I need to do some thinking about IIA, for I am really beginning to stagnate in there. They are bored silly most of the time. It’s fine occasionally, but it is not good if it happens all the time.

I think part of the problem is their level. It’s difficult to plan for that level because the simple things I do in IA/B wouldn’t work that well. And a bit of it is their age: a tough group at that age when they feel trapped between adulthood and childhood.

Some of it could be a lack of long term planning. I never seem to know where we’ll be going next, and I think the kids can tell this too. During the break I will to make at least a tentative syllabus for the rest of the year. I am not sure I’ll be able to make it very detailed–it problem will be a week-by-week thing. I will try to include a few long-term projects as well as a general idea of when we’ll have tests.

My water heater is gone. The drip turned into a pour last night and I actually was able to get someone to do something about it.

I just realized the extremes of my working conditions: On the one hand, I overuse the book in IIA; on the other, I don’t even use a book for classes V and VI. What i need to do is combine the two in IIA in order to find that Golden Mean. Maybe I can apply some of the tactics I use in V and VI successfully in IIA. I can use the book as a guide, but invent my own activities for practice and application. I’ll try it Wednesday for the lesson with adjectives.

I received a notice from PC Warsaw that I’ve been waiting for for months now: My diplomatic pouch is here. In other words, my computer is now in Poland, if you can believe it. And so I might have it in a couple of weeks. That is of course if someone will bring it up to Sopot, which honestly seems a little bit unrealistic.

Of course now I have to get it to work here . . .