Phew

The day probably could not have ended on a worse note. My lovely, dependable, trustworthy, allegedly invincible and secure Macbook Pro contracted a virus (thank you, Steve Jobs, for perpetuating the illusion that Apple products cannot possibly get viruses).

This happened right in the middle of my stressful lesson planning. I swear, it was as if fate wanted nothing more than to prevent me from creating a lesson plan about "houses and homes." I thought the idea for the lesson was solid and would provoke some interesting, and possibly emotionally-revealling conversation (yes, my students are my practice clients for my future psychology career, after all). But for some reason, every possible delay, distraction, disruption, and disaster got in the way of the lesson-planning.

The anti-virus software is quietly plodding along and munching up all the corrupt files, so I feel confident that my computer will be okay, insh'allah.

However, hours after I would have liked to be done, the lesson plan and Powerpoint are, well, good enough. It's not my best, and my students will unfortunately suffer the consequences of a half-baked lesson. However, I need to keep reminding myself that even the worst lesson that I present to them is still probably better than most of the lessons that they receive (not because I'm so great and fabulous at teaching, but because the teaching methods that are used here are so non-learner centered, so unfortunately they do not get much out of the typical English lessons here), so I am still helping them, even if my lesson does not meet my lofty expectations of producing these revelatory breakthroughs for my students.

Tomorrow will be a better day. I will play a video of The Three Little Pigs and the Michael Buble song "Home" in class, and my students will love the multi-media presentations. I will show pictures of my house and my home(s), and my students will freak out like they always do whenever I show pictures from my life. We will talk about what turns a house into a home, and my students will gape in wonderment at my brilliant teaching methods. (Okay, that last one was a joke.) Class will go okay, as will everything else.

Breathe, Allie, breathe, and get some sleep, for pete's sake.