So I am listening to Madonna's Lucky Star song, and I thought,"We are all mobile stars who are fueled by the light of others." What part of the galaxy will you find yourself in? Will you gather with stars about to burn out? Will you slide away from the other bright stars and fade away? or Will you be a beacon of light on your own for other stars wandering your way?
I just got done reading the exclusive, hot-off-the-presses, fall Peace Corps newsletter. The most interesting information I learned was that there will be a program in Sierra Leone. Self, being in Georgia is not so bad at all.
Also today, I was hungry and it was like a prayer, the lord took me to the teacher's lounge to find a beautiful spread on food. One of my favorite Georgian dishes is Mtchadi, corn bread! I prefer it without the cheese. On its own, it is reminiscent of corn bread meets fried corn dog batter. Delicious!
After I ate, I cranked out my criticismical red pen to correct some essays before heading to my Russian lesson. One thing about my Russian tutor, is that she loves the Russian language. In college, I learned the grammar structures and so far have used Russian as a basic survival language, so as a result, my expression in the language is not entirely there. So we'll be speaking and she has in two lessons, taught me more beautiful ways of expressing for myself. For example, instead of "peaceful night," I learned how to say, "I wish you to have pleasant dreams," literally translated. Also, by focusing on expression, it increases the intellectual quality of my language. She is amazing. I would say she is the first linguist I have met who has such a great passion for the language, which she is able to easily communicate. This is not to discount the education I received, but in the university, the level of education for learning a language is so far beyond basic comprehension that something is lost systemically. Needless to say, this is something I will continue to look forward to.
Also, in birthday news, I'm glad to say everything is falling in place. Regardless of how the cards fall, it will be a good time had by all.
Furthermore, the gas AND the light came back on today, which is how I'm writing to you now! Tomorrow, I'm going to do a test run on the tortillas for the quesadillas to ensure primo-quality! This goes back to my friend Danielle, god bless her! She said, "Good parties are the ones you create." It's true, while you can hope that someone else will make a good party for you, if you want to ensure its success, you also must put in a significant contribution!
Also, I thought of an idea for my school today. I think of a ton of ideas, but this one I'm pretty serious about, at some point in time. The grading system of our school is all done in one book for each class, as I may have mentioned. This means that there is one grade book for the entire 12th grade, for example and so on. So the books are left in the teachers' lounge and then teachers take turns writing down the daily assignments, test grades, and attendance. So this is what I want to do: I want to see what funding is available to get 5 computers for the teachers' lounge, 1 computer for the director, and 1 for the admin assistant/finance office. By networking these computers together and having excel spreadsheets for gradebooks, it will make inputting and calculating grades easier, more accessible, more accurate and overall better. There are many teachers who don't keep accurate records because it's just too much work/thought to calculate everything. The same thing would happen if it were like this in the states. Also, by having a computerized system later in time, maybe next year, the admin assistant could use the computer to create/edit students' and teachers schedule to make schedule design easier. Also, for the director, she could more easily determine class sizes and manage the teachers' work. Furthermore, all teachers have to submit each trimester's syllabus ahead of time. This network system would enable her and teachers to be aware of their goals and ease of syllabus submission. Of course, there would need to be considerable IT training for teachers, but the results of implementing this system would put this school on the upper/advanced track in relation to other schools in Georgia! My director is really open to ideas, which is also really good. Also I told my CP about the idea today, and she just lit up with joy.
That's about all that's new! Keepin it fresh, almost daily!
-Jefferson
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