TESOL 2017 in Seattle with ACCESS teachers

I've done a terrible job of posting updates here this semester! Well, today I'll try to catch up a bit.

March was quite a busy month, including a trip to Seattle for TESOL. It was a special trip, too. The college of education at BGSU had a group of English teachers from Pakistan vising on a grant. My colleague Kimberly was involved with the grant, and part of the experience was to take these 20 teachers to TESOL. Kimberly invited me to help, and in exchange, the grant paid my travel expenses--woohoo! It was a demanding week, and it was certainly a different type of experience than my past trips to TESOL, but it was also very rewarding. I've traveled in groups before, but leading the group, in a city I'd never been to before, was definitely a challenge. On the other hand, these teachers were so good-natured about everything, even though the schedule we'd set up really pushed us all to our limits. We went to the conference sessions and spent a good deal of time exploring tourist attractions of Seattle, so the week was jam packed. It was neat, though, to see these teachers having what probably was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and knowing I was a part of it, too.

Here's a nice article about the whole program.

In addition to all that, Kimberly and I co-presented at the Electronic Village Technology Fair (sort of a mini-conference within TESOL) about using infographics in our classes. Our materials are posted here (contact me if you'd like the password so you can see the password protected pages). The EV organizers also made a little YouTube video of us explaining our work!

I've got pics of my own as well as quite a few I downloaded from the teachers' posts on Facebook, so here's a totally unorganized smattering of photos from the trip, plus a few from some activities we had with the teachers on campus during the week after the trip. I'll add captions to explain what things are. (My original plan was to get all the pics organized and present them in order, but since it's taken me more than a month to find time to post at all, I decided it'd be better to do something rather than wait for time to make it perfect...even if this is a bit haphazard). I should also say, this group was wild about selfies! You'll see...

waiting for the light rail to go from the airport to the hotel

our hotel was right across the street
from this huge public library!

a visit to the Seattle World School

we took a great harbor cruise on this ship

Heather and Neil, good friends from high school, live in Seattle.
We met for coffee--it was great to catch up! 

the famous Pike Market

 

at this fish seller, they threw fish back and forth over that big
display for us, but I couldn't catch them in action!

I ate several delicious doughnuts from this place!

display of teapots at the Spice Market shop,
where I bought some delicious (very affordable!) tea

We found this small Pakistani restaurant, ZumZum.
The teachers had really been missing food from home,
so they loved this place!

I thought it was delicious, too. 

in the Convention Center

several teachers presented at a poster session
hosted by the department of state

excellent pizza!

view of the harbor--we had some really great weather

adorable otters at the aquarium

seals at the aquarium

space needle

a highlight of the trip:
the Chihuly Garden and Glass

view from the space needle (unfortunately,
by the time we got up there, the weather was terrible!)

Ok, those are my pics; everything below is courtesy of the other travelers in our group.

with Kimberly and Soha
(a BGSU grad student who also helped us on the trip)

Kimberly at our Electronic Village session

and me, at our session

at the Seattle World School

poster presenters

great shot of Kimberly at the Pike Market

we got to catch up with Sam, too!
(a former BGSU faculty member who moved to Minnesota a few years ago)

at the space needle

group photo in front of the education building at BGSU

some of the guys--the third from the right is Andy,
a grad student from education who also helped us on the trip

group photo at the bus stop across from our hotel in Seattle

opening keynote speaker, Sherman Alexie (he was really great!)

the spices at the Spice Market

photo backdrop at the space needle

having fun at the space needle despite the weather

Overall, a rather unforgettable experience. Also, if I ever make it to visit Pakistan, I know I'll have many friends to greet me there. :-)

Christmas--More Pics!

Courtesy of Damon, here are some more pics from Christmas! He did a much better job of documenting the week than I did. Thanks for sharing, Damon!

Buddy and Cody

Christmas Eve family selfie

beautiful tree!

Christmas morning aftermath...

Mom's new designer penguin gear

what a great shot of these ladies!

playing pool

another tree

Dad's lab at Evangel (where he's teaching adjunct this spring)

Christmas

This post is well overdue, but I did want to write a bit about Christmas before too much of this new year goes by! Since Mark's family moved to Missouri early in 2016, we decided to visit them for their first Christmas in their new house, which meant that this Christmas was also the first time we didn't go home to ABQ or see my family. It was pretty strange not to be in ABQ at all, but we also had a lovely time in Springfield.

