Professor Heidebrecht

It is now official.  I have completed my first day of teaching and as far as it went I have mixed feelings.  If you were able to read the blog I posted before class yesterday, my theory did work(you'll have to look at yesterdays blog for that theory).  I was not nearly as nervous as I thought I would be, and I was also able to fill up the entire hour and 20 minutes (that had been another fear of mine).  So a few impressions I had from my first 2 classes.

- The students are amazing.  Very polite and really try to understand what is going on.  They are also very helpful.
- It is going to be difficult to create lessons for my 201 class.  They know very little English and I spent most of my first class trying to explain activities to them.  The challenge over the next few weeks will be finding a type of lesson that they can understand.  If any of you have ideas I would be happy to hear from you!
- A class of 30 students is a lot bigger than I thought I was going to be teaching, which may make it hard to keep everyone engaged all the time.
- Remembering names is going to be extremely difficult.  I took a video of all the students introducing themselves, so I am hoping that will help me to learn their names as quick as I can.

All in all I would deem it a successful day.  Today will be my first day with the actual curriculum, which will be another adventure in and of itself.  I am currently at MCC so once I finish this blog posting I will finish putting together my lesson plans for my classes today.  Once again hopefully I can fill up my entire 80 minutes of class.     The nice thing is that we are supposed to stay very close to what is in the textbook so nearly all of the activities will come from the textbook.  For a new teacher this is great.  I can just pick and choose activities from the book.  The hardest part will probably be teaching Grammar, not my strongest point.

2 hours to go...

So I am sitting in the English office here at the University, getting ready to grab some lunch.  A couple more hours and the reason I am halfway across the globe will finally take shape.  Nervous you ask?  Well it comes and goes, but as I write this blog the nerves are not that bad.  You know when you hear how good a movie is from all your friends, and your expectations are raised significantly.  You go to the theater to watch the movie and you are extremely disappointed because your expectations were to high.  I liken my situation to that.  Every time I talk to someone I mention how nervous I will be for this first day.  I am hoping that I have hyped my nerves so high that it will be a disappointment when I don't have any.  Haha, It is worth a shot anyways right? :)

Stay tuned for tomorrows update about how the first day went.

The Prey Veng Trip

So I’ve been in Cambodia for 3 1/2 weeks now.  Sometimes it feels like it has been a lot longer than that, and other times it feels like just yesterday I was back at home picking saskatoons, and filling out a zillion forms for this trip.  I’ve slowly come accustom to my surroundings and though I won’t go as far as saying that I feel at home, I definitely feel more comfortable than when I first got here.

                         

So a quick update on the Prey Veng trip.  We left last Thursday and stayed until Monday.  It was nice to get away from the big city and get out to the country.  Thursday and Friday we visited a number of MCC’s partners, most of them to do with Agriculture sustainability.  On Saturday we got up at 7 and went for a 3 hour bike ride through the different small towns around Prey Veng.  There really isn’t a lot of sleeping in here in Cambodia, which is something I am slowly getting used to.  It does help that I’m in bed most nights between 9 and 10.  The rest of the day involved some motto driving, which was a lot of fun.  Almost ran into the ditch as I was leaving the MCC offices but after that I regained my composure and kept the motto in the upright position.  We had a lot of fun just cruising around the countryside and exploring the area.

Quick list of firsts

-          hand fed bananas to monkeys

-          drove a motto through rice paddies

-          drove a motto in Phnom Penh

-          rode a bicycle past a herd of water buffalo

-          ate some kind of intestine, or so they tell me

-          had my first staff meeting as a professor

-          attended my first Khmer church service

The rest of the weekend in Prey Veng we had the chance to just relax and get to know each other a little bit more.  We played some games (of course dutch blitz) and watched a number of movies, all in all it was a great time.

This past Sunday I went to church with my host family.  It was my second adventure in a Khmer church and it was not quite what I was expecting.  Most Khmers are generally reserved and quite.  This church service was quite the opposite.  It was loud, it was charismatic, and it was long, at least long for me.  It will take some time to get used to the service, especially the length and really not understanding much of it.  I am also going to try to see if there is an English service that I can attend.    

We have a few MCC guests in Cambodia at the moment, 3 from Akron and one from Manitoba.  Actually mom and dad Brad Reimer is out here and he said to say hi.  He said that he went to foothills for awhile and actually started the early service with Uncle Darryl and Aunt Gladys.  So Hi from Brad!

Looking into the future now it is only 5 days until my teaching career begins.  At times I feel like I am ready, and at times I ask myself what did I get into here.  I could be working at home with people I know.  Instead I am teaching for the first time, at a university no less, with people I hardly know.  It’s tough, but I am looking forward to the challenge and luckily I have a lot of support at the university and MCC.  God Bless!