Beginning of Second week, a drag

We all know people tend to break with their resolutions within the second week. The first week they are completely optimistic and hopeful that things will turn out for the better. When you arrive at the second week, things start to get tougher. Not saying that's the case for me; it's just this week has been harder than last week.

My Rich! magazine interview game with journalists and rich people was a success and clearly the students enjoyed it very much. My weekend was enjoyable and relaxing with the first orchestra rehearsal of the New Year and a return to the Pentecostal church. Monday's return to the choir was refreshing as we looked at work by Part and Buxtehude, pieces that we will be singing in our concert in May, presumably. Monday was the end of the road for the Interview game and it enjoyed its last course with the Terminale students.

Tuesday began pretty well. I finally got around to showing the first part of "The Prestige" to my Terminale ESA class. They were practically demanding it and I had promised it would happen. So, I made a worksheet that they will use to answer questions related to the film. They're liking the film so far, which they're watching in English with French subtitles to help them whenever necessary. Fine.

I spent close to two and half hours preparing a lesson for both today and tomorrow. What I wanted to do with my Secondes (sophomores) was a lesson on New Year's Resolutions. I began by showing them a video of a Brit girl who had all these ideas about New Year's resolutions and then she got drunk and forgot about them, showing that such resolutions are often breached and dismissed. I wanted the students to look at a sheet and check the resolutions that they would want to do and then find people in the room with the same resolution. Didn't work out so well. Then, I tried to get the students to talk about a memorable year in the past and what they did well. Total failure. They didn't respond or participate; they blabbed, in French, of course. So, I lost control over the students (much as I frequently lose control over the 1eres on Monday morning at 11am right before lunch time). My mind, of course, was a swirl of both panic, stress, and frustration, and at the moment, I am typing this entry probably over-caffeinated and feeling over-stressed... :/

So, here I am at 12:32am. I have a plan for tomorrow's early class, and I hope it works. The next week, we're going to work on themes involving songs with political themes, since there have been quite a few highly charged events in the news recently (namely, the shootings in Tucson, AZ). So tomorrow, the students will analyze ONE song: John Lennon, "Imagine." Hopefully, this will spark discussion. We will talk about John Lennon's life using a PowerPoint and then analyze the lyrics and meaning of the song. All right, so there's the scoop. Now back to a commercial break and I'll see you when we get back...