The end of the term

Today was the last day of class. My students have final exams on Monday and Tuesday next week, but today we had a class party complete with food, drinks, and Pictionary. :) Great fun was had by all and I finally took some pictures. (Note: As always, you can click a picture to see a larger version.)

Class 1


Back row, left to right: Tomo (Japan), Ali (Kuwait), Angelo (Belgium), Ruslan (Kyrgyzstan), SK (South Korea), William (Taiwan), and Saad (Saudi Arabia)

Front row, left to right: Anne (Thailand), Yusuke (Japan), Nabeel (Saudi Arabia), Olga (Ukraine), Ghily (Chile), and Guca (South Korea)

Class 2


Back row, left to right: Ebru (Turkey), Seng (Cambodia), Abdullah (Saudi Arabia), Fatih (Turkey), Ahmmed (Saudi Arabia), and Tariq (Saudi Arabia)

Front row, left to right: Eli (Indonesia), Vivien (Taiwan), Mohammed (Saudi Arabia), and Elnur (Azerbaijan)

Exports

Yesterday, one of the new vocabulary words my students encountered was "export." I asked them for examples of things their countries exported. Here are some of their answers:

• Azerbaijan: oil


• Turkey: marble


• Japan: electronics


• Rwanda: coffee


• Indonesia: wood for furniture


• Kuwait: oil


• Saudi Arabia: oil


• Thailand: hand-crafted items


• and so on...

I asked them what they thought the U.S. exported. After a few of them responded along the lines of "McDonalds!" and "technology", one of the Saudi students grinned and said, "Soldiers!" :D

Tidbits

Time is going very quickly! This is Week 4 of the 8-week summer term and I have to get mid-term grades submitted at the end of this week. So far this week my poor students have had two quizzes in my class and an exam in one of their other classes, and they will have a listening exam and a reading exam in my class before the week is done. Needless to say, they're a little overwhelmed. I just remind them that there's a reason this program is called the Intensive English Language Institute!

One of my students today referred to a rhinoceros as a "unicorn". :P This same student also said that people who don't have enough food to eat are "depraved" (instead of "deprived", I presume)! Sometimes I just have to laugh at them!

When we were on our drive from Colorado Springs to Denton last month, we witnessed a few, um, interesting things, things that made me shake my head and say, "Only in TX! (I hope!!)":

• Trinidad, CO, is located just a few miles north of the CO/NM border, an absolutely beautiful area of the country. Just off I-25, the main thoroughfare through town, is the Budget Summit Motel. In my experience, most motels have a "vacancy/no vacancy" sign, which - when there is vacancy - displays the word "vacancy". Pretty standard, I believe. Yet the Budget Summit Motel is unique. Instead of doing what is plenty good enough for all the other motels out there, their vacancy sign just says: YES. Not "YES Vacancy" - just YES. In all capital letters, too. In May, I was fortunate enough to drive past this gem of a motel 5 times, and every time I saw that sign it made me giggle. In my warped little mind, the "YES" of the vacancy sign was always vocalized in an enthusiastic shout and accompanied by an energetic fist pump. :P
  


• We drove by a town called Electra, TX. On the outskirts of town there was a billboard that advertised the "23rd Annual Goat Barbeque!!!" Goat barbeque? Goat?? I'm familiar with the concept of a pig or cow roast, but really...goat?!? Amazingly, they even have a website.
  


• In Chillicothe, TX, one can find the perfect Christmas or birthday gift for every member of the family - at the Cowboy boot factory outlet. Yeehaw!
  


• Apparently the people of Clarendon, TX, are honest to a fault. As we drove through town we passed a little motel named: "It'll do!" motel. We didn't stop there for the night. I can't imagine why....
  


• Also in Clarendon is a church that advertises "Cowboy services every Saturday night." I didn't know they still made cowboys! I'm half tempted to drive back there some Saturday, just to see if clouds of dust rise from the parched earth as the thunderous pounding of hooves foretells the impending arrival of the rugged cowboys and their vast herds of cattle. What do they do with their horses and cows during the service? Are there cattle pens for the cows out back and hitchin' posts for the horses out front? Do the cowboys wear chaps over their bluejeans and bandanas around their necks? Are their belt-buckles the size of TX? I want to know!
  


• Here in TX I expected to see cattle, including - especially! - Texas Longhorns. Being a horse fan, I also expected to see lots of horses. After all, this is "horse country". But when we drove past Iowa Park, TX, it wasn't cattle or horses, or sheep or goats, or even llamas that we saw. Nope. Here in lush, green TX, we saw a herd of camels.
  
