Tim and I just finished up the first of two mini-units we will be teaching for the SAM Academy high school Bible class. The theme for the year is marriage and relationships, and our first week addressed the differences between men and women. It has been fun partnering with Tim to teach, and the kids made class discussion plenty interesting. One of the big surprises for us was that 2 of the kids (Swiss and German) speak good but not amazing English. "Lingerie," for example, was a word that needed some explanation :-)

On Wednesday we start our second mini-unit on how the media portrays and influences values. This is a topic that I'm particularly interested in, and I'm curious to hear their insights. Next week we're planning on watching an episode of 30 Rock together to evaluate its messages. Tim and I picked a random episode to preview, and boy, it sure does have messages. I think I forgot what TV is like.

In other school news, my Spanish class has gotten very very small. At least a third of the school has had the flu in the last week, and today I only had one student, my new German girl. It was good to be able to work one-on-one with her and to see a little more of what she knows and doesn't. It's also fun to teach her because even though she doesn't understand Spanish all that well, she understands less English, so I stick to Spanish and let her have the immersion experience.

Speaking of language learning.... In the absence of movie theaters, NoDa gallery crawls, city festivals, and other date-ish material, Tim and I have decided to learn French in our free time. We have been working with some decent Podcasts, and I think we have a chance of actually getting somewhere! Fortunately we have a few people to practice with here, including our French hairdresser. Now I'm dreaming of a trip to Paris in 2011!

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