but Laurel is in New Zealand and that cuts my readership by 50%, 100% I’m sure some days of the week.

So I’m still in Austin, going to Psychology of Learning three days a week, listening to Spanish podcasts twice a week (more or less), living in Sarah’s old house with her old housemate, watching Meerkat Manor, and thinking about my report.

I moved out of my apartment last Thursday and into this place, and helped Sarah and her boyfriend put her stuff on a truck so that she could move out Sunday. So now I’m here enjoying her cable tv.

I move out tomorrow and it definitely feels like the place isn’t exactly mine anymore. I’ve been very content here. It’s always been a relief to come back to this place that was empty of people but was also very comfortable. I can’t say I’m particularly attached to it. It’s been a little weird living in a place that is really someone else’s—certain closets full of their things, their plants growing in worrisome directions, their mattress making my back feel twisty. I’m starting to see it the way it was when I moved in, before I covered it with my things. But all the same, it’s always a little weird for me moving out of places. I start to think about how I became comfortable in one place. I was especially sad to leave my and Grace’s apartment when we graduated.

I can’t believe it’s been a year since my job in Reims ended. My second-years are done with classes forever (except for the odd one or two who’ve decided to pursue another degree) and my first-years are soon to be third-years.

Last year at this time I knew that (please tolerate how convoluted this will sound) I would have done my year in Reims all over again if I could have. So far I can’t say that about this one. Maybe I should just wait till September and see how I feel then.

Unrelated–I have so much more time now that I am only taking one class. It seems disproportionate. This means that I can start reading for my masters report again. I’m not sure how to organize all this time I have, it’s actually turning out to be a little stressful. It was easier when I knew I had no choice but to do certain things at certain times.

Also, I move out of this apartment tomorrow. It’s already starting to feel like it’s not mine anymore. I’ve cleaned it from top to bottom (except certain things that the owner wanted me to do like dusting the walls–v. confusing concept) and most of my stuff is in SA except for bizarre things that I forgot to take like my DVD player and my kitchen mixer. So I’ll be moving into Sarah’s house tomorrow and Sarah will be moving back to California on Saturday so it will be just me and one of her roommates.

I spent a lot of time on this over the past couple of weeks so I thought I’d share it with anyone interested (EFL teachers particularly). It’s not perfect by any means; there are a lot of activities I would fine tune or add to before I used them with my students. But if anyone wants to use any of it they’d be welcome to (although it might be nice if it didn’t get too far away without my name on it).

This was a materials design project for my course this summer that ended today. It’s for advanced learners of English in a foreign language context. There would be a DVD to go with it if it were real. But there isn’t one because it’s not a real book. So to use these things you’d have to go find The Office and Little Britain and whatnot.

But it’s basically a unit of a supplementary coursebook based on satirical texts. Here’s my dream table of contents:

1. Introduction: What is satire?
Text: The Literary Encyclopedia: Satire, Ian Gordon
Satire-related vocabulary
2. Satire of Everyday Life
• The Office pilot episodes: English and American
• The Onion
• Little Britain: Series 1 Episode 1
• Summer Heights High Episode 1 excerpts: Ja’mie
• SNL commercial: Racial tension headaches + Excedrin tension headache commercial
• Secondary Texts: The Office reviews
3. Politics and Journalism
• The Daily Show: “i on News”, June 8, 2009
• Fox News and The Colbert Report
• This American Life: Episode 348, “Tough Room” (Act One on The Onion meeting room)
• Private Eye
• Doonesbury
• Secondary texts: 1) Jeff Zeleny, “Political Satire, but Obama Isn’t Laughing” from NYTimes.com blog The Caucus 2) Lee Drutman, “The Truthiness of The Colbert Report” from millermcclune.com
4. Literary Satire
• The Simpsons: “Das Bus” and “The Count of Monte Fatso”
• Jonathan Swift: “A Modest Proposal”
• James Thurber and E.B. White: Is Sex Necessary? (1 or 2 chapters)
• P. G. Wodehouse: Excerpts from Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves and the television series with Hugh Laurie/Stephen Fry
• Stephen Leacock, excerpts from Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town
• A Prairie Home Companion
• Secondary text: Graeme Allister, “Literary Satire is Alive and Kicking in America” from The Guardian, September 2008
5. Cultures and Subcultures
• Will Ferguson: excerpts from How to Be a Canadian
• Bill Bryson: excerpts from Notes from a Small Island, Notes from a Big Country
• Jeff Foxworthy
• David Sedaris: “See You Again Yesterday”
• Sarah Turnbull: Excerpts from Almost French

