Heres one to complete yesterday's list of firsts: First nervous breakdown!
Thats right. Due to a huge misunderstanding on my part, today's house visit was actually a visit to the local miltary academy. As if the cops toting their guns everywhere isnt enough to put some hair on you chest, walking into a room full of teenage boys twice your size muttering somthing about a gringo in Spanish(most likely how they could snap you in half with their little toe) is quite harrowing.
And then, the miscomunication continues. Not only was I to grace my presence to these high school boys who knew nothing about Americans except that their president in coming to Panama and causing major riots. No, the teacher introduced me to the class as the guest teacher.
Umm, no plan, no time to prepare, and 50 expectant eyes waging to see who could be the first to pulverize me when I started talking about adjectives and adverbs.
Never before have I prayed so fervently.
After a chessy, lets get to know each other game (which was really an excuse for me to pull it together and not soil my pants) we launched in a very woebegone grammer lesson. I pulled out a pretty good class, with all the students participating, and even getting the high compliments of the teacher. She asked me if she could come to my English classes at the church and watch how I teach.
So praise be to God, who has the power to turn my first nervous breakdown into my first big accomplishment!
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3 comments:
That's the funniest freakin' thing I've ever read. Does it interest you to know that your pain and torment humor me?
Just kidding. I probably would've soiled my pants as well...why didn't you lead off with some split infinitives or something? Why adjectives and adverbs? Relative clauses are so much more fun. Um.
Chris. I love it. Thanks for blogging. I must confess, I mostly just peruse the entries, but enjoy them extensively when I read them. (Okay, confession, I just looked up the word, "peruse" and found this usage note: "Usage Note: Peruse has long meant “to read thoroughly” and is often used loosely when one could use the word read instead. Sometimes people use it to mean “to glance over, skim,” as in I only had a moment to peruse the manual quickly, but this usage is widely considered an error. Sixty-six percent of the Usage Panel finds it unacceptable.")
Holy moley! 66% of the Usage Panel would consider what I just wrote unacceptable. Perhaps I should try to truly peruse everyone's blogs... but until then, I will still enjoy keeping up with you through some skimming. Thanks for the pictures too! Beautiful country!
God's continued blessings to you and the team there! :)
You are hilarious Chris. I am glad everything worked out well and not pants were soiled in the process. I want to end this comment with something encouraging but for some reason it just doesn't seem appropriate after talk of soiled pants. So I will just say bye. Bye.
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