  According to RailPictures: "In the mid-1800s, the US Army experimented with using camels as pack animals in the desert. The experiment failed for numerous reasons, and one account of the tale ended with these words: The Texas herd was auctioned off in 1865, but some were released into the desert.... Many Arabian camels roamed through Texas, California, and Arizona. The last authenticated sightings of camels in the wild occurred in the early 1900s. [The camels here in TX] are running wild in an enclosed area.... They are there apparently to keep mesquite trees in check which they do a good job of. They are not wild in the true sense of the word...but they have been elusive." So there you have it! Camels in TX. :)

One week down...

I completed a whole week of work! It went very well and my students are all great (except one, who is a pain). There are twelve students in each class, and they hail from countries such as Azerbaijan, Turkey, Ukraine, Taiwan, Kazakhstan, East Timor, S. Korea, Chile, Cambodia, Belgium (though originally from Dem Rep of Congo), Thailand, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. This term is eight weeks long, although the final week is just that - finals!

The classes are both held nearly two hours each day (8:30a - 10:15a, 10:30a - 12:15p), so I teach about twenty hours per week. I am required to hold two office hours per week when the students can come see me for additional help. Other than that, I do not need to be on site. Of course, there are papers to grade, lesson plans to develop, activities to create, and so on. I could bring those home in the afternoon and do them here, but I prefer to finish my work at work.

Gus's brother is here for the week, keeping him occupied while I'm gone during the day. Hopefully that'll help ease Gus's transition from both of us being home 24/7 to him being home without me and being responsible for the housework. :)

The only other news is that there hasn't been a drop of rain in the four weeks we've been down here, and the daytime highs haven't been below 95 since June 3rd (the nighttime lows have been right around 70, which is pretty nice - too bad I sleep at night). In the next seven days the highs are only going to be below 100 on one day, when the high is supposed to be 98. That's ok, though. There will only be another 3 months of this heat before it starts to cool down again! :P

Yee-haw!

Howdy, y'all! It's official - we are gen-you-wine Texans now! On Tuesday we got Texas license plates for our car (it still freaks me out when I see them) and on Wednesday we got Texas drivers licenses! They won't arrive for another week or so, but as far as TX is concerned, we belong. That's a frightening thought.

Getting my new license was a breeze. I just went to the DMV, gave them some money, read line 5 from the vision test machine (EML5 2DS9 T6IQ or something like that), posed for the camera, and handed over my MN license. Easy!

For Gus, however, it was more of an adventure. Though we didn't realize it at the time, his MN license expired on his birthday - April 28th! Even the nice policeman didn't notice when he stopped Gus for speeding on May 4th. :D But about a week ago Gus happened to look at the expiration date (I'm not sure what prompted this) and discoverd that he was no longer a licensed driver.

When we went to the DMV on Wednesday, we crossed our fingers in hopes that the clerk renewing our licenses wouldn't notice that Gus's had expired. No such luck. Instead of the easy route I took, Gus had to take the written AND driving tests again!! He passed, of course. So now I can let him drive my car again. :)

In other news:

• It has been in the 90s here for the last 10 days or so. The lows at night are in the 70s. Right now - 11pm - it is 79 and there is a gentle breeze. I have the balcony door open and Hilton is sprawled out on the balcony, sleeping. He loves it out there! First thing in the morning, as soon as we get out of bed, he scampers over to the door and meows for us to let him out. :) He spends quite a bit of time out there.
  
  
• I got a raise! I haven't even started working yet (that happens on Tuesday), but I got an e-mail from my boss saying that a proposed pay increase was approved by the provost, so all the teachers in my department are getting a raise, effective immediately. This boosts my expected salary by 26%!!
  
  
• Although the official assignments haven't been made, it looks like I will be teaching two level-3 communication classes this summer term. These classes cover reading, listening, speaking, and vocabulary. Fortunately, the department provides me not only with textbooks to use, but also with lesson plan outlines for the whole term. That makes it seem a little less overwhelming!

We're here!

Just a quick update. We arrived in Denton around 9pm on Sunday evening after a 12-hour drive from Colorado Springs. Since I had already gotten our apartment key, we went directly to our new apartment. While Gus unloaded the truck, I began unpacking. By 1am the truck was empty (except for the piano) so we called it a night.

Monday we hired local piano movers to carry the piano up the stairs and into our apartment. We spent the remainder of the day unpacking.

