3 February 2011 (Thursday)

Today was the first day of class for the quarter, and the first class I have done in nearly two years(!!).  

I was curious to see how many students would show up, especially since this was the first time I am doing the class at Seattle Central in years; usually once I have established the class at a college, there are at least a few people who continue from one quarter to the next and they bring their friends.

In this case, it was a completely fresh start and I was curious to see how many students would show up.

I arrived at the classroom at 5pm. The clock continued to roll and no one showed up.

As I waited I made the plan to email my contacts at Seattle Central the next day (Friday) and suggest that next week I visit the English classes in person to promote the class.

By 5:10pm, it was clear no one was going to come so I started packing my things.  Suddenly one of the ESL teachers showed up with 6 students!  My face brightened.  

We did some quick introductions, but it was clear that most of the students had not actually planned on staying late after school this evening, so four of the six left shortly after the introductions.  Nonetheless two stayed and we had a great conversation for over an hour. :-)

We started by talking about where they are from.  Deniz is from Turkey and Helga is from Taiwan.

Deniz is especially interested in dance so showed them a clip of my friend, Encarna, doing one of her flamenco performances (video).

We continued talking about theatrical/dance performances.  I told them there is this great cabaret in Seattle called Teatro Zinzanni (website).  It has fantastic performances, but is expensive.  It's worth the money, if you can afford it, though!

I also mentioned that Cirque Du Soleil (website) is coming to Everett (20 minutes drive north of Seattle) March 16 - 20.  They were not familiar with Cirque Du Soleil, so we watched a performance clip (video) so they could see what it's about.  I have long wanted to see Cirque Du Soleil and might finally go.

We started talking about other cultural things to do Seattle besides just music-related ones.  I told them there are some great place up on Capitol Hill, right around Seattle Central:

• Town Hall (website, map) has very interesting presentations and lectures. They usually cost about $5 to attend.
• Elliott Bay Books (events, map) is around the corner from SCCC and is the best bookstore in Seattle and has many interesting presentaions by authors.
• The first Thursday of every month the art galleries in Pioneer Square are open late and lots of people go look at what is on offer (information).