2 deaths in 6 days.

i'm killing this blog too.

thanks for visiting and commenting and encouraging me :) hope we'll keep in touch somehow.

(taking about death, go see stranger than fiction. excellent movie!)

the end.

new and improved

i went to this conference yesterday and today. you have to know that since i've moved to my new country of adoption, i've felt like i was on another planet, professionally speaking. the school system, regulations, education, research, problems, everything is different here and it's been interesting to learn how things work but i've felt very isolated too (and i've talked to several people in the field of TESOL who, when they left the US, felt the same. TESOL/ESL is a very US-centered field). plus i'm not working in my "area of expertise," which has been a constant worry since i didn't know if i should keep my old research topics or start anew with something related to my current job.

after talking with two important people at the conference (one from here and one from the US who knows exactly where i come from), here's the conclusion: i'll keep working on the stuff i know best, try to integrate some "sellable" stuff into my current job in case i want to go back to my old field some day, and look for another job in a year if things don't improve.

this is going to be tough because i feel very "removed" from my old "world." issues that were issues before are no longer issues here. i work in a different context that doesn't care about no child left behind or TESOL or TQ or english only or ... i work in a country where esl is seen as nothing more than "last resort help for people who can't survive without it and that we can't kick out at least not yet because they bring too much money in." i work at a school where we can't teach an esl course because it would lower the prestige of the university and so we have to call our course by a different name and also teach other things than esl skills and accept students who don't need esl help in our course in order to have the right to have a course for esl students. i am so sad for this school and for this country.

if i look for a job, though, it will be in this country, i don't want to go back to the US, even if i miss the professional environment a lot, and i mean A LOT. i certainly don't miss a certain president...

blah

why am i not writing here? because i don't know what to think. i feel so much like a graduate student, still. i teach 2 days a week, and the rest of the time, i go to a few meetings here and there and i work in my office from time to time... i am not sure what i'm doing, actually. i still have tons of things to do to get settled here, like getting a new driver's licence, new licence plates, parking permits, health insurance, car insurance, home insurance, stuff like that. i guess monday is my "real life" day. tuesday, i try to work in the office. wednesday, i prepare my courses and do nothing. thursday and friday mornings i teach, and then in the afternoon i try to work in the office. that's about it.

i drove to school today, instead of taking the streetcar + subway. it's much faster (15 to 20 minutes instead of 30 to 45 minutes) but i paid $12 for the parking!

ok, on a happier note, i found two nice photographs (tulips) to hang in my office. i'll also bring my huge world map and maybe the guggenheim museum picture too... it feels so... dull, still. and yesterday, i was down in the big liberal arts office to give my transcript to someone and took this opportunity to ask about getting some "stuff" like enveloppes, paper clips, etc. because i have nothing at all in my office... and the nice person gave me the bookstore catalog and told me to choose the stuff i wanted and he'd go get them for me! pencil sharpers, file organizers, tacks, post-its, markers, book holders, note books, staplers, erasers, ... ... it felt like christmas :)

one last thing: yesterday i sent an application to tesol to be on the publication's committee...