New year, new students

After my second amazing vacation in Estonia, I had a really hard time with the idea of going back to work. The last two weeks of school before break were extremely taxing, both mentally and physically. So needless to say, I left work with a negative attitude; an attitude which remained with me until I got to work on Monday morning. I was nervous and scared that the students would be as agitated as they were before break and I just wasn't ready to deal with it. I just wanted to be back on vacation...

Kooraste

But my first class was calm and paid attention, as did the next, and even the next. By the end of the day, I was back in the swing of teaching and content that the students were so excited to have English class again! Even my class that is d'habitude the worst was focused and well-behaved (shockingly so). In one of my CM1 classes, Quinten told me that Julien was in love with me. Cute. Or awkward? Let's go with endearing. And then, to inspire me even more, I received a few sweet comments on my colleague's website. Sonya, one of my students wrote: "Bonsoir Kelsey Tu est une super professeur et tu enseigne très bien l'anglais je t'adore.Dommage qui a pas plus de devoir en anglais enfin, C'est pas grave. Au revoir, Sonya"  She's made a few grammatical errors but I copied her post verbatim. It definitely makes me smile. 

Tallinn

Tabivere

Almost all of my students seemed refreshed and ready to learn. One of my must aggravating students, Akram, was actually participating in class! When I checked his notes and saw that he was following along with the pace of the class, I told him I was proud of him! It was like I had a whole new student! Oh wait, I did... Two, to be exact. One of them seems to already have a great basis in English and I think he'll be a great student - maybe he'll inspire the rest of his class to follow suit? But the other, hasn't had any English and doesn't think it's important. Jean-Michel asked him "What's your name?" and the student responded in French with an answer to a completely different question... This guy's going to be tough! At least he's in one of the best classes!

Tartu

This is just one of the reasons why my week was off to a great start... and then I got sick. I actually stayed home from work today, which for me is difficult to do. Usually, I suck it up and go to work for as long as I can last. Except that for the past two days, I've been confined to the couch because the stomach pains worsen when I stand up. I even had Séb pick me up my mom's special cure for stomach aches - a plain McDonald's cheeseburger, medium fries, and diet Coke. (He already thinks I have weird eating habits and this request didn't help my case.) French McDonald's isn't as greasy as it's American counterpart, so it wasn't quite as effective as I'd hoped. I'm just hoping that I'll be able to leave the apartment tomorrow; sick days aren't fun when your mom isn't there to take care of you! 

Bisous, 

-kelse

d'habitude - usually

"Bonsoir Kelsey Tu est une super professeur et tu enseigne très bien l'anglais je t'adore.Dommage qui a pas plus de devoir en anglais enfin, C'est pas grave. Au revoir, Sonya"  - "Good evening Kelsey. You are a great teacher and you teach English very well. I really like you. Too bad there isn't more homework in English but it's okay. Good bye, Sonya" **Like I said, this was taken verbatim and not corrected.