Oh, say can you see...

Today was, in a nutshell, refreshing. No school (but I realized I have tons to do tomorrow), so I have time for other stuff.

First off was my teaching gig. We started an hour late because my student got stuck in traffic along Commonwealth. When we got to start, we went through the test he answered when I wasn't around last week. He did very well in Math (except for a few careless errors), but then stumbled in English. We tried to answer that part of the test again. It was there that the problems really came out.

First, he vocabulary wasn't very deep. There were some words which definitions he did not know. He tried to cope by speaking in Tagalog when he needed to. Second, he was badly mixing up the tenses. As a result, he kept using the wrong tense in the verbs being asked for. Third, he was confused with the subject-verb relationship, so he didn't know what the verb was referring to. With all those problems, it was going to be hard for both of us. So I decided to start him on some exercises. We went through his answers and I explained his mistakes. He's improving, but I don't know if I could cover all the ground I need to by next week. I say next week because we still need to review in Math and Non-Verbal Ability, which we will cover in the last 2 weeks. I'm just a bit disappointed though. Is that the quality of English being taught in schools? No wonder then we're lagging behind our neighbors. Oh well...

After we finished, I followed the rest of my family to Megamall to eat lunch at Shakey's. From there it was on to Rockwell. (My mom said we wouldn't pass by Market! Market! yet because it was probably still a mess.) When we arrived, we quickly bought our tickets for the two movies we were going to watch. Both, curiously enough, were set in New York City. We were rushing so that we'd make it to the first movie, which we duly did.

The first movie on the bill was "13 Going On 30". It starred Jennifer Garner, and was about this 13-year old girl who was wishing she was 30. She duly got her wish, and got into a world of trouble. I'm not going to spoil it for you, but it was a touching movie. And Jennifer Garner is a real hottie! Hahaha! :D

Anyway, we had a 90-minute break in between the two movies, so I went to Power Station and decided to play Initial D! again. It was during this time that my KFC curse (see 'Phew!') slowly started coming back as I saw loads of Lasallians all over Power Plant. (Thankfully, I didn't know most of them.) I was buying more load for my arcade card when I ran into... Andrea and Myron! We laughed it off and chatted a bit before they went around again outside and I played. I finally nailed the 3rd circuit, and I'm now going through the 4th. After that, I went to the cinema already to wait for my parents and sister and get ready for the 2nd movie. (I had run out of money at that point. I also duly ran into Andrea and Myron again; they were going to watch "Exorcist: The Beginning".)

After meeting up with my family, we bought some food and drinks. That was when my KFC curse made itself known. I saw this girl passing by me, looking for straws. Then I realized... it was Jodie! Or was it Jodie? I mean, I only saw her face for the best part of 3 seconds. Since both of us were rushing anyway, I let it pass and went into our cinema.

The second movie on our playlist was "The Terminal". Starring Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Stanley Tucci, it was about a guy who became a citizen of nowhere because of a revolution in his home country. Because of that, he was forced to stay in the international terminal of JFK. Again, no spoilers for you. But it was brilliant! I'd love to watch it again. :D From there, there was nothing left to do, so we went home.

Wow, what a day! Everything today (except maybe that KFC curse) pointed to the land that is America, from English to cars to movies. Just a coincidence, maybe? Whatver it was, I hope that my curse is nothing more than that! That's all for now. ;)

Forza!

P.S. The 2nd La Salle-Ateneo game in a best-of-3 series will be tomorrow. Hmmm... Should be fun. Animo La Salle! :)