Mark's Life Circa August 2013

McNulty: If Snotboogie always stole the money, why'd you let him play?

Snotboogie's friend: Got to. This America, man.

- The Wire

Hey guys,

Well this is my side of the blog. As many of you know, I’ll be leaving to teach English in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand very soon. I’ll try to update it is much as I can as it will be the funnier and more touching side of the blog.

So I graduated in May, went to Daytona, and had another amazing summer on ASP. Since I’ve been back I’ve been up to a few things. Here’s the short list:

1.    1.   Watching an ungodly amount of TV

Did you know that if you take a one month free trial from Netflix and cancel it, they’ll give you another month free trial exactly one year later? I got this beautiful email in March and had been saving this baby up for months. Big shout out to Adam Newman for letting me have his HBO GO password too. I counted eight TV shows I watched all the way through from the best (The Wire) to the worst (Dexter).

Don’t act like you’re not impressed. Although I have to say, the Dexter series finale was one of the most terrible things I’ve ever watched. And I even recently watched the VHS of me as a hobo in Annie in seventh grade. Dexter was worse.

2.    2.   Going to the gym

With two months of free time, I had the opportunity to completely change my body and now look like one of those guys from 300. That’s complete BS but I was able to get back into the shape I was before ASP (McDonald’s 5 out of the 7 days of the week really hurt my  figure). I became a regular at the YMCA and became the seventh person under the age of 50 to work out there.

I did do some research into the diet I would need to get a six-pack and it blew. It was full of very healthy/organic/expensive food and supplements with capital letters and numbers. Not for me.

3.     3.  Getting Important Documents for Thailand

I had to get a bunch or random documents proving I graduated college and that I don’t have a criminal history. Thankfully, I got my visa in the mail a week ago. Long story short – it took a while and was pretty boring. Moving on.

4.     4.  Taking an online TEFL Class

It was recommended I take a Teaching English as a Foreign Language Course (TEFL) before I left. It was a 130-hour online class that trains you to teach students who are learning English for the first time.

The beginning of the course was basic educational information. It was pretty much a rehash of my freshman year of college. After that it was writing lots of lesson plans. Much different than what I was used to: during student teaching I taught primarily literature and TEFL is almost all grammar.

I also spent twenty hours observing at an English as a Second Language (ESL) Clinic. ESL and TEFL are essentially the same thing. It was a free class with the instructor teaching basic English to a class of middle-aged Latino men and women. This was a much different environment than inner-city high schoolers in Dayton.

It was good experience and showed me that I’ll really have to switch up my teaching style. For four months I was in a class with students who had lots of behavioral issues and were years behind grade level. My students now will be much more respectful and motivated but many of my staple activities/lessons won’t work because of the language barrier. Oh well, I’ll figure it out.

5.  5.     Hanging with the “Boys” and family

Many of my friends from high school moved back to the Evanston/Chicago area. Almost all my friends who graduated have jobs, which is awesome. Nice work guys! This was also the longest period of time my family had all been together in four years. Being able to hang with them was a blast. Having home-cooked meals wasn’t bad either (we see you mom and dad).

Other notable highlights: great road trips down to Dayton and Notre Dame, beating Uncle Steve in tennis (Bringing my lifetime record to 2-17), hearing Adam Newman say, "No Sean, I'm talking now" on Hannity, and watching Daniel forget his house key every other day.

I’ll post soon about what I’ll be doing in Thailand. Also, I’ll begin each entry with a quote. Whether the quote has any relevance to the content of the post, is up to you to decide.

Mark

P.S. But seriously, go watch The Wire. It's awesome.