nolan

The podcast episode features an interview with Nolan Schmalenberger, a teacher at Life's School in Bananas. They discuss various topics such as life, the upcoming Super Bowl, and American culture. Nolan talks about teaching pre-intermediate students and the challenges he faces. They also touch on American football traditions and how they might seem strange to international students. Overall, it's a lighthearted conversation about life, school, and American quirks. Hi everyone and welcome to Life's School in Bananas. My name is Brian Whitman and you can get this podcast at wherever you get your podcasts. So today I'm interviewing Nolan Schmalenberger and he's a teacher here at our school. So I'm going to start with the questions, okay? Okay. So first of all, how's life? Life's pretty good. It's pretty busy right now. The Super Bowl's coming up this weekend. Oh and who are you expecting to win? I don't know. I think the Eagles might finally dethrone the Kansas City Chiefs. Ah, okay. So what day is it? I think it's on the 9th, right? Super Bowl Sunday, yeah. I see. And what commercial are you expecting to see? Oh, I always like the Budweiser ones because of the Clydesdale horses. Oh, I think that Superman is going to be on there. We probably will see Superman. Yeah, all right. So now I'm going to ask you a little bit about school. So you work here at school, right? So tell me a little bit about some of the things you're doing at school and some of the challenges you're having and things like that. Well, yes, I teach at the school right now. I teach pre-intermediate, which is our level one and two students. So it's students that just got here from their country or are still in their early process of learning English. And yeah, I work with students most of the day. After the students leave, I do administrative work. So I answer emails, talk to students, do tests for new students, work on projects for my boss. Oh, okay. Yeah. Work on events for students, future events. I see. So now I'm going to get to the bananas part. The bananas part is about the things that Americans do that most people find to be strange, like if you're coming from another country. So one of the things I think Americans are kind of strange is on football season, they wear their favorite jersey of the team and they all kind of get together at bars and all of a sudden you have friends just because you're wearing the same jersey. So what are some things that you think that American, that you would think that international students would find strange about your culture? Yeah, that's a really good question. I wish I thought about that before we did the podcast. I don't have an answer off the top of my head. I mean, I think, I mean, I'm thinking about the Super Bowl. I know I mentioned that already, but I know, I guess, you know, the World Cup or sporting events are obviously popular all over the world. But I think what makes the Super Bowl a uniquely American experience is that you're combining sort of all elements of American commercial life with sports, with all the advertisements, the halftime show, the food, the drinks. And so it really is like a, I mean, it's like a celebration of America for the good and bad of all of that, that that comes with. But yeah, I think that's just kind of a fun, unique American thing. And how many times do you think they're going to show Taylor Swift during the Super Bowl? I don't know. It probably depends on how well the Chiefs are playing and how good Travis Kelsey does. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming. And this is Life, School and Bananas. This is a podcast that we launch every Tuesday. So stay tuned to listen to yourself and thanks for being on the podcast. Thanks.