Beth Wise

Tag: work

Bridge-Building Magic

For the last nine years, I taught English as a Second Language at a tiny adult education program housed in rotting, aged portables behind a local school. Since 2017, every year I have welcomed a new group of nervous Level 2 students. Most of my students were Spanish-speaking stay-at-home moms but I always had a…
Burple

Language is a funny thing. One of the things that I love best about teaching English is learning how to make connections through language. During our clothing unit, I had a student who consistently mispronounced the word suit as ‘sweet’. She did it 100 times and I finally threatened her with the tiny leather sandal…
Life, Actually

We’ve been taking family walks every day. The Kid pretends that he hates it but thus far, we’ve discovered two wisteria plants that smell lovely, a mint plant that we’re trying to grow a clipping from, interesting artwork in our neighbors’ yards, a drama between a crow and a hawk worthy of daytime television, and…
Prompt Me: My First Job

{In an effort to not drown in a sea of dumpster fires, I’m trying to write (at least every other blog) about something light. I’ve found some prompts to get me going} Here’s today’s prompt: Write about your first job and what it taught you. I don’t remember much about my first interview at Villa…
Welderbeth Gets an Office

(I wrote this last year but it never got posted last so I’m now sharing the saga and subsequent rescue out of the closet office.) I had a meeting a few weeks ago with my executive director (the big enchilada at our non-profit). It was about my office space at our satellite campus, where I just spend…
The Splinters of Entitlement

When you guys are ready to adopt and you come to me freaking out about the home study, I will give you three key pieces of advice: 1. Make sure to remove the beer that you use to wash your hair with from under your bathroom sink. (Beer in the bathroom doesn’t bode well for…
How to Lose 20 ESL Students in 30 Seconds

I may have mentioned before that field trips at my job are a little, how do you say, insane. Generally, we’ve got a group of about 70 adults (sometimes with kids) that we need to get on a train, off a train, and to the right location. It’s a bit like herding cats, except that…
The Gratitude Project: Day 21

I really wanted to wear a costume to work today but no one else was dressing up, so I compromised by wearing this cool African dress (that came from NOWHERE that I can remember). I planned on having one of our sweet little African ladies help me with the head dress. When I walked into…
Do you? Do you?

I might have mentioned once or twice that I have an ESL voice (see the 7:30-8:15 time slot here). When I am speaking in my ESL voice, I over-enunciate, speak loudly, don’t use contractions, repeat things, ask questions to things that I just said, and my eyes get huge. I might have also mentioned that…
2011: A Year in Review

Hello friends and family- If you were breathlessly checking your mailbox every day for a Christmas letter from Alex and Beth, you can breathe now. Here it is….in all its glory. Don’t get me wrong. I love sending people mail but I just bought replacement ink for our printer after months of us talking about…
They Call Me “The Hammer”

You might think this is hard to believe, but people do not find me intimidating. Maybe it’s my freckles or my fat cheeks or my un-make-uped face or my unkept hair or my ill-fitting clothes. I dunno. People think that I am a pushover when they see me. I guess I used to be, once a long time…
None In The Oven

Since all of you only read this blog to find out why there is a picture of Alex in a hospital bed or to find out if I am pregnant, I thought I would write a little ditty on why only one of those two things could be true. This blog might be controversial. I’m not…