The End of Renaissance Poetry

Tomorrow, Tuesday, I will be finishing the 6-week unit on the Renaissance. We'll be reading selections from Paradise Lost. As I was preparing for it this evening, I was struck by the powerful diction Milton uses to convey his meaning. I have never read this epic poem, and was quite taken back by it. It begins from Satan's perspective as he discusses how he intends to bring about the fall of man. I don't read very many fictional accounts from a satanic perspective, but the times I have (The Screwtape Letters) I am reminded of his utter deceitfulness and hatred towards God. I pray that tomorrow I'll be effective in stirring some spiritual thinking. I don't care as much about effectively transmitting literary knowledge this time as I do about stirring spiritual thinking.

After tomorrow, I only teach two more days: Friday and then Tuesday. Jill is teaching the days in between and to the end. We're starting the Enlightenment Period on Wednesday.

My feelings about finishing teaching at BFA are two-fold: happy and sad. Happy: I am glad to be finished teaching because it is a lot of stress. As I was talking to a friend today, I had an epiphany comparison. Student teaching is to engagment as teaching is to marriage. While I love student teaching here, I still feel constant pressure to perform. I get the feeling there are always eyes on me testing me, and I'm constantly having to balance many different logistical things that regular teachers do not. This phase has less responsibility, but it is also less stable and has less control. I think my feelings on this are appropriately timed with the ending of the internship. God's good like that. Sad: I'll really miss my students, the relationships I've formed with staff, and the BFA community. Quitting teaching is the first step of a series of steps towards disconnecting and saying "goodbye." The people here are so good and pleasant to be around. I thought that I would not again find relationships like those at Cedarville, and yet I find myself saying that about BFA as well. I'm glad for the time here. And who knows, I feel assured I'll see some of these faces again: sometime, somewhere.

This week looks busy! Josh is flying in to visit me this Thursday (yay!!) and we have a lot of fun activities planned. I'm planning a chili dinner for this Friday and have invited a few friends to come over and have dinner with Josh, the Formans, and me. I'm going to cook my competition chili and some other yummy goodnesses (including a pumpkin cheesecake!). It's been too long since I've planned and cooked a full dinner (a company-quality dinner). I've been so excited to plan this out, get recipes and ingredients, and pay attention to all the details of planning a meal. :) I'm slow at it now, but I hope I become more efficient with more practice. Jan gives me good advice. For instance, I didn't realize that Germany doesn't sell canned pumpkin (puree or mix). So, looks like I'm going to learn how to cook a pumpkin and turn it into a suitable puree that the recipe calls for. Also, she, in all the countries and cultures she has lived in, has never heard of cilantro. I was surprised! Is this just a N.A. herb? I'm afraid they won't have it here, which is sad b/c it's a key ingredient to the recipe. :( Josh and I are doing some other fun things also, but I'll post about that in my next post, hopefully accompanied by pictures!

I also want to thank those of you who have sent me "care packages." I've received several really thoughtful ones helping me to celebrate the fall season as well as one - a "date in a box," which was a blast via skype! These have been really meaningful to me. Thanks! The one pictured is from my mom.

More to follow soon! Happy Thanksgiving!

A Relaxed Week

Well, the main of the swine flu scare is over. After a four-day quarantine, there are only 2 sick students remaining. School has resumed, and the week is back into progress.

I really enjoyed this time off. I graded 50/57 papers Mon-Wed and will finish those today. Almost 6 weeks later, I can finally return my Hamlet book to the library. I did start to get a little cabin fever by the time Tuesday evening rolled around. I should have thought to take a walk during those two days, but didn't end up leaving the house at all. Wednesday-Friday I'm not teaching (Wed-test, Thur-Fri - a mini-unit done by Jill). This mini-unit is a poetry analysis on John Donne's "Batter My Heart." The poem again reminded me of the work Christ has yet to do in us. Donne contrasts God as a "tinker," or one who mends things, and God as a "smith," or one who completely melts down and makes anew, the latter process obviously being more painful than the former. It causes me to ponder which I let God do in my own life.

This weekend I'll be finishing a 5-hour BBC movie on Charles Dicken's Our Mutual Friend with some of my friends. A couple of us have gotten into the habit (3rd time around) of watching long BBC films along with dinner. We all bring ingredients to contribute to the meal (homemade pizza, taco salad, potato bar) and then watch the movie. This has been so fun! I hope we get one more movie/dinner in before I have to leave. I'm also going to a bridal shower and swing dance over the weekend. Originally, I was going to a swing dance in Basel with a friend here (we both share a common interest in dancing and have tried to go to a few) but then found out about a local swing dance the same night. We decided to go the local one b/c of the higher likelihood we'll find people who speak English (some other BFAers should be going). It'll be fun!

