Academy Awards

The Academy Awards is due to start soon on TV and I will be watching with my brother. This is the first year that I don't even know all the movies that are nominated. I usually know more about the films but somehow I've been busy with other things and haven't paid much attention. Of course, this is also the first year that 10 movies are nominated, not the usual 5. As some of you know, I love movies, but I don't think I've seen that many of the nominated ones this year. My brother keeps telling me I have to see Avatar and I want to, but I haven't got around to it yet. Hopefully I will get to see some of them in the next few weeks. It's fun to see all the stars arriving and see how they are all dressed. Also the two hosts are new this year so I'm curious to see how they do. Well, I have to turn on my TV- it's starting in just a few minutes.

locked in a restaurant bathroom

I don't know if this has ever happened to anyone, but it was the first time for me. I went to a party of good friends last Saturday in a restaurant. I went to the bathroom and when I closed the door, I noticed that the latch to lock the door was a little strange. I tried to close it but I guess I didn't do a good enough job because someone tried to come in while I was still inside. I quickly yelled to prevent them from opening the door all the way and then I tried to lock the door better. When I was ready to leave, I found that I couldn't budge the lock and I had to yell for help to get someone to open the door. I yelled for a while and finally someone who was in the next cubicle went to get help. It took several people looking for a screwdriver about 15 minutes to get the door open. When the door finally opened there were about 5 men from the restaurant staff standing around looking at my grand exit!! I thanked them and they were quite apologetic that it took so long. When I got back to the party , my friends had wondered where I was for so long so I told them this story.

Winter Olympics

I'm really enjoying the Winter Olympics these days on TV. I haven't seen that much but I love the ice skating pairs and the snowboarding events. Two Chinese pairs got the gold and the silver for the first time the other evening. Yesterday I put on the men's short ice skating program for a while and my friends and I got into a silly discussion about their costumes. Some of them look kind of silly, don't you think? Today I'm not sure if there's more ice skating but I'll be out tonight so I may miss it. I may be able to catch a little when I get home if it's still on. Is anyone else watching the Olympics these days?

Trouble in cyber space

Hi everyone,
I'm writing after quite a long time. I wanted to go on on Saturday but my Internet and home phone have not been working for 3 days...such a nuisance. But they are up and running now and I'm happy to have them back, I can tell you.

I hope you are having a good holiday so far. It's a miserable wet snowy day today and I'm at home, catching up with email. I have a good friend, Kris, who is visiting me for a few days and she should be arriving soon. She is currently teaching EFL (English as a Foreign Language) in Osaka, Japan and is here in the States for a few weeks on vacation. She visited in the summer too so it's been only about 6 months since I've seen her, but I'm excited to see her again. Whoops- believe it or not, I just got a call from her and she's lost...I have to go and get her from the subway. More later....

Wednesday evening

Hi everyone,

I'm having some technical difficulties linking your blog addresses to my blog site but hopefully I'll work it out soon. Once I do, I'll let you know and also let you know how you can also link others to your blog.

I wanted to remind you to get your textbooks this week from the bookstore. We will begin with the Listening/Speaking book on Monday so don't wait until the last minute in case the bookstore runs out of books. I was checking the corrections you made today to your writing and most of you did a pretty good job. We will write second drafts tomorrow.

I'm going to post some photos I took from my year in China recently to give you an idea of some of my experiences. As I've told you, traveling to and livng in other countries is something I love. I've been to some beautiful and exotic places and met wonderful people everywhere.

Well, my photos uploaded at the top of this posting , not where I wanted them! The first is of a trek I went on high up in the Tibetan part of China. We were 16,000 feet up and it was very cold at night even though it was July. The second one is me with some tribal women in the western part of China. The last one is of me with a former Chinese student who spoke excellent English and is now studying French in Paris. Maybe this will inspire some of you to post photos of your family, home or something else. However, don't forget the main thing is to write on your blog!!

beginning blog

Hi everyone in my new class!

I want to officially welcome you to your Upper level class this semester. We will use the blog space to write down our thoughts and feelings, ideas and opinions and we will be able to communicate directly to each other by responding to each other's blog postings. (Every time you write a new blog, it's called a posting.) You can think of the blogging as a form of diary or journal writing, except that you are writing in a public space where other members of the class will be able to read your blogs. So, be careful that you don't write anything that is too private! Blogging can be a great way to communicate with many people at the same time

To get started, you first need to create your blog and once you do, I will link everyone's blog to mine so that i can read your and you can read mine and each other.

The following are the rules for blogging:
1. Only proper English is allowed, no slang or language that people could get offended by- that means no nasty language that you wouldn't use in the classroom. Let's be respectful of each other and not write anything that could hurt someone. I will not correct your writing for grammar because I want you, first and foremost, to feel free to write without worrying whether your spelling and grammar are always correct.
2. You should (hopefully) enjoy blogging and do it 3 times a week, a minimum of 7 sentences each time. More is, of course, welcome! I will check your postings frequently and sometimes respond to them so if you have questions or you want my opinion on something, just ask. I would like you also to read other students' blogs and your teachers blogs if you like and respond to them with your comments.
3. As I said, each week, you need to do 3 postings. I will check and count that you have 3 each week on Monday. That means that next Monday, February 1st by 7 a.m. Make sure that you don't fall behind in your postings!!

So, please go ahead and create your blogs after you read this. Once you do, please send me an email with your blog name and blog address.These are not the same. For example, my blog's name is Barbara's Spring '10 but the address is barbarasspring10blog@blogspot.com. You can be more creative with your blog name but be sure that you give me both your blog name and the address, ok?

Happy blogging, everyone!