Day 14: Busy Weekend Ahead...

Sorry for not posting anything yesterday. I was way too busy. And this weekend I will be busy as well. Tomorrow will be the high school all-states orchestra audition. My audition time is 11:45, and as many violinists will compete against me, the auditions could take a few hours as I wait in line just to play for thirty seconds. If the auditions don't take too long, I plan to possibly go over to Allison's house and work on a Latin project with her (if not, then we will split the work and do them separately). Then I will leave for dinner and kungfu class at 5:00 and come back at around 9:30.

Usually I have a violin lesson on Sunday morning, but because the audition , there will be no lesson this weekend. However, that morning I will have to go to Red Bank to work on TSA with my group. I'm part of digital video production, and we'll be filming that day. Afterwards, my local orchestra, will begin rehearsal at 4:45 for a concert that starts later that evening.

All of this wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the homework I received for Bio, English, World History, Math, and Latin. Hopefully I can squeeze in time to finish all of this without sacrificing too much of my sleep time. I'm actually being quite productive today; usually on Friday evenings I try to do the least work possible.

Day 2: TA'ing at Chinese School!

Every week, on Saturday mornings, I go to my local Chinese school and TA not only for volunteer hours, but also for learning to interact with little kids. I teach in two classes, a kindergarten class and a martial arts class. I went to Chinese school for nine years and graduated last year, so now I'm just here to help out.

The kindergarten class I TA is adorable. The majority of the kindergarten students are Chinese-American, and the teacher is just wonderful. She's really creative in her teaching and knows how to not bore the children (I wish my kindergarten Chinese school teacher was like that!). Today they were reviewing how to count to Chinese, and the students' quick learning really astounds me.

After helping the teacher for two hours, I go over to the martial arts class and teach there for an hour. The kids in that class are slightly older, but still aren't old enough to learn without the help of a few TA's. Since I've been training in martial arts for many years, most of their forms come naturally to me, but the teacher also teaches the kids how to use nunchuks (Styrofoam ones, mkay?), which is a totally new experience to me. I really enjoy assisting the kindergarten and martial arts class because not only do I get to teach the children, but it's a learning experience for me as well.