Korea Day 6: Exercise and thoughts on the SAT

I've been running nearly every day. For whatever reason, I feel motivated to lose weight and feel better. So far, so good. I don't think I've lost any weight, but I think I look healthier. My diet is, generally, healthier than it was stateside -- less meat, less everything else, and no juice/soda. One thing I do have to watch is vitamin C. Fruit is somewhat expensive here, so it doesn't show up in many meals. If I'm not careful, I'll end up with a case of scurvy. Arrgh.

Yesterday, it rained consistently throughout the day. The sidewalks are quite slick, and I didn't trust the grip on my shoes enough to really run. It was still somewhat relaxing to walk/jog in the early morning, amid a sea of umbrellas and gradations of dress, from full suits to slacks and white shirts to student clothes.

There are a couple small parks near my residence. Each one has some modest athletic equipment, in addition to a playground. One in particular has a worn rubber track, which will be my running spot of choice should it be raining. The first time I walked into that park, I noticed that the highest pull-up bar was missing; the next day, it was replaced. I don't know if it was coincidence, or a mark of Korean efficiency. Either way, I'm too fat/weak to do more than a couple.

Although I'm not officially working, I have been helping out at the office with certain things -- manipulating Excel spreadsheets to eliminate repeated and misspelled vocab words, writing proficiency exams for TAs interested in tutoring students at the camp, etc. I've sat in on the head teacher's class, and later had to apologize for being a bit too participatory; I have to remember that it's really, really important to not split the attention of the students. I blame all the material I'm reading about Teddy Roosevelt.

Lately, I've been going through the study guides on critical reading and writing. The latter, in particular, has forced me to really think about what it takes to develop good writing skills -- both the kind that is rewarded on the test and a more generalized facility with words. It's tough -- so much depends upon things that have to be done well in advance of the test. If the students don't read, or don't care about writing, or decide they need to demonstrate fancy vocabulary, or are simply slow thinkers, then they are bound to struggle mightily to write a 4-paragraph essay in 25 minutes. Some of this can be practiced away, but some of it will require some shift in values/ambitions/priorities/habits between now and the test.

Critical Reading is also something that really requires a great deal of time to cultivate. Reading good books and articles helps a lot, though with some questions, it's clear that critical reading as tested on the SAT is a bit removed from ordinary life. There are techniques I can and will teach -- get the main idea of the passage, look for a tone, paraphrase, don't choose an answer just because it uses similar words to the referenced passage, make sure the entire answer is reflected in the excerpt, and depend upon context, not definitions learned previously, to define words highlighted in a question. But real success depends upon these students being readers in the first place.

Yet the will's somewhat--somewhat, too, the power--
And thus we half-men struggle

I confess, even with my anxieties about the camp, I'm excited and thrilled.