Unit 2 is the one that I planned out so clearly some other things haven’t been fleshed out. But I turn it in Wednesday so this is basically the final format (except that some of the page breaks are better in the version I’m turning in), though I will probably use some of it with my students in the fall.

One last note: I don’t, of course, have any of the rights to the things in that document. There is actually very little in the way of texts actually IN the plan I’ll turn in. The Onion stuff is all available online; so is the Queen Latifah SNL commercial; Summer Heights High also seems to let you watch videos for free on the network website. The other things I used my amazing Netflix account for.

(Oh yeah, it WAS super fun to make all those tables and colors, since I know you were going to ask. It was also probably really a waste of time.)

Otto again

Life is incredibly busy here. I’ll take most of my stuff to San Antonio on Saturday and then come back here. Then Monday is the last day of my one class. Then Thursday I have to be out of this apartment and will be staying at S’s house until July 9th when I will head home to SA (semi-)permanently. In fact I think I’ll be taking a day trip back up here as soon as July 13th. In the meantime, I turn 25 on Friday, I’m probably getting a new right contact lens then too, and next week I meet with the orthopedist to talk about my feet. I’ve decided to make my friends go here Friday evening. But the feet I haven’t had much time to think about.

Seriously. I joined this time because I needed a copy of Hyenas that I could keep at home while I was writing my French paper. Then I started using it for its pilates videos available on instant play. Now I’m using it again for class, since it seems Little Britain and both Offices are available on instant play (yes, that’s class-related, just trust me). I seriously would pay for just the instant option.

Meerkat Manor season 3, however, is NOT available on instant. So I have to wait for it to come in the mail. I didn’t realize this when I zoomed through seasons 1 and 2, which are available online. And I am now going through withdrawal.

I’m actually considering sharing an account with someone next year just so I can keep the instant option. It would be way useful for teaching. Any takers?

In other news, soon I have to move out of my apartment and my anxiety is coming in stages. I got through stage 1 today by doing the preliminary packing and cleaning. At least I don’t have any furniture to move.

Lots of reading to do this weekend. I should go do it. But I want to mention that I’m still listening to Spanish learning podcasts in spite of the depressing Dialang diagnostic, and the two I like today are:
Notes in Spanish: Inspired Beginners Podcast
and
Lingus TV Spanish videos by level
(although the beginner videos are very short)

I’m considering, instead of traveling rabidly next summer, doing some sort of intensive Spanish course in Spain. And hiring a private Spanish tutor next year.

Can I also say that I hate the heat? I hate it. HATE it. It is stifling. WHY is it pushing 100 in June?? And did I honestly grow up here?? Hope to go to Barton Springs either this weekend or next to get some joy out of it. And I am going to stop complaining about it … NOW, because at least summer means there is nothing to be allergic to.

I took the Dialang test (which by the way is not available for Macintosh so taking it was sort of complicated) earlier today for Spanish listening and it was bizarrely demoralizing. I knew my Spanish was minimal so I don’t know why it was so harsh to see it written out how little I can do with the language.

See? How exciting.

with S and my mom (and my dad for a few hours). We had tacos at El Milagrito for breakfast, went to Mission Concepcion and San Jose, walked around La Villita, wandered the Alamo so Sarah would have something to remember, had margaritas and watched someone get married on the Riverwalk, ate ice cream at Brindles, and stopped in at the Japanese Tea Gardens. (I don’t THINK I’m forgetting anything.) I basically think San Antonio is wonderful. AND I didn’t get sunburnt.

From shed under buiding. Boo.