Today was my third day with Apricot's upper-intermediate class. She went back to Scotland a few weeks ago, so I have her class until they finish in December. The first time I taught it 8 people showed up, then four, today two. I hope it's stochasticity and not me.

Arthur and Helen and I had a good time though (Helen's real name is Elena, not sure about Arthur). When I teach big chunks of vocabulary all related to a similar theme (school, work, health, entertainment), the next lesson I put the students in pairs and give each pair a stack of cards with the words on them. One of them picks up a card, uses the word in a sentence, and the other one picks up the next card and continues the story. Last class we learned vocab about government, politics, and war.

Me: *draws 2 adjacent globs on the board* "So here's a map of two countries. This one is...Fakeistan. What should we call this one?"
Arthur: "Bullshitstan!!"
Me: "All right, Bullshitstan. The king of Fakeistan is...Arnold Schwarzenegger. Who's the king of Bullshitstan?"
Arthur: "George Bush."
Me: "Are you calling my country Bullshitstan??"
Arthur: "Are you calling California Fakeistan?"
Touche.

Under Helen and Arthur's watch, Bullshitstan invaded the civil-wartorn Fakeistan. After a brief occupation, Arnold advised his people to surrender due to Bullshitstan's superior arsenal, plus he was too busy bodybuilding to really give a shit. Although the land and infrastructure of Fakeistan was wholly incorporated into that of its militarily superior neighbor, Bush was kind enough to give Schwarzenegger an upper cabinet position and peace reigned once again.