DAY THREE

I woke up around 7:15, thanks to my window facing east and still not having a curtain. I felt awake since I went to bed early and decided to get back into yoga. I lay out my mat and begin going through the postures I remembered. I heard a loudspeaker saying something and saw a car going by with speakers on top. I’m not sure what it was but my first thought was that it was the Muslim call to prayer, but I haven’t seen any mosques so it may have just been someone selling newspapers or something. I finished my yoga, jumped rope in the parking lot, did lunges across it and then some crunches. I have never been one to work out in the morning but, its actually quite nice. I was really hungry and had a big breakfast, I kind of wanted to go back to sleep because I felt tired but it was nice later in the day knowing I had already exercised for the day!
Today was an interesting day in class. We learned about various learning styles and personality types. We learned about visual, auditory and kinesthetic and tactile learners. The latter two are known as Haptic. We did a questionnaire which listed various statements about study habits and situations and ranked it between 1-3 in terms of how often it applied to us personally. Turns out that I am a HAPTIC learner. I scored highest on that, next for audio and last for visual. Haptic learners need to engage with the material and learn best from interactive lessons. We need to write things down, try for ourselves and actively engage with the material. I enjoyed the fact that one of the statements under haptic was having an “apparently Disorganized desk” (or in my case, room) I obviously gave myself the highest rank for that. Some of the suggestions for learning this way surprised me, one was to read through colored transparency paper. It seems that my habit of color coding notes and using an array of colored pens (or glittery, metallic etc.) actually Helps me learn! It also explains why I prefer to study in coffee shops to libraries and that I need to study for a set amount of time and then take a short break. It even goes along with why I prefer to study with other people around, and I like to work with people to study because I am InTER personal, not inTRA. I also prefer Inductive to Deductive reasoning meaning going from the big picture down to the details and facts. We also learned about the myers-briggs types of personality. I am extroverted as opposed to introverted, open/perceiving as opposed to closed/judging, Feeling as opposed to Thinking and Intuitive Random as opposed to Sensing Sequential. I enjoyed this lesson and found it helpful.
Ne Hao! Wo jiao Lolly, Ne jiao shon me ming zi?
Yes!!! That is CHINESE!!! We had a 30 minute lesson in Chinese today to see how a total immersion class is done and what it feels like for the learner. Our teacher, Amy, a native Chinese speaker, did not speak one word of English the entire time, yet we learned how to say thank you, XieXie (pronounced-seeay seeay) no thank you= bu yao, and goodbye=zai jen. Above is ne hao=hello, wo jiao lolly=my name is lolly and ne jiao shon me ming zi (pronounced ne jao sho may ming zuh) what is your name? I quite enjoyed it as I have never studied Chinese and I enjoy languages. It was important to feel so lost and confused however because that is how our students will feel about English. I wish we had a language lesson everyday. I think doing the Arabic rosetta stone while taking this course will be very interesting.
We then did another observation of a different teacher today, it was to put it nicely, “slow” or not so nicely Boring! The teacher did not have much energy or enthusiasm and neither did the students. It was not clear what the objective was that she was teaching and the students also seemed lost and could not accurately do the activity at the end. It is important to see a not so good teacher so we can know what Not to be like.
For lunch I went with Chris and Leon to a Vegetarian (YAY) restaurant called Vishnus which is across the street from our school in the Universidad Latina. I had a very tasty veggie burger. During our break I went with Chris to the bank and then wandered around the neighborhood a bit vaguely in search of a watch or alarm clock which I did not find. It is interesting to talk to Chris because this is his first experience internationally and life here is very different than his native Tennesee.
After school I went to the grocery store to get Pasta tomato sauce this time and eggs which I have been craving as well as a pineapple, though I don’t have a knife to cut it with I realized afterwards. I was excited to eat dinner and went back to the apartment. As soon as I turned on the light however, my appetite all but disappeared. About 10 small cockroaches began to scuttle around the counter. I grabbed the Raid and sprayed, bashed, drowned and smashed as many as I could. Ugh theyre so Gross and creepy and nasty and dirty and they just Kept appearing even after I sprayed poison everywhere! Tomorrow I plan to buy gel traps and more spray. I keep my cereal and chips and anything unsealed in the fridge or the freezer to keep them safe from the disgusting creatures. What purpose do they possible serve in this world? Nasty.
I then went to Maximo 1 office to skype with Jay and gave him the learner quiz. He is a visual then audio then haptic learner. When he went to sleep I wanted to watch Ugly Betty online but abc.com does not play internationally! I quickly posted it on facebook as my status how to watch tv online out of the U.S. and got a prompt response from Christine Wight for a site! Yay. I watched my show until the office closed, came home, watched the end of Hairspray on tv and am now about to go to bed so I get wake up early, exercise and skype chat before class.