End of May

The sun has set, it's peaceful and beautifully mysterious outside. The perfect night for some slow music and a glass of something tasty and sweet.

Time has been flying by lately...it's important to slow down sometimes and treasure these precious little moments. And to feel so amazingly alive... :)

Bon nuit...

Rainy Saturday

The Time of the Big Rain continues, so here's a little bit of California sunshine to lighten things up a bit.

This morning was filled with relative clauses for me, and now I'm just waiting for some guests to arrive so we can be cozy and have a warming, tasty lunch :) It's the ideal day for coziness and relaxation - so there are some positive things that come with the rain too!

It's also good weather for music and, uh, general reflection. Although it can be hard to have overly positive reflections when it's so dreary. That's why you need some upbeat, inspiring music to go along with all the reflecting :)

Alrighty, I smell something delicious! It's a vegetable tart, yum yum. Nothing like healthy, carbohydrate-y food to comfort us in the dreary month of May (slight sarcasm can be inserted here :) ).

Cheerio with a bell pepper on top!

Foggy Misty Fog

I feel like I should post a poem...the weather outside is misty, mysterious, and definitely not Spring-y. It's poetry weather :) But I will refrain from spurting out my silly musings and stick with a brief recap of the past...week? Has it been a week already? The long weekend was lovely, relaxing, and occasionally gorgeous. I went to Van Dusen Gardens and felt completely inspired and rejuvenated. It's still one of my favourite spots to visit - all those beautiful flowers, the waterfall, cute birds, so many different walks, and there's always a new discovery around the corner.

This week was a little bit stressful, especially at the beginning. I'm now teaching Mid-Intermediate rather than Low-Intermediate English in the mornings and it's quite a jump. I did lots of grammar research and preparation so that I'd be able to teach modal verbs properly but it was challenging nonetheless. Also, the students in my class changed as well so it was quite a juggling act with too many moving parts. Thankfully, things are settling down a bit now and I'm getting back into a good rhythm. I hope :)

There's been absolutely no tennis this week due to rainy weather and many people are feeling a bit down. It's almost June! I really hope the sun comes back soon-ish. We need those happy rays and some more Vitamin D :)

Have a wonderful weekend!

Time for the Long Weekend!

This week the weather has been absolutely CRAZY! Sun, wind, rain, storminess, sunniness, mugginess, everything rolled into one...and it changes about fifty times a day, or more. Yesterday we had Sports Day for half of the school day and we went to a lovely park by False Creek. We had lots of sports to choose from - soccer, football, basketball, badminton, bocce, croquet, dodgeball, and other improvised Korean games :) Good times were had by all, despite the bizarro, occasionally freezing weather.

Attempting to play soccer reminded me how much I enjoy kicking things. Maybe that's another sport I should throw into the mix :) Hitting balls with a racquet is pretty fun, but power kicking is also highly enjoyable and strangely satisfying :) I wish we had more sports days at school :)

And now it's time for some tennis! I haven't played in a week and I'm hoping I'll be able to play lots this weekend, without rain getting in the way.

Cheerio!

Stunning!

Ahhh, another glorious weekend! Yesterday I headed to the beach and sat on the grass for hours, just enjoying the view, relaxation, and some good conversation. I also enjoyed a delicious scoop of straciatella gelato - yummy! Just like in Italy :) There was a bit of trouble when I got home though - I looked in the mirror and realized that my face was totally sunburned, except for the area where my sunglasses had been. Not a pretty sight! I hadn't expected the sun to be so strong! So I've been applying various creams and trying to even things out my wrapping the red parts of my face with a scarf and exposing the pasty parts to the sun. I think it helped a bit but the outline of my glasses can still be seen. And I'm still red, sigh.

I took this photo yesterday. It may not look like much, but in real life it was extraordinary - the sun was circled completely by a full on rainbow! I couldn't believe it, it was so magical! So that's the bottom half of the rainbow, as seen from my blanket.

I've been eating delicious spicy broccoli soup the last couple of days. Even when the weather's warm I still like to have a bowl of soup with my dinner :) I've also been eating apples, bananas, and juicy grapes, mmm. I think I need to find some new snacks though, I've been edging towards my jar of peanut butter moreso than usual.

Have you ever gotten a bad sunburn? Did you do anything special to counteract the damage? This is yet another example of prevention being the key :)

Halfway through May?!

Already?! Really?! Alrighty then, I have no problems with frolicking in these gorgeous May sunshine. This morning I actually left the house without a jacket, gasp!

