more jobs for me!

The bad news: My school's summer study abroad program in Grenoble, France, which I was supposed to be the faculty director of this year, has been cancelled due to low enrollment (we were two short of the minimum we needed). I'm really disappointed--and if I am, imagine how the students feel! I was looking forward to showing my students around the city, seeing my friends who live there, buying books and CDs and cheese and chocolate to bring home with me--and to think that school would actually pay for my flight and hotel for such fun! Oh well.

The good news: Educational Testing Service has hired me to grade AP French exams in June. This entails seven solid days of reading essays 9-5! It'll be good for me (and my CV)--and it pays well.

The other good news: This week I started another tutoring job. This one grew out of the volunteer work I do at the Lafayette Public Library; I'll be working twice a week with a six-year-old who's having a lot of trouble with the phonics approach to reading. So while this tutoring isn't related to French, I figure it'll be worth blogging about because some of y'all are raising kids with English and another language; no doubt many of the techniques and games I try with her will be applicable to other kids.

The other other good news: The results of the Colorado Congress of Foreign Language Teachers are in: I've been elected to the Board of Directors. This means I'll serve on committees and help plan conferences and generally try to make the state a better place for foreign language teachers (and their students).

And speaking of work, the unsubstantiated gossip finally put to rest: I'm not pregnant, despite the fact that colleagues have been approaching me for a week to congratulate me on having a croissant in the oven. Turns out, one of the Spanish teachers was speaking French to a French teacher, who said something along the lines of, "I'm afraid we're going to lose Sarah sometime because she wants to start a family." What the Spanish speaker heard was, "I'm afraid we're going to lose Sarah because she is starting a family," and she then promptly told everyone else that I'm expecting. Grrrrr. No wonder people have been staring at my stomach in the copy room.