Here I just lead a session today on "Editing and Revising" and mentioned how a good story/article/text needs to have a good title... and all I can come up with for my own title is "Oofta Again". Honestly, I amaze myself sometimes. I'm just glad none of the participants in our workshop are reading this blog! It would be a serious case of "do as I say, not as I do..."
Anyway, I did find myself saying "oofta" a few times today, starting from the moment my alarm went off on my phone this morning with its "blue ice" ring-tone. It was pretty icy getting out of bed. 23.5C in my room! The water was rather frigid in the shower, but at least it woke me up. I needed a good dose of waking up this morning, too, because I didn't sleep all that well. I went to bed with a bit of a funny feeling in my tummy, and a little ache in my head. I woke up at 1:30am with a serious stomach issue and the feeling that there was a tent peg through my right temple. Not a good way to wake up in the middle of the night! So I was awake for a bit last night, and I confess that I even heard myself whimper once or twice. It was a pretty pathetic little scene for a while there. I did fall back to sleep after taking a few pain killers, and in the morning, my head was tickity-boo (I think that means, "all good"), and stomach was passable.
So I went to the workshop and enjoyed hearing some of the stories that the participants have been coming up with. In the middle of it all, I went to chase a nun around town for a while, which was a nice little interlude to the day. Finally caught up with her, but not before I went to the Sister's house, which has a lovely garden. I wish our compound gave people that same sense of peace and calm when they walk through our gates!
I then did a bit of teaching of my own, and lead 2 hours of session on "Editing and Revising", which I think went quite well. The afternoon is a tough time to teach, but at least it was relatively cool today, so people weren't expiring from the heat or anything. It goes keep a girl on her toes, though, to facilitate sessions on topics that are quite new to people, and to do it all through a language that is my mother tongue, but the second, or third, or even fourth language, of most of the participants. I love it, though! I get exhausted when I teach, but I just love leading people through discovering new things. In preparing for this session today, I actually wrote a little story in the local Arabic. I took it to Clara, our guesthouse manager, to help me edit and correct the language in it. And she loved the story. In fact, she loved it so much that later in the day, she had emailed me her own little story that she had written! So even just in my preparation, it seems someone was inspired to write a little story in her own language!
After a long day of work as a literacy specialist, I put on my work shorts and spent a few hours "oofta-ing" over the ceiling tiles for my new house :) Richard was doing the main work, but in order to save him from having to climb up and down the ladder a gazillion times, I was given the task of not only handing stuff up to him, but also cutting the tiles to fit. So while he measured and called out measurements, I measured and cut and handed the tiles up to him. It did make me grunt a bit, but a little manual labour can be quite satisfying sometimes, you know? I forgot to bring my camera, but I will go in there tomorrow, I hope, and take a few pictures of our handy-work. I'm quite proud of us for getting the ceiling done, and Richard didn't even throw his hammer at me, and I didn't feel the need to push him off the ladder :) I'm just happy to contribute a little to the progress that's happening on the house that I'll [hopefully] be moving into at some point!
So all in all, it was a day well played, if I do say so myself!
Anyway, I did find myself saying "oofta" a few times today, starting from the moment my alarm went off on my phone this morning with its "blue ice" ring-tone. It was pretty icy getting out of bed. 23.5C in my room! The water was rather frigid in the shower, but at least it woke me up. I needed a good dose of waking up this morning, too, because I didn't sleep all that well. I went to bed with a bit of a funny feeling in my tummy, and a little ache in my head. I woke up at 1:30am with a serious stomach issue and the feeling that there was a tent peg through my right temple. Not a good way to wake up in the middle of the night! So I was awake for a bit last night, and I confess that I even heard myself whimper once or twice. It was a pretty pathetic little scene for a while there. I did fall back to sleep after taking a few pain killers, and in the morning, my head was tickity-boo (I think that means, "all good"), and stomach was passable.
So I went to the workshop and enjoyed hearing some of the stories that the participants have been coming up with. In the middle of it all, I went to chase a nun around town for a while, which was a nice little interlude to the day. Finally caught up with her, but not before I went to the Sister's house, which has a lovely garden. I wish our compound gave people that same sense of peace and calm when they walk through our gates!
I then did a bit of teaching of my own, and lead 2 hours of session on "Editing and Revising", which I think went quite well. The afternoon is a tough time to teach, but at least it was relatively cool today, so people weren't expiring from the heat or anything. It goes keep a girl on her toes, though, to facilitate sessions on topics that are quite new to people, and to do it all through a language that is my mother tongue, but the second, or third, or even fourth language, of most of the participants. I love it, though! I get exhausted when I teach, but I just love leading people through discovering new things. In preparing for this session today, I actually wrote a little story in the local Arabic. I took it to Clara, our guesthouse manager, to help me edit and correct the language in it. And she loved the story. In fact, she loved it so much that later in the day, she had emailed me her own little story that she had written! So even just in my preparation, it seems someone was inspired to write a little story in her own language!
After a long day of work as a literacy specialist, I put on my work shorts and spent a few hours "oofta-ing" over the ceiling tiles for my new house :) Richard was doing the main work, but in order to save him from having to climb up and down the ladder a gazillion times, I was given the task of not only handing stuff up to him, but also cutting the tiles to fit. So while he measured and called out measurements, I measured and cut and handed the tiles up to him. It did make me grunt a bit, but a little manual labour can be quite satisfying sometimes, you know? I forgot to bring my camera, but I will go in there tomorrow, I hope, and take a few pictures of our handy-work. I'm quite proud of us for getting the ceiling done, and Richard didn't even throw his hammer at me, and I didn't feel the need to push him off the ladder :) I'm just happy to contribute a little to the progress that's happening on the house that I'll [hopefully] be moving into at some point!
So all in all, it was a day well played, if I do say so myself!
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