for the weekend and neglects the fact that I have many things to do throughout this horrible Week 4):

-Read Schmidt (1983) Interaction, acculturation, and acquisition of communicative competence 35 pages
-Read Hinkel Ch. 1 Cultures of Learning 21 pages
-Read Atkinson & Ramanathan (1995) Cultures of Writing: An Ethnographic comparison of L1 and L2 University Writing/Language Programs 29 pages
-Read Cahn (2004) From ideology to inquiry: Mediating Asian and Western values in ELT practice 18 pages
-Read Duff & Uchida (1997) The negotiation of teachers' sociocultural identities and practices in postsecondary EFL classrooms 36 pages
-Read Flowerdew (1998) A cultural perspective on group work 8 pages
-Grade 15 of my students essays (2-3 pages each) at 20 minutes each = 300 min = 5 hours
-Finish my application for Breakthrough's Future Leaders Fellowship (4 short essays)
-Lesson Plan for Week 4 of my classes

p.s. I'm not going back to Hong Kong this summer.

And my Spring Break is on March 23-April 1... in case you were interested (hint, hint)