Starting a Blog: Day Two

Let's Learn About Polygamy! 

So, originally I was going to have this first "official" post be about the backstory of the blog title,"Why is Your Jacket Made of Pants?". But, I changed my mind, and thought it would be better to keep you all in suspense in a How I Met Your Mother fashion, and not reveal the funny and endearing story until my 100th post. 

Instead, I decided on writing about this little gem: 

Last summer, I volunteered as an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher in Armenia, a tiny landlocked beautiful country in the Caucuses. If you didn't know, but I'm sure you do, because the only people reading this blog so far are my friends and family, I am Armenian, and I obnoxiously talk about it all the time. But don't worry, this post isn't about that, it's about...let's call him George. (I think this is where I should state that I'm never going to post any of my student's real names in these stories- I don't think their parents would like that very much...and I would rather not be fired!) 

So in Armenia, I taught at a school for the arts in a city called Gyumri in the North Western region of the country. The school didn't have very much money or access to many teaching materials, so I had to get creative with my lessons. We started off with the fundamentals such as the alphabet, shapes, foods, etc., and eventually we worked our way up to more advanced things like basic conversational skills, counting by tens, and counting by hundreds... 

One day I asked the kids if anyone wanted to try counting by hundreds. A few kids raised their hands, but the one that surprised me was George. He was such a shy little boy, and just wasn't confident in his English speaking skills. So, naturally I called on him. He stood up from his seat, puffed up his chest, and said loudly for all to hear in his best American accent, "one husband, two husband, three husband!" The kids burst out with laughter and poor George was red in the face, but started laughing right along with them when he realized his silly mistake and immediately corrected himself. 

Once I got the laughter to die down, (which was difficult because I was trying hard not to laugh myself), I explained that not only was I proud of George for being brave and trying his best, I was also proud of them for recognizing the word 'husband' when it was out of context, and we had only learned it the week before! 

My time in Armenia was so special, and there are so many memories to keep my heart close to it, but the ones I cherish the most are the ones that made (and still make) me laugh. 

Thanks for reading!

                                  

                                                                       

Starting a Blog: Day One

Uptown Hoboken

How Does This Work? 

I'm immediately feeling regret! I've deleted my first sentence a million times, and it took me five thousand google searches to come up with a sort-of-okay image for my first post. Are people going to like this thing? Am I going to like this thing? What is this? What am I doing?

For now, my plan is to just keep typing, and hopefully something good/funny/awesome will happen (fingers crossed).


Above is a cute little image (the one that took forever to find) of the city I live in, Hoboken, New Jersey. Aside from being a voracious google image searcher, I am also an elementary school teacher. Now that I think about it, my google image searching plays a great role in my job. Finding just the right diagram of the food chain can really make or break a lesson...even if it did take me over 45 minutes to find the right one. Shhh...don't judge me.


I'd like to think that I'm a pretty good story teller. My parents would probably like to think, that I like to think, that I'm a pretty good story teller...as they paid for me to major in English and minor in Creative Writing...and I never did anything with it...until hopefully now?

It just so happened that at my college Education was not considered a "real major", so I had to tack on an extra one, just to be sure that I was getting my money's worth. I went with English because at the time I had an obsession with poetry. The funny part is, is that by the time I reached the point when I had to start taking my poetry classes, I had already fallen in love with my Education classes...and didn't give a crap about writing anymore. Sorry Mom and Dad, a teacher I shall forever be!

So as an homage to my hard-earned BA, I've decided to start this blog. It's going to be an amalgamation of both English and Education, actually. So, if you love hilarious stories about little kids saying ridiculous things, keep reading!


Okay...I'm clicking the "publish" button now...it's been staring at me this whole time.