Wow, only 3 more weeks left! I can't help but think back to my first trip to Germany. It was only 3 weeks, but at the time seemed to take much longer. Now, I've been here over 2 months and it has flown!

Due to the 3-day week, we've had to change our teaching schedule around some. I'll most likely be teaching 4 out of 5 days next week: this will complete my teaching time at BFA. The remaining 2 weeks will be for observation only. A relaxing change :).

Back to those remaining 7 papers!!

UPDATE: The papers are done, graded, and posted for all parents/students to see. Time to get my "tough skin" on.

Swine Flu

No, I don't have it...yet.

It's starting to spread quite rapidly here, however. Today they received test results back from several quarantined students with flu symptoms, and all were positive. This puts our total of swine flu students to a high enough number that the German government is getting involved with the situation. In a centralized campus boarding school, it's very hard to contain illness. BFA has a typical bout or two of flu each year, sometimes hitting up to 1/2 of the student population at one time. But, this time, it's swine flu. The first step the school is taking, in working with the government is to call a four-day weekend. So, no school on Monday or Tuesday!! If they cannot contain the spread by Tuesday, they'll extend it to the German-required 7 day quarantine and not have school until Friday. If this is the case, the teachers will have to prepare worksheets and assignments to send the students at the dorm, since we can't stop having school for an entire week, and then teach on Friday as well as Saturday. I'm glad for these extra days off to rest and grade my Hamlet papers, but an entire week off would really be difficult to make up.

During this 4-day weekend, they are canceling church and requiring the students to not leave the dorms. It is important to not spread it to the townies for their health and to keep up PR. Also, all teachers who are pregnant or in frequent contact with pregnancy/young/old/respiratory illness people have to stay away from school for the entire 7 days or longer. For the English dept, this knocks out both the 10th and 11th grade teachers. So, this week, when we do have school, we'll be doing a lot of scrambling to cover those classes. Today was a bit hectic as I taught two 12th grade periods, subbed 10th, and then raced over to do hair for the play.

The play was still allowed to remain scheduled. We have a lot of parents/relatives flying from all over Europe and North America to see it. At this point, everyone at BFA has been exposed to swine flu; however, many of the people traveling in have not. So, they required everyone going to the play both tonight and tomorrow to wear masks and wash their hands when entering and exiting the building. It was rather funny to see everyone this way. Here is the auditorium filling up. It was a full house!

I was very impressed with the show; the acting was excellent, and it was genuinely funny. The characterization really made the play, I thought.

I am very glad that the week is finally over. It's been the longest yet. I thought the students were beginning to do a little better until I gave them a group quiz today. After discussing it over with Jill, she suggested I was being too easy on them. Now I feel confused about what my expectations for the students should be. I thought my standards were high; but now I have no idea how she expects them to attain what she is asking. I guess I'm glad she's taking them back after next week? I'm really not sure how to reach what she is asking. I've realized recently a little more of what the issue is. Jill keeps saying that she's never had a class this lazy and unmotivated before. She said that this class, the class of '10, had new teachers for both 10th and 11th grade. Those teachers now have a few years under their belt and are teaching up to par, but their first year, they let the students by easy. So now, in 12th grade, this particular class has had little to no intensive English education. After learning this, it made a little more sense to me (and I'm sure my inexperience as a teacher is not helping them); I'm curious to see what Jill does with them after she takes back over. She was just beginning to see how far behind the class really was when I took over; now we're far enough into the semester that it's really coming out. Soon, I look forward to sitting back and watching the master teacher work. :) I still need prayer for guidance with the few lessons I have left with them. I may be inexperienced, but I still know what I'm teaching and I'm not giving up on trying to pull them back up to higher standards.

Ah...sleeping in for four days straight...it's too good to be true!!

Miss you all.

Entering a Difficult Week

I'm on week 8 now! Last week went well, though was a transition from London weekend to class again. I was impressed, for the most part, with the students' debates and had fun with them. I made chocolate covered pretzels for the winning teams. Yum!

Thursday and Friday I was more than a little hesitant about beginning to teach poetry. It's hard for students to find meaning through a web of literary devices and disguised intentions. I was unsure of my ability to teach the students to uncover meaning and analyze the poem. However, it went much better than I thought. I felt I had a solid grasp of the content (Shakespeare Sonnets 29, 73, 116, and 130) and was glad to be able to make lots of personal connections between the poems and contemporary, young adult life. They are all love poems, so this made it easy.

