There are good days and there are bad days, but I seem to be more or less on schedule. My 12 week evaluation (we have one every six weeks or so) came out at 1+/2(maybe+) which is about where I thought I was, my reading being ahead of my speaking and listening comprehension. Since then, we have been spending a lot more classroom time on speaking — conversation, presentations and interviews, and it seems to be helping. I’m also trying all kinds of memorization tricks for vocabulary. My latest is to get some of those big flipcharts which are also post-it notes, writing vocabulary on them and sticking them to the wall above the TV. When there’s a commercial on, I practice. Mostly it’s just words, but for parts of the body I drew a (bad) picture and labeled all the parts.
My A-100 classmates are starting to head out. Some are already on post, and others will be leaving around the end of the month. Then there’s a gap before a bunch of us go out this summer.
In Benin — the news is a discovery of oil off the coast. Not a huge find, but bigger than anything they have now.
Midlife Diplomatic Crisis 