Full Weekend

Since I started having classes on Saturdays, the weekends have flown by even faster than ever. If you have ever taught on a regular basis, you probably know that being responsible for one hour worth of curriculum, class control, and knowing the answers to random questions can be taxing. My classes are two hours long, and I have three of them every Saturday.

I am not saying that I don't enjoy it. I do! I am saying that I am quite finished by the time the end of the last class rolls around.

This past weekend was quite full, and interesting, so I thought I would share some highlights in this post.

Saturday marked the end of Lesson 1 in the course, so the students had a test. After they took the test, there was still some time left in my first class, so I asked if they had any questions. One of the students had a song on his cell phone that he wanted me to write out the words. I asked what band it was. “Whitecross,” he said. I was not sure whether to be stunned, or just laugh out loud.



At one time I had three CD's, and two of them were from Whitecross. I now have many more than three CD's, and I don't know what happened to my Whitecross albums. It was quite a trip down memory lane, though. The song he wanted me to transcribe was “In The Kingdom.” Evidently, he had been at a show they did in Rio de Janeiro (and so was another student in the same class!), so it was a trip down memory lane for us all–except for Nicholas, who is about 14. I think he liked the music, though. Wasn't '80s hair metal great?

As I mentioned, I gave a test Saturday, and my students did pretty well. Of eleven students, six scored above 96%, the lowest score was 75%.

Sunday was the election runoff, and while Nádya went to vote I indulged myself in a Stock Car Brasil race. It was an interesting race in that it took place in Buenos Aries, Argentina–and it had just rained. Every lap, or so one car would go off the track and get stuck in the dirt. Then caution would be called... Yeah it was not the best race I have ever watched, but it was an auto race, so I “had” to watch it.

The things that made the race interesting are the differences from NASCAR. The cars are slower, but the track is not an oval (oval=boring). They ran the race, even with the track pretty much drenched; there were several near-accidents from hydroplaning.

Other differences I noticed were that the doors on these cars open, unlike NASCAR, and the pit crew seems to just wear matching street-clothes. I think I have only watched two of these races, so I want to watch a few more to see if I like it or not. If you are interested in more about this, let me know.

Sometime in the past week I updated my profile for this site. Have a visit, and let me know what you think (I already know that the age is incorrect.).

Oh, and if you are interested in the election outcome, Lula will continue as President of Brazil.