Mundane...

Work. Well, I have a song about a friendly pirate ship rocking on the sea (rocking on the sea, rocking on the sea) stuck in my head. I have now taught peek-a-boo to five or six kids in my class, who all seem to find it just riveting. In fact, one gets so worked up that she routinely pokes herself in the eye. Cute, though. Also there is a kid who bites. I'm kind of afraid of him, which is odd, given that he is barely 12 months old and more or less comes up to my knee. Still - bloodthirsty babies. It is creepy.

But, yeah, all things considered, work is good.

Meanwhile, I have decided to teach myself German from a book that professes to allow you to teach yourself German. So far, it is a silly book and I do not appreciate its patronizing tone. I mean, think about it: what sorts of people are likely to want to teach themselves a language? Travel-y sorts of businesspeople, maybe, and nerds. In any case, of at least reasonable intelligence. I can't really think of a situation where the sort of person who doesn't know what a verb is would also be the sort of person who would elect to teach him- or herself a language.

Ergo, teach-yourself-German book, you are silly. Stop explaining to me what verbs are, because I already know. And enough with your little language learning tips. Obviously I should group vocabulary into theme-related lists. You know what else could work? You could just present them that way and then the little side box with the cartoon exclamation point would be unnecessary. The other issue I have is with the pronunciation. Would it have killed them to learn the phonetic alphabet prior to writing the book? I'm pretty sure that in the end, it would have required a lot less effort than thinking up descriptions like "purse your lips like you just ate a lemon, and then say a long 'eeee' sound but with your lips still pursed, kind of as if you actually wanted to say 'ooo', as in 'boo!'". Um, yeah. Whatever.

Nonetheless, I shall persevere because I think my brain is slipping slowly into a coma. Although... I'm pretty sure I remember saying the same thing about teaching English after having been in college. And now my job makes teaching English look positively fascinating. Sighhh. In some ways, it is nice to have free time and be able to spend long stretches of whole hours in a row just not thinking. In other ways, sometimes I think: if I have to dig some kid's half-eaten macaroni out of the sink drain while listening to people discuss nail salons for one more minute, I will break the "Wiggles" CD over someone's head (probably my own). Could be worse, though. Next thing you know I'll be working at a gas station, inhaling gas fumes, and then my brain will *really* be in a coma.

Fun fact: when we were in grade school, they used to threaten us with "you'll end up pumping gas when you grow up!" as in, "do your homework or...". But it transpires that in almost all of the other states that are not NJ, people pump their own gas anyway. I always kind of wondered... in other states, what do grade school teachers threaten kids with? My bet is McDonald's.

Anyway, on that note... bedtime.