Tuesday I had orientation all day at the university. While I was there, Gus finished all the unpacking. :)

Wednesday we spent most of the day exploring our new hometown. There is much more exploring to be done, of course, since the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex has a population of 5.7 million, making it the fifth largest metropolitan area in the United States.

I don't officially start work until May 30th, so I have some time to explore, relax, and settle in before I start earning my keep!

Let's recap, shall we?

Here's what the last few months have looked like:

• February 13: Submitted final draft of thesis.
• February 27: My birthday. :)
• February 28: Defended my thesis. Passed!
• March 2: Submitted finalized and signed-off thesis.
• March 3-4: Picked up Budget moving truck, packed, loaded truck.
• March 5: Went to a wonderful party at my parents' place in WI.
• March 7: Left MN.
• March 8: Arrived in CO.
• The remainder of March: Job hunted.
• March 24: Interviewed and signed on with Globelink tutoring company here in CO Springs. Never heard from them again. :)
• April 3-5: In WI for Grandma's funeral.
• April 11: Learned that the University of North Texas (UNT) in Denton (Dallas) was looking for full-time ESL teachers for their Intensive English Language Institute.
• April 15: Submitted application to UNT via priority mail.
• April 26: Interviewed at Pike's Peak Community College. They have no work for me.
• April 26: Got a letter of interest from UNT.
• May 1: Arranged an interview at UNT for May 5th.
• May 3-4: Drove from CO to TX.
• May 5: Had interview at 10am. ReaperCon the rest of the weekend.
• May 8: Drove back to CO. Got a phone call from UNT at 4pm, offering me the job. Accepted the offer.
• May 9: Spent the morning online, looking for apartments in Denton. Drove 1/2 way to Denton in the evening.
• May 10: Drove the rest of the way. Found an apartment. Picked up paperwork at UNT. Picked up apartment key. Drove 1/2 way back to CO.
• May 11: Finished the drive back to Colorado Springs. At paint club in the evening to say goodbye to our friends.
• May 12: We will pack our apartment.
• May 13: We will pick up and load the Budget moving truck.
• May 14: We will drive to TX.
• May 15: We will check into our new apartment.
• May 16: I will attend an all-day orientation at UNT.
• May 17-29: Unpack and settle in!
• May 30: Officially start work.

My head is spinning.

18 months and $20,000 later...

It's here!

My new piano arrived. :) Actually, it arrived a week and a half ago, but I just took a picture of it.




















Hilton seems to be enjoying it....

Update? What's that?

I realize it's been a while since I've updated our blog. Your assumption that we've been far too busy to post - what with our new lives and jobs here - is absolutely right...

...Ok, actually, I lied. We haven't been busy. I've just been lazy. :) And there hasn't been anything momentous to post. No job yet. No job offers yet. No job news. Which leaves me (Angela) with pretty much unlimited free time and Gus with semi-unlimited free time. So what have we been doing with all this time? Glad you asked! There are a few regularly scheduled activities:

• Most mornings we go for a 1-hour hike around the neighborhood, up in the hills. Hopefully this regular cardio will help us acclimate to the high altitude. At this point, as new transplants from the low lands, even the most innocuous stroll down the road can leave us out of breath. Because of the altitude. Really. It's the altitude....trust me! :D


• On Monday evenings Gus goes to the north side of town for his Warlord gaming night at a hobby/gaming store. (Warlord is a miniatures war game by Reaper.)


• On Tuesdays from 12-1 we go ice skating.


• On Wednesdays (or Saturdays), we go to church at 7pm on the north side of town.


• On Thursdays from 12-1 we go ice skating. And then in the evening, from 5-8 or so we have our painting club - on the north side of town.

We also spend time during the days exploring Colorado Springs. As you might have gathered from the list above, most of the interesting stuff here in town is on the north side. And where do we live? On the south side!

On the job front, while Gus slaves away 10-12 hours/week I've been busy marketing myself and pursuing a few leads here and there. I will soon be meeting with the director of the ESL program at the community college just down the road (on the south side of town!); I am applying for a teacher licensing program through the Colorado Department of Education, so I will be able to work in the adult ESL program in the local school district; I have posted flyers advertising English tutoring in probably 15 ethnic grocery stores around town; and I have sent letters to numerous churches in town, offering my accompanying services (for a fee, of course). Hopefully one of these endeavors will bear profitable fruit soon.

It looks like a few people, at least, are going to take us up on the oft repeated refrain of "Come visit!" Gus's mom will be out here for a week in May. My parents are coming for a few days some time this spring (not sure when, but the sooner the better!). And Gus's brother will be coming for a week in June. So to the rest of you: Come visit! Just don't come when the other guests are here...we only have one guest room. ;)

Guess where we went today?

