Another week

Work at Skyline has been a little... crazy this week. Not that it isn't ever NOT crazy, just crazier than usual. It started raining this week (yay Spring!) which has driven all the kids and teens stir crazy. Youth lab on Monday and Wednesday was simply insane- I probably had 5-6 people waiting for computers at all times (for reference, there are only 10 total), everyone was complaining because the Internet was running slow in the lab, and enough people refused to give up their computers when their time was up to make me consider simply closing the lab and sending everyone home. Plus, when they finally leave the entire place is a mess and I have barely time to prep for my evening classes.

Speaking of which, my second round of evening classes ended with roughly 2.5 people in it. Not bad considering the 1st round, but I keep on wondering if my lessons are sticking. I know that there is a large language barrier that I have only partially been able to cross, and the higher concepts of what we are doing are definitely out of reach. But I hope that the little things- how to access programs, how to enter web addresses, how to shut down the computer- managed to worm their way in somehow. I know that it will require gentle prodding, but I can always hope...

This will be especially interesting as my next round of classes are not going to be directed at my current students. I've been really interested in teaching an Excel course for some time now and evening courses are probably the best way to do them. Hopefully my students can switch to early/mid afternoon without much trouble to keep up their learning, but we'll see.

Anyway, to deal with all of my crazy kids I am going to be enacting some new rules that will take effect on Monday the 22nd. Since I'll be off in Madison this Sunday-Tuesday and we have a retreat on Wednesday it'll be my first full week since I resolved to take action. We'll see if there is rioting in the streets :)

And yes- Rachel and I will be visiting Madison starting this Sunday! I'll be looking around town to scope it out while Rachel is doing her grad student thing, so hopefully it should be fun and informative.

That's all for now- until next time...

"The proverb says that Providence protects children and idiots. This is really true. I know because I have tested it."
- Autobiography of Mark Twain