It's been quite a lovely week so far - good lessons, great weather, and now the aroma of freshly baked cookies. On Tuesday I took a group of students to see Iron Man 2 and they seemed to enjoy it, although some felt bad about not understanding much of the dialogue. I keep telling them that it's all about practice - after all, we learn by exposing ourselves to the language as much as possible, but of course it's not very encouraging to watch something and not understand what people are saying.

Tomorrow will be a day full of field trips, hooray! I need to come up with more field trip ideas as well...too bad I don't actually live in Vancouver so I don't know all the good spots. Since the weather's so good tomorrow, I'm taking one of my classes on a picnic. I haven't gone on a picnic in aaages so hopefully it will a pleasantly relaxing and highly enjoyable experience :)

Hmmm, it seems all I ever talk about anymore is school! That's what my life revolves around at the moment, ha ha.

Oh, and the photo was taken in Venice - a magical, unreal, fantastical place! I'd love to go there again someday, it was absolutely gorgeous. A floating city, oh my!

Cheerio!

Alrighty, maybe I'll

An ounce of cuteness

Life is bursting with unexpected moments of tenderness (and extreme cuteness!!). I took this picture while out on a field trip with my class on Friday. We were walking along the water, surrounded by flowers, greenery, and basking in the sunshine, when these darlings came along.

This weekend felt like full-on Summer! So glorious, so warm, so energizing! I feel very refreshed and ready for a brand new week.

Do you ever feel like you need sunshine to recharge your batteries? I think I must have been reptilian in a previous lifetime :)

And now back to regularly scheduled lesson planning :)

Beautiful Day!

So this photo isn't a realistic depiction of what it's like outside...since it's a picture of Verona back in Autumn :) But, oh, isn't it a beautiful old place? So romantic! I was actually considering going to see the new movie Letters to Juliet, starring Amanda Seyfried, but the reviews have been sort of horrible so far so perhaps I'll opt for something else :)

I'm currently recovering from a cold (yuck!) - lots of people at school have been sick and unfortunately I succumbed to the ickiness. I still played tennis with some of the students on Thursday and then felt sooo exhausted and sore afterwards...but it was totally worth it :) Tennis is so much fun. I'm still sore today, and a little bit sick, but I can't resist tennis in this gorgeous Summerlike weather - lots of sunshine, blue skies, birds chirping, no wind...ahhhh, paradise :)

Lastly, I have to mention Glee (again!) because this week's episode was SO GOOD! Seriously, this show continues to impress me. Here's a good song from this week to check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yelF5xnXnuQ&feature=related I recommend listening from start to finish :)

Okay, time to get organized and start the day with some tennis (and coughing)!!

Happy May!!!

Tennis all weekend long!

I took this picture yesterday - and what a glorious day it was! Perfect for a walk on the beach - my shoes got deliciously muddy :)

Some of my students have been asking about White Rock and are possibly interested in visiting. Too bad it's so far away, otherwise it would be such a great field trip. A bunch of them have bought tennis rackets and I'm starting an after-school tennis club/activity thing next week. Hopefully it won't rain all week...that's what the weather forecast is saying but it's often wrong. It doesn't really feel like May at the moment - it's windy, dark, and cold. Oh well, it's not raining so I still got to play tennis :) Yesterday AND today, what a treat :)

Is there anything that you're addicted to buying? For some people it's shoes, maybe clothes, maybe even some particular food items. For me, it's definitely books. Lately I've been buying ESL books (in the hope that this would improve my lessons and give me lots of material to present). At first it was all perfectly fine and useful, but now my entire "office area" is overflowing with books and it's a bit ridiculous. And I still want to keep buying more, ha ha :)

I finally uploaded my photos and figured out how to use iPhoto - it's so handy!! And the slide show feature is fantabulous - it even plays music and gives you several options of how you want the slides to appear (sort of like the options in Power Point I suppose). Awesome.

Some Russian family friends gave me cute little traditional Russian mushroom rolls. I haven't tried them but the plump dough-i-ness looks very inviting indeed. Soon the White Rock Farmer's market will start up again and I'll probably buy more than a few Russian cabbage rolls at the European bakery booth. But I digress.

Time to go and buy a new kettle. I had a relatively new Cuisinart stainless steel kettle that cost almost $100 and it broke two days ago - it's not doing anything. I don't think it was more than a year old so I'm not sure how that happened - it's a pretty straightforward device, right? Not a lot of crazy complicated parts. In any case, I need my nice hot water for tea and oatmeal and such, so off I go - kettle-hunting!

Have a lovely weekend!