The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo - complete with very sociable giraffes - is just 5 minutes from here. This morning we bought a zoo membership, which gives us unlimited access to the zoo for one year plus a bunch of guest passes. (Come visit!) (Note: As always, you can click the pictures to see a full-sized version.)

It was a beautiful day for wandering the zoo:














First stop, the giraffes. There are many, but this one was the most cooperative. :)


















Next to the giraffes, was this guy. Other than cute, I have no idea what he is. But he sure is cute!


















Just down the path we came across the elephants. This one was playing with a large plastic tub. He kicked it around for a while:















And then he put it on his head:

















Then we saw the hippos. There are three of them. My, how ferocious they look!
















After the hippos, we visited the apes. When he saw us through the glass, this guy ambled down the hill and plopped himself unceremoniously right in front of us with his back up against the glass. :) (You can see the reflection of Gus's hand on the ape's back.) And yes, he is wearing a scarf!















And then he rolled over:


















Last but not least, we found the elusive mountain goats. (I say "elusive" because last September when we drove up Mt. Evans, which is supposed to be teeming with goats, we didn't see a single one!)

Ice Capades

The other night I was reading an article about all of the fun activities to do in Colorado Springs (of which there are many), and one of them caught my eye: ice skating! It turns out that the World Arena, which is about 3 miles from here, has public skating sessions on the indoor rinks on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12-1pm and 5-6pm, and also several hours on the weekends. For the Noon session, the cost is $1; skate rental is $2.

As far as Gus can remember, he might have gone skating once while in grade school, but certainly hasn't since then. On Tuesday morning I told him I wanted to go ice skating and hoped he'd come along to skate or, if nothing else, to sit in the bleachers and cheer me on! :P Much to my surprise, he not only offered to accompany me to the rink, he was also willing to try skating!

So, at 11:30 we headed over to the World Arena, paid our dollars, rented our (very uncomfortable) skates, and waited for the Zamboni to finish its job. Finally, we stepped onto the ice. I skated a lot as a kid, so after a few wobbly seconds I had my ice legs back. Gus, however, got to start as a true beginner. Although he quickly developed a fondness for staying near the rail, he made great progress in the hour we were there! He went from depending on the wall for support, to taking some very fast, semi-confident strides on his own toward the center of the rink. I was so proud of him!

Best of all: Gus enjoyed it so much that we went out and bought our own skates this afternoon. :) Look out Stars on Ice, here we come!

Say it isn't snow....

The weather has been very nice the last few days, with lots of sunshine and highs near 60. That's all about to change! Tonight and tomorrow we're supposed to get up to a foot of snow, with high winds causing drifting. It's a good thing neither of us has a commute. The best part about this, though, is that on Tuesday the sun will come back once more and the temperatures are expected to be in the 50s and 60s for the rest of the week. Hurrah!

In other news, we bought a piano! Yesterday morning we went to the piano store downtown for a couple hours. While Gus explored the downtown area on foot (because the weather was so beautiful), I went from piano to piano, playing snippets of works by Bach, Schubert, Chopin, and Rachmaninoff, comparing the touch, tone, and price on all the uprights in the store. I finally found one that sounded great, looked pretty, wasn't too heavy (another consideration, since we'll have to move the thing again someday!) and was at a good price. The only problem was that I really didn't like the touch - it was very light. A light touch is good for playing Bach, but not for pounding out Rachmaninoff. When I told the store owner about this little problem, he offered to weight the keys for free if I bought the piano! So I did. :) When they finish the extra work they'll deliver it, hopefully within 10 days. I can't wait!

After the piano-buying expedition, we had lunch at a restaurant called Poor Richard's Restaurant. It is less than 1 block from the piano store and is connected to and owned by the Poor Richard's bookstore. Gus ordered pizza, and after he'd had a few bites I asked him how it was. He pondered for a moment and then said, "It would take a long time to think of a better pizza I have ever had." I guess that's good. :)

Then we went to a hobby store right next door to the restaurant and met up with several local mini painters. The six of us spent the afternoon sitting at tables at the back of the store, painting minis and chit-chatting.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable day!

A few more pictures

So I hear MN and WI got buried in a blizzard the other day. Here, it's currently 61 and mostly sunny. :)

I went out and took a few pictures of the mountains this morning. And since I had the camera in-hand, I also took some pictures of the interior of our apartment.

