free never tasted this good

as you know, today is halloween.

however, for some this day has another name. FREE BURRITO DAY!!!

that’s right, today if you go to chipotle dressed in aluminum foil they will hand over the burrito of your choice at no cost. just in case you didn’t know.

obviously, Mairead and I went. free? food? we’re there half an hour early, staring down the high school girls who try to cut in line. just try it, honey. and it was totally worth it. mmm free burrito for dinner (and enough left over for lunch tomorrow).

rice and games

so I went a few weeks playing a lot of online word games (the majority of them were in spanish because it was work-related).

but I’ve continued to play this one because not only can I prove to myself how awesome my vocabulary is (ha) but I can give minuscule amounts of rice to the hungry.   it reminds me of when I was in high school and I used to do that click the button to reduce hunger website everyday.

apparently my vocabulary level is about 40.  not entirely sure what that means, but I get the feeling I should keep playing to improve my score.

what I want

I am already being poured out like a libation,
and the time of my departure is at hand.
I have competed well; I have finished the race;
I have kept the faith.
From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me,
which the Lord, the just judge,
will award to me on that day, and not only to me,
but to all who have longed for his appearance.

reading research paper fun!

So I was reading some research online about teaching ESOL and found two facts that I find thought-provoking.

First, the 2003 US Census reported that the top ten languages spoken in the United States besides English were, in descending order, Spanish, Chinese, French, German, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Italian, Korean, and Polish.  Compare that to the list of top ten languages of the world (according to Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 15th ed. (2005) & Wikipedia.org), Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, English, Arabic, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Japanese, and German.  I think it quite interesting to think about where our population is coming from and how it’s changing, especially compared to the global language distribution.

Also, according to Smith and Edmonston, Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration (1997), immigrant workers contribute more in taxes than they use in public services.  The US Council of Economic Advisers actually put out a document in June saying that immigration’s long-term effect on the American economy and native-born American workers is positive (btw, that document also states that immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than native-born).  even with my limited economic education, this makes total sense to me.  just wanted to share!

teachers make the worst students

today we had a PD day in Dayton!  it was fun.

first, free coffee and bagels.  you know how long it’s been since I had a bagel?  I miss baked goods.

then, free books!  I got a book about american culture and one about ohio inventors for my ESOL classes.  I do love me some swag.

then, free lunch.  and hanging out with the brothers and Marty (I really should post about Marty sometime.  he’s amusing) while eating free lunch.  plus a couple of the non-annoying sisters, so good times.

then, meeting people.  I made friends with the woman who teaches ESOL downtown at the YWCA and she invited me to lunch sometime with her and her friend who works for Catholic Social Services.  she and I sat in the back and made sarcastic comments about how useless some of the info would be for our students (yeah right, entry and exit dates hehehe).

finally, actually learning something at a PD day.  I had one before and learned nothing and just got annoyed by people making mass generalizations about ethnic groups.  in one of today’s sessions, we were talking about cultural differences in speech communication, how certain cultures stress syllables meaning different things, certain cultures have an oral tradition, etc.  It was about teaching listening in an ESOL classroom, as being able to hear and understand what someone on the street is obviously an important topic.  unfortunately I make all this information available for my tutors and they usually breeze right past it doing their own thing.