Lovely morning

It rained and rained last night in Santiago. I listened to it fall as I read before going to sleep. It was still drizzling when I woke up, but had pretty much stopped by the time I left for my morning class. I smiled as I walked because the air was so fresh and clean and the sidewalk was covered in leaves that had been nudged off the trees by the rain. I met a colleague at the "naughty bus" stop and promised to also introduce her to the "naughty van" on the way back to town. My morning class went really well. My students had done homework (finished an exercise) without me asking!! They ASKED me to give them homework. What a difference it makes to work with professional adults! Last year, I gave up on giving homework because so few students would do it. We worked on the structure of asking questions and then had a discussion titled "fighting for your rights!" where our vocab included strike, union, sit-in, demonstration, march, chant, terrorist act, peaceful, violent, and to put pressure on someone. We talked about the big controversy in Chile over the day-after pill and my students were able to articule their ideas very well. Of course, to reinforce, I asked them lots of questions ... and made them ask me about my opinion. When one finally got a question out after a bunch of prompting, I put my hands on my hips and said, "Well, thanks for asking!" and everyone cracked up. All in all, a lovely morning.