Thursday, September 23, 2004

Look out below!

Yeah, I know, I dropped a ton of quotes on here at once. But, hey, I had to keep the faith, if not the pace.

Looks like I'll be preaching at the Shelter this Sunday. I heard about that today. But the good news is that we have a four-day weekend coming up due to Teacher's Day. (Woot!) Tomorrow I plough through hours 20-25 of my teaching week. Oof. I shall sleep soon. Gotta beat this allergy illness and general fatigue. Perpetually getting back on the hourse, I am.

A quick anecdote from the front classroom:

I've been teaching my kids about memory, one of the pertinent words being "remember." This led to a brief discussion of what "re-" means in English, to wit, "again." The coup de grace came when I told them the infamous Pete and Repete joke. I really have a good time with my last class on Wednesday, and they were truly in delightful form when I announced this joke.

"Hey guys, you wanna hear a joke?" I told my junior 2-9 guys. "I'll tell you a joke,"

"[general mumbling and shuffling and chuckling]", they answered.

"You ready?"

I opened my mouth to speak, but suddenly Richard -- one of those rare kids that are intelligent but not impertinent -- sat up, waved his hand at me and said, "Hold on, wait, wait." He then grabbed his dark blue school jacket, slung it over his head and shoulders, and wrapped it around his head like a nun.

"Okay, now go," he said.

"Ah, you--!" I began, raising my hand in a mock threat.

In Taiwan, you see, bad or silly jokes ("groaners" as we say in English) are called "cold jokes". Richard, you see, had to brace for the cold. And O how I bring the cold! It's the Richards that often make this ESL grindstone less like a kidney stone and more like the precious stone that it can and should be.

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