The weekend was busy. I volunteered to do hair for the upcoming school play. We had the dress rehearsal this Saturday; it was a blast! The play is set during the 70s, so I was doing lots of puffs, flips, and sassy curls. I liked the drama atmosphere and was glad to see what drama is like behind the scenes. Hair, makeup, and costumes were all done in the same room,with sheets set up to separate the girl's changing area from the boy's. Most of the girls had to add extra padding to make themselves look older, bigger, and fatter since they were playing older parts. It was hilarious because all of a sudden we heard things like, "Oh, your butt's too low, move it higher" and "do they look even?" and "you're sagging." We all started cracking up; the guys handled it good-naturedly. Ah...the honesty of drama!

Sunday night I went to the guy's dorm, Maugenhart, for dinner to help one of the student on his paper. It was interesting to see guy dorm life (I had been to a girl's dorm the week before). It was fun to observe, but I was surprised to find that most of my seniors there had not even started the paper due the following day (today), but which had been assigned 3.5 weeks earlier.

My fears were confirmed when I arrived to school Monday morning and had a discussion with Jill. She had also been to the dorms that day to offer assistance on papers and was saddened, frustrated, and angered to find that no one had started their papers yet. This is very frustrating to me. This Hamlet paper is the second and last major paper they've been assigned for the semester. It's worth a SIGNIFICANT part of their grade. The first paper, similar in direction, was awful, most students getting D's and F's. One would think they'd learn (after the serious talk Jill had with them) and change their procrastination habits for this paper. But, they didn't. Though I haven't read the papers yet, Jill and I both agree that they can't be of any better quality. For the intensity of the paper I assigned and for the place the students are at, there is no way they can have written an A or B paper in one night. Because a pretty nasty flu is rapidly spreading through the dorms and b/c of drama and SAT's that weekend, I told the students this morning (the morning it was due) that they could have an extension to Wednesday. Most of the students had stayed up way late into the night to finish the paper. I can only hope they'll use this extra time to work on it more.

My frustration has carried over into the way they are performing in class. Friday I gave them a simple lit device identification and analysis quiz on Sonnet 116. The average grade was 7/13. Failing. The skill required was something they'd done multiple times with Jill and something they should have been doing since 9th grade. I'm left wondering, "Do I babysit them and re-teach things they should already know, sacrificing the content I could cover in order to work on more basic skills?" Is this how they can best grow and learn from their lack of diligence? I need to understand that they are only in h.s. and I can't treat them fully like adults. But still, some of the things they are doing and choices they are making are really immature. Please pray for my wisdom as I continue to teach and evaluate them. I already have some ideas for steps to take. I need to find the balance between helping them out, realizing they are still young adults and learning, and between letting them receive the consequences of their poor choices.

This week is also difficult for me because it's the most intense in terms of content I have yet to teach myself before teaching them. We're covering a lot of poetry; I need to be secure enough in my understanding of it be able to teach them clearly, especially with their recently-revealed struggles. I also will be receiving 55 papers to grade on Wednesday, which will increase my work load tremendously. This Friday and Saturday is the play with a six-hour party on Sunday; so, the weekend will not give me much time. Please pray that I use my time wisely, stay healthy (the spreading flu is a stomach flu, something I don't handle well), and remain positive. I gave the students a pretty sharp lecture today regarding their papers and procrastinating, so the mood has been pretty heavy. I don't like to be mean; but it's necessary sometimes, though painful to me. I never want to be a parent. :)

London - there and back again

This trip, by far, has been the highlight of my time in Europe. The richness of the culture and history was overwhelming, the company and fellowship were fufilling, and the break and change were relaxing.

Friday night we (6 female BFA teachers) arrived in London at 8:30 after taking a bus from the airport to the city. We decided to walk the 45 minutes to our hostel instead of purchasing a Tube ticket for only one ride. We began to discover and uncover London as we walked around, taking our time, and enjoying the cool night air. Heidi had lent us a very helpful map booklet guide of London which I utilized most of the trip. After a while, we decided to look for a place to eat. We stopped in one pub called "The Royal George" and were told that they stopped serving food after 3 because people only want to drink after that time on a Friday. We asked if there were anyplace else to eat, and he said there was only one place left still serving food. After giving us directions to "The Rocket", he said, "You'll hear it before you come to it." Boy, was he right.

