Mood: Addicted.
The Peanut Countdown: 127 days.
POD:
My addiction - Sudoku
I'm addicted. To numbers. In squares. Long live Sudoku!! I can't get enough. I want to get my hands on every single Sudoku puzzle out there. But dangit, I just messed one up and can't remember which was the last square I put a number in. So I chucked it. Yes, I love a good challenge, but sometimes I give up way too easily. I used to love doing those logic puzzles on the GRE (nerd alert). I even had a whole book of the puzzles to do for fun, ie. while sitting on the toilet. :)
The volunteering project I did last night at SCAE with ESL students was really great. We were their tutors for an evening and just had regular conversations with them while they practiced their English. I really connected with this one Turkish woman who has been here for 1 month and is trying hard to pass the TOEFL exam. She took it once in Turkey but failed and is really stressed about taking it again. Her English is pretty good but she lacks the confidence to express what she's thinking. I gave her some pointers and will hopefully see her the next time I do this project. After I got home, Shehrzad and I had an interesting conversation about how there are so many people out there really struggling and stressing over learning English while we can just sit here and speak it fluently without thinking twice. There was even one woman who used to be a pharmacist in Belarus but can barely function in the US now because of her limited knowledge of the language. Just talking to her, I could easily tell that she was highly educated. It was an interesting combination to see her struggle so much to explain things about microbiology and physics, when she obviously had the knowledge, just not the verbal tools.
I can't believe there are only 5 weeks left before we leave for India! So much to do... gifts are on the top of our To Do list. Since we're going to Pakistan at the end of our trip, we're trying to think of compact, miniature sized items that would make good gifts. A friend suggested pens... apparently Pakistanis and Indians are crazy about our pens. Definitely compact. Maybe I should start stocking up at work? :) Shehrzad is pretty adamant about taking some USA and California t-shirts. Sounds kinda fobby to me, but then again, I go gaga over Sweetarts and Care Bear t-shirts.
Daily Dose of Lubna: Second Harvest tonight!
The Peanut Countdown: 127 days.
POD:
My addiction - Sudoku
I'm addicted. To numbers. In squares. Long live Sudoku!! I can't get enough. I want to get my hands on every single Sudoku puzzle out there. But dangit, I just messed one up and can't remember which was the last square I put a number in. So I chucked it. Yes, I love a good challenge, but sometimes I give up way too easily. I used to love doing those logic puzzles on the GRE (nerd alert). I even had a whole book of the puzzles to do for fun, ie. while sitting on the toilet. :)
The volunteering project I did last night at SCAE with ESL students was really great. We were their tutors for an evening and just had regular conversations with them while they practiced their English. I really connected with this one Turkish woman who has been here for 1 month and is trying hard to pass the TOEFL exam. She took it once in Turkey but failed and is really stressed about taking it again. Her English is pretty good but she lacks the confidence to express what she's thinking. I gave her some pointers and will hopefully see her the next time I do this project. After I got home, Shehrzad and I had an interesting conversation about how there are so many people out there really struggling and stressing over learning English while we can just sit here and speak it fluently without thinking twice. There was even one woman who used to be a pharmacist in Belarus but can barely function in the US now because of her limited knowledge of the language. Just talking to her, I could easily tell that she was highly educated. It was an interesting combination to see her struggle so much to explain things about microbiology and physics, when she obviously had the knowledge, just not the verbal tools.
I can't believe there are only 5 weeks left before we leave for India! So much to do... gifts are on the top of our To Do list. Since we're going to Pakistan at the end of our trip, we're trying to think of compact, miniature sized items that would make good gifts. A friend suggested pens... apparently Pakistanis and Indians are crazy about our pens. Definitely compact. Maybe I should start stocking up at work? :) Shehrzad is pretty adamant about taking some USA and California t-shirts. Sounds kinda fobby to me, but then again, I go gaga over Sweetarts and Care Bear t-shirts.
Daily Dose of Lubna: Second Harvest tonight!
1 Comments:
Hey, would you beleive Isaac's former roommate's dad is the "popularizer" of Sudoku? We just found that out the other day. I've never done a Sudoku puzzle myself.
Your ESL observations really hit home - I used to help in an ESL class in college, and there was one Vietnamese woman who worked in the cafeteria at another area university. She brought in the menus and we went over them together so that she could pronounce all the food she was serving to these college kids. It was really something.
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