SUMMERTIME, AND THE LIVING …

For many people, summer is the time when things slow down, the weather heats up, the BBQ's are uncovered and put to use, Momma mixes Daddy up a nice pitcher of mint julips, and the kids go swimming down by the ol' waterin' hole, etc. (OK, if you live in Faulkner land.) For me, it's my busiest time so far this year.

Since the beginning of June now, I've been heading off on a reasonable 20-minute commute from Torrance to Cal State Long Beach (going opposite the prevailing morning traffic) for my 9:00 Grammar class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Two hours later, I begin my 11:00 Spelling class. (Many of the Saudi ESL students are so pathetic at writing, that the teachers have begged for a special spelling elective (Writing, more precisely) to get them up to speed to compete with Spanish-speaking and Asians students at their levels.)

By now the initial comings and goings and transfers of the first week are over, and the class rosters are pretty well set. Out of 20 students total, I have one Japanese and one Korean. The rest are all young Saudi males. Nice kids, actually. I think they kept the religious radicals and mentally deficient at home this time. These guys dress like any US college kid in their shorts, flip-flops, and T-shirts, and no long beards. I heard from our director that the new king's scholarship program has sent close to 10,000 Saudi college kids to the US since last Fall! So, suddenly spelling is an "in" course at Intensive English Programs round the country. A Cal State professor and I have even submitted a proposal to next year's TESOL convention on our spelling testing efforts with the Arabic-speaking students. They're always impressed that I know Arabic.

I've been having my students memorize how to write English numbers as words: one, two, three, etc. (Or "on, tow, there" for some of them.) Today to bring home the point that bad spelling influences people's impression of you, I wrote the Arabic numbers 1-10 on the board with artificially awful Arabic spelling to make the point. They were suitably horrified. "This is how your English numbers look to me!" I told them. I think they got the point - and then some! One studious-looking Saudi man even came up at the end of class to "help" me correct the bad Arabic spelling. I said I had misspelled intentionally, and proceeded to write all 10 numbers correctly just to show I wasn't a dummy! : - )

Thankfully, my UCLA Extension Web class finished up last night (a 3-hour make-a-project-from-scratch-at the-computer final!), so that will free up Wednesdays now to prepare for my PAYING job: teaching English. To tell the truth, the Web class was badly taught and hugely frustrating for all of us. I think I may have gotten a few gray hairs from the stress!

If you want to check out my final project, you can go to my Flash Website at:

www.sundberg-net.com/flash/

(The opening screen asks for an email password, but you can type any gibberish in there to get into the main site.)

QUICKIE UPDATES

Now that I'm teaching this summer, my focus is on survival (being prepared for classes while not letting the rest of my life go down the toilet bowl), but here are few areas of real news:

HELEN'S HOUSE

Our offer of $270,000 to the Guatemalan family that owns the Crestline house we're interested in was accepted. Ann went up a week ago for the inspection and found very few major issues, so we're going ahead and buying the house. Latest closing date would be July 9. Right now, she is investigating how we'll pay for it. Paying it all cash seems like the best option (and keeps the price down), so we're checking on how we can wing that between Ann's funds, my funds, and the sale of a piece of lakefront property in Crestline Dad held onto for years. It should bring in about $40-50,000 in today's market. We gave first dibs to the neighbor so he could add to his property without getting his view destroyed, and Ann said he's taking us up on it. (She refused to budge on price, however. We can only be SO kind.)

CAL STATE JOB

After the intial flux of the first couple of weeks, I have ended up with half the teaching hours I was promised. Tuesdays and Thursday I was scheduled to teach three courses for 12 hours a week total (grammar, spelling, and listening/speaking), but my afternoon course was canceled after not enough registered students actually showed up to make two sections, so only one section was needed (not mine). I was disappointed from a financial viewpoint, but relieved that I wouldn't have 6 hours in front of a class packed into single days. That's intense in the teaching profession. (We also do LOTS of prep time outside f that, so don't poopoo my horror at the 6 classroom hours!) So, now I teach six hours a week, just mornings. I already did one subbing job last Wednesday, so that possibility may come along once and a while. And new, shorter ESL programs will be coming along later in the summer, and the director Nina Ito said she might well need my services for some of those.

UCLA JOB

I finally heard from Prof. Hinnebusch, who runs the US grant program to catalog resources for all the less commonly taught languages. The Iraqi student who had been doing the Arabic part decided he could continue this summer after all, so that left no position for me. Too bad. It would have been a nice balance to the teaching at CSU-Long Beach.

UCLA EXTENSION CLASS

I have only two weeks left in the Macromedia Flash course, and I have to say I won't be sorry it's over. It's been one of the least organized and most stressful classes I have taken in many a moon. Plus, stuck in between my two teaching days on Wednesday evenings 7-10pm, it has interfered with some much needed prep time for classes (not to mention sleep).

TOOTH TALES

June 5 was the second major installment in my latest dental venture. (Remember the abcess from back in February?) The space where the pulled tooth was is now filled (with a temporary crown), some tiny flakes of bone were inserted in the jaw area to grow into more bone support, and a permanent implant screw has been installed. Much less bleeding and mess this time. The end of the process won't be for another six months, when the good dentist will install a permanent crown (on the present implant - thankfully). A lot of moolah merely to replace what was there and perfectly natural to begin with!

More later ...