The Rocket ended up being a young adult club, fitting the definition of "bar/club" perfectly. After making it through the bouncer at the door, we shuffled around trying to find a table, which some guys gave up to us, but at the cost of talking us through our whole meal. They were pretty jovial, so we kept them preoccupied with giving us directions and tourist tips to every place in London we could think of while finishing up and preparing to leave. The funniest part was when one of the guys, after trying to get us to drink some ritual liquor shot with him, said, "You may all be teachers, but there's going to be a lot of learning going on tonight." We disapointed him by leaving "early" and gladly re-entered the fresh night air, but laughed together over the experience and some of the funny comments that had been made. After finishing our walk to the hostel, we were surprised to see open restaurants (including pizza hut and mcdonalds) everywhere!! Looking back on it, I think the gentleman at "The Royal George" thought we were asking him if there were any clubs open that were still serving food. We unintentionally asked him to refer us to The Rocket club! lol!

We arrived at the Clink, our hostel, around 10:30, and were not as pleased with it as we had hoped. They ended up charging us more than they had advertised (what could we do but pay?) and upon entering our room, found 3 of the 8 beds contained sleeping men. (Online we had reserved an all-female room). We felt pretty safe the whole trip since we were traveling in such a large group and never went anywhere alone, but I was mad that the hostel had deceived us twice.

Saturday morning was our busy day! I can't believe we saw as much as we did. At 8, we met up with my friend, Scott, from St. Louis, who is interning at the American embassy there. We were indebted to his company that day as he was an excellent tour guide and got us around the city much quicker than we ever could have done alone. We saw Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, Covent Garden, Trafalger Square, the Globe, St. Paul's Cathedral (we stayed for the evensong - a sung service - and quite enjoyed the experience both culturally and spiritually), Buckingham Palace, and a few more things. My favorite, by far was Westminster Abbey. Some of our group decided to pay the 12 pounds to go in and take the audio self-guided, 90 min. tour. Best decision I made the whole trip. I'm pretty sure I walked around with my mouth hanging open the whole time. I saw where Queen Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots, Bloody Mary, and many more monarchs were buried. Incredible! When I entered the Poet's Corner (something I've wanted to see my entire life) and stopped and had to stand still for a few moments to take it all in. I've never been in the presence of so many famous and influential author, poets, and musicians in my life. I was so happy! Here is a picture of only the front part of the Abbey - it is huge!

After evensong that evening, we all went to Starbucks to rest up and change for the Phantom of the Opera. This was my second favorite part of London. The show was incredible to see! The music, acting, tech team, and environment swept us up into the story. Prior to, we were afraid we'd be too tired to enjoy it, but we couldn't avert our eyes from the stage, even if we had wanted to. I haven't been to many plays, musicals, classical concerts, or ballets, but I'm growing to love them the more I see them.

On Sunday we nearly missed our bus to the airport and walked for 45 minutes in the pouring rain so that we were soaked for the rest of the day, but still quite enjoyed ourselves. On our way to the airport, we were thrilled to stop at King's Cross Station and take pictures at Platform 9 3/4. For those who don't know - this is the famous port from Harry Potter where he magically leaves the "muggle" world to go to Hogsworth, the school of wizardry - and we were actually there!

One scary (now funny) part of the trip for me was when I lost my tube day pass on Saturday evening. To enter and exit the Tube, you have to scan your ticket into a machine that allows you to enter the underground. The little doors only open for a few seconds to let an individual through. Although I had paid for the whole day, I didn't have my ticket anymore to prove it, and had to jump in really quickly behind Scott each time, pretending I was scanning my ticket. Most of the Tube entrances/exits have "guards" watching the little stalls to make sure no one sneaks through. I ended up having to "sneak through" 6 times and was absolutely terrified of getting caught. I found out only later that the penalties for entering and exiting without a ticket are pretty steep. One time, I didn't quite get through quick enough and my backpack got caught in the doors. I yanked it free and kept walking as quickly as possible, only to hear the sirens on the entrance I had just entered start going off behind me. I just kept walking and was grateful to get lost in the crowd. Another time, we were at a much less crowded station and I nervously eyed the guard standing 10 feet away looking at his cell phone. I edged close to Scott ready to bolt through only to discover that his card suddenly wouldn't work. He had to eventually call the guard over to help! I quickly ducked to the back of the group and got in with Julie, so thankful that the guard went back to his phone instead of watching the rest of us go through. This whole experience completely ruined the Tube experience for me; I never want to get on the Tube again and am terrified of it!

Overall I loved the experience and culture and need many more days of London to get my fill (I'll just have to go back)! I have many more incidentally funny stories that I don't have the time or space to write including fighting the Grim Reaper and winning (it was Halloween weekend), misunderstanding British phrases that led to comical situations, and squeezing 6 girls into a red telephone booth, to name a few. I was very glad, also, to speak and understand what was being spoken again! Though, I've discovered since living with the Formans and going to England that British and American are more different than I thought. :)

A garden for monks in Westminster Abbey