Before leaving BG, we arranged to video chat with my parents, grandma, and sister to open our gifts, which were so generous! Mark and I have never had a tree at our house with so many presents under it! (I wrapped everything in the Amazon boxes most of it arrived in, so that I wouldn't spoil any surprises; it took up more space that way, so this pile of presents isn't quite as huge as it looks).

In Springfield, we got to see Mark's parents and siblings as well as our niece and nephew (oh, and the two dogs--Buddy and the newest addition to the family, Cody). I didn't do a very good job of taking pictures (and I didn't manage to get copies of anyone else's, either). But we basically all had a good time hanging out and enjoying each other's company. There were delicious meals and holiday goodies, many games of pool and ping pong in the basement, some movies (I saw both Arrival and Rogue One), and, of course, lots of catching up.

There were two specific outings I did manage to get pictures of: Mom treated Katie and me to tea at this adorable tea house downtown. You can see the decorations are totally over the top, and the food was very tasty. I liked the mis-matched china they used for the place settings, and Mom bought me a lovely gray shawl in the gift shop for Christmas.

We also stopped at the Bass Pro Shop, which is special because Springfield, MO is the original location. We have one in the Toledo area, but this one was really over-the-top, plus there were extra decorations out for Christmas. It was also totally packed, so I actually hope to go back again another time to enjoy the atmosphere when it's less crowded. It's kind of like retail store meets theme park meets zoo meets museum. Really weird and fun. Katie indulged me by taking a few pics.

And I did manage to get a couple of pictures of people hanging out together. Here's Mark showing Zach how to record stuff using Mark's fancy new microphones/camera and the audio interface Mark gave Zach for Christmas. Below, Dad and Hannah are checking out specimens using Dad's new microscope.

Since it's been almost a month now, I'm sure there are things I'm forgetting, but we sure did have a great visit. Oh, and the 11ish hour drive was mostly uneventful, though it did snow the last hour on our way home, Mark did a great job getting us back safely. (It's so weird driving through snow at night on the highway--it makes me think of the special effects in sci-fi movies/tv when they go to light/warp speed. :-)

Anyway, it's always great to see family, and we're glad that Mark's parents seem settled in their new house and in Springfield in general.

Miscellaneous Updates

Since  my last post, the weeks have flown by! We enjoyed another lovely Thanksgiving in Grand Rapids, Michigan with Mark's aunt, uncle, and cousins. This year, all the cousins who live in the area joined us for the Thanksgiving meal, so we had a lively day full of family and food, with lots of little ones playing underfoot. One family who usually comes down from up north in Michigan had a brand new baby, so they didn't join us this year. Still, we had a great time catching up with everyone else. Aunt Debbe Jo and I also continued our tradition of making Christmas wreaths with various greenery from their yard.

We came back to BG on Friday, and after unpacking and having some takeout for dinner, Mark and I went ahead and put up our Christmas decorations. Since then, I've really enjoyed the festive atmosphere around here. We've been watching Christmas movies and listening to Christmas music...it's been refreshing to soak up all the hope and joy of the season. It's also been fun having some packages arrive and wrapping them to put under the tree. We've never had so many presents at our house!

It's also been a bit hectic wrapping up the fall semester. After Thanksgiving, we had two weeks of classes, then finals week. I think I've never been quite so busy at the end as I was this year, but everything that had to get done did get done. I really enjoyed the semester despite feeling a bit harried all the time; my administrative job has been a positive challenge, and my students this semester were excellent. I'm pleased to say that I got all my grades posted  yesterday, so I'm officially done with Fall 2016! In the past, we used to have our final assignments (papers, presentations, quizzes, etc.) due during the last week of classes, but now we are required to use our scheduled final exam time. This is probably a good policy change, but it does mean that I wasn't able to get nearly as much planning for the spring semester done as what I'm used to, so I'm feeling a bit behind. On the plus side, I'm really looking forward to my schedule for the spring. I'm teaching a graduate level class in the TESOL certificate program for the first time (Theories & Methods of TESOL), which is a huge undertaking, but I'm excited about it! I have a lot of reading to do over break to make sure I'll be able to stay a step or two ahead of my students, but I should enjoy it.

In the midst of all that work stuff, there's been plenty of holiday celebrating, too. I organized a trip with some colleagues down to the Swan House in Findlay, my first proper tea since they reopened. It was lovely!

There was also an end of semester English and GSW department gathering and a Christmas party at some friends' house last night. Last weekend, we had our first big snow of the season; about 5-6 inches (which may be more than we got at any one time all last season). At the moment, unfortunately, we're getting very cold rain, mixing with snow. Thankfully, we've been able to stay in today. It'll be interesting to see what kind of winter we're in for this year!