Maybe I can teach after all

This evening, teaching went remarkably well. This was my 7th grade class that is often very hard to keep in control (and by very hard, I mean that I often have rather little success, especially towards the end of the evening).  Add to that, that I was sort of unsure about my lesson plan, and was doing a little bit of improvisation as I went (I decided that the plan I had come up with was too open to running away in directions that  I didn't want, so I changed it once I got to the synagogue- it's a good thing that I got there early).   And yet somehow I managed to start things off in a controlled and organized fashion, and to keep a reasonable, interesting, and civil discussion going.  I think that starting off with a "sit and write about x for a couple minutes in complete silence" was a good starting point for that.  So- I'm proud of myself, and I'm proud of my students.

Other achievements of the day include 1. finishing a paper (using far more time than I really needed) (and which was quite nice because I used to to work out some ideas I've had for rather a while about revelation),  2. using patterns I found online, making two more varieties of crocheted flowers.  One sort uses three different colors, which is rather exciting (if not so good for doing while traveling, although it might be good for using scraps.)  and 3. opening a coconut in my rooms without resorting (as I did in <lj user="redlily">'s company after a variety of attempts to use a hammer) to throwing it out of the window onto a concrete surface and then running outside to pick up the pieces (ahh, the joys of living in a student slum- then, that is).