Japanese Teacher

I will start teaching again from tomorrow!!!
I found a language school and submitted my resume. The owner contacted me and I had an interview. She told me that the school didn't have any students at present. Anyway, she offered to let me observe a level 1 Spanish class.

It was great! The teacher spoke Spanish all the time. Of course,the students didn't understand so she translated into English a little for the first half (45min).
However, they practiced introducing themselves, reading numbers and role played. The role playing was a really good activity. The teacher gave them a paper which had 10 telephone numbers. Each student read their numbers out and the other students had to write them down.
The students concentrated on speaking and writing. I enjoyed observing and learnt a lot from the lesson. When I was in the lesson, I could see the lesson from the student's side. I have been studying Spanish by myself for a long time so the lesson was very enjoyable to me.

After that, the owner e-mailed me to say she had 4 students. She asked me if I can teach on Thursday nights. Normally, I have a Pilates lesson, but I accepted. I will teach them once a week for 6 weeks. Yes, I am always nervous before teaching a lesson.

I will teach them Japanese by direct method and I want to make the lessons enjoyable
Also, I will try to make the students speak for 80% of the lesson. ( This is quite tough, but it is possible!)

Quilt Festival

Nancy took me to the Quilt Festival near our community centre.
She told me to bring my projects so I did.
When we arrived there, there were many quilters and most projects were very big and some of them were very beautiful. I was a bit hesitant to display my baby quilt which is grand mother flower garden pattern, but I did.

This pattern is called "Bear's paw" and the bear is in the centre. It is pretty, isn't it?









They held some workshops during festival. At one of the workshops, the quilters sat around a large quilt project and were quilting it together.
They were moving their needles and talking at the same time!!! It looked fun.
The scene reminds me of the film "American Quilt". I want to be able to do that one day!

Magnolia Grill

The weather has been quite good the last few weekends.
We went to our favorite garden today. It was very crowded and many more flowers had bloomed than last time.
Everyone seemed to want to spend time in the garden :-)






We wanted to explore new restaurants and we found Magnolia Grill. It was voted one of America's top 50 restaurants and is quite close to our house.
We arrived around 6pm and the parking space was already full. We didn't reserve so we worried that we might not get in, but we were lucky. We had to sit at the bar.
The restaurant was very cozy. We could see the open kitchen and the service was quick and responsive. Many of customers looked quite fashionable.




We ordered 2 appetizers, 1 main & 2 desserts.
I ordered octopus salad with roast almond, okura, paprika.
It was well balanced and pleasing to the eye.









My husband ordered spice rubbed tuna on a rissoto salad.
The tuna was tender and lightly grilled so that the inside was still rare.





Our main was grilled Black Angus N.Y Strip in blue cheese sauce with roasted potato. It was also tender and very juicy. The sauce married perfectly with steak!!!
They served garlic focaccia and sourdough breads. I prefered to eat the garlic focaccia with the blue cheese sauce!!! It was marvellous.

Finally, we ordered desserts.
My husband ordered the double chocolate tart with roast almond and vanilla ice cream.
The double chocolate filling was very soft and not too sweet. I ordered coconut cake with pineapple compote. I like coconut, but am not a big fan of sponge cake. I prefered the chocolate tart. My husband prefers my fondant chocolate. Yes… he is very sweet. :-)
Anyway, we really enjoyed the food and this restaurant is now the best in our repertory. We like their main dishes especially and we would like to go back again sooooon !!!

Magnolia Grill
1002 Ninth Street
Durham, NC 27705
TEL 919-286-3609 (for dinner reservations)

open for dinner
1800 -- 2130 Tue - Thu
1730 -- 2200 Fri - Sat