Outside - Mountains:














And more mountains:














Inside - Our living room:














Our dining room viewed from the living room:














And our kitchen!

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In other news, I've been job-hunting. I contacted several tutoring companies here in town, and one of them asked for my resume and said they want to interview me. I think that's a good sign. :) Yesterday I even took my resume to The Broadmoor. A month or so ago I'd seen a post on a teacher chat-board that mentioned that The Broadmoor was looking for an ESL teacher for their international staff. I e-mailed the woman who'd made the post and asked her about the position, but she never replied. So yesterday I decided to go there in person and find out more. As it turned out, the person I ended up talking to was that same woman! When I asked her about the position, she said, "Oh, we just hired someone." But, she made it sound like the new teacher wasn't necessarily planning on staying long, so I gave her my resume and she said she'd contact me if/when the position opened up again.

That's all the news here. Oh, and Danika, the concert was great!

It's a small world....

We gave away our old piano before we moved because we plan on buying a new (used, but new to me) piano here. There's a nice piano refurbishing shop downtown and on Friday we went there to see what they have in stock. I was wandering around the store, trying out the pianos, and chatting with the staff. In the course of conversation I mentioned that we'd just moved here from the Twin Cities. One of the men working there said, "Oh, I have relatives in Bloomington!" (that's where the Mall of America is, FYI). Then another one of the staff said, "I used to live in Dinkytown." Dinkytown is the university village on the north end of the U of MN campus. I was within 50' of Dinkytown nearly every day for the last 18 months. :)

Then last night I went to a performance by the Colorado Springs Philharmonic. They had a guest pianist who was playing Rachmaninoff's 3rd piano concerto, so of course I had to go! I ordered my tickets last-minute online and ended up sitting in the middle of the front row in the balcony, with a fantastic view of the stage and the pianist's hands. Anyhow, I got to talking with the nice couple sitting to my left. He's a retired computer programmer, she's a retiring-this-spring first grade teacher. Again, I mentioned that I had just moved here from Minnesota, and the lady to my left replied, "Oh, we used to live in the Twin Cities. We lived in New Brighton and [husband's name] worked in Roseville!" Roseville is the suburb we just moved from.

Eerie.

Some pictures of the neighborhood

Here are a few pictures I took this afternoon. First up, the front of our apartment building. Our apartment is on the top floor to the right of the staircase. The first window (to the right of the chimney) is the living room; the next one is the first bedroom; the window on the right is the second bedroom.

Here is the view to the east from the road. The low green shrubs in the center-ish of the picture are at the foot of our staircase.















This is the view to the west, from the foot of our staircase.















And this is a shot of the two-level pool and the hot tub (in the background on the right).

Welcome to Colorado!

Tuesday morning (March 7th) we finished loading up the Budget rental truck, checked out of our apartment in Minnesota at 9am, and were on the road by 9:15. We drove south through Iowa to Des Moines, went west through Nebraska, and then southwest into Colorado. We made it to Fort Morgan, CO, by 10:30pm and found a motel that accepted cats. :)

The next morning (March 8th) as we were about to head down through Denver, we heard that Denver was in the middle of a blizzard. So we backtracked a few miles to Brush and drove south to Limon and then to Colorado Springs, bypassing the storm! We pulled in to our apartment complex right around Noon. About 10 minutes after we got here, the blizzard hit Colorado Springs, and we got to unload the truck in a snowstorm!

Nearly everything was unloaded by Wednesday evening, except the boxspring and the couch. We got those moved in on Thursday.

Today is Saturday and we've spent a lot of time the last few days unpacking crates, finding good places for all of our belongings, and exploring our new city. There are only two boxes left to unpack, and I really don't know where their contents are going to end up!

The weather has been really sporadic since we moved in: sunny and warm, then cloudy and cool, then snowing, then sunny and warm again...all within a few hours. :) What's neat, though, is that we can see the clouds coming over the mountains and can see the snow falling up on the mountains long before it gets here. And during the blizzard on Wednesday - the one while we moved in - we ended up with about 1-2" of snow; just five minutes up the road they got 6" of snow!

Our new apartment is really nice. I am particularly fond of the wood-burning fireplace in the living room, and the washer and dryer! The kitchen has so much cupboard space, too, it's a nice change from our last apartment.

Within 5 minutes of our place we have 3 supermarkets, a Borders book store, a 20-screen movie theater (with great popcorn!), tons of walking/biking trails, every restaurant imaginable...and just 10 minutes from here is the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo! Plenty to do and see if you all come visit!