Greetings from a nervous Madrid. The thought of eating a chicken burger in Burger King at the airport for Christmas has frayed tempers. Teachers are sitting in front of computers, refreshing travel update pages, trying to get a much more detailed weather report than the BBC can offer and calling various airports cunts. To make it worse you have to go onto the Guardian report and listen to some self righteous tosser sitting in his house in Tooting saying things like "why do idiots try and travel at this time of year?" or "I'm reminded how happy I am that I made the decision to live simply, the rewards are clear". Pleased with yourself aren't you? *Bangs head against keyboard*
When not picking fights with people I don't know and I never met I've been getting into the Christmas spirit. I have some presents though as always my Mother's gift is going to go to the wire. I have been to a few Christmas markets, on of which was the busiest place I have ever been. The lights are up in the street, Church is all adventy and we had the office party. We pulled out all the stops to put on our Christmas shindig. It was held in the school cafeteria. I finished class, wandered down to be rammed into a cafeteria, looked at my feet and had some quiche. At one point we were press ganged into having some photographes taken with the ladies from the Spanish department. You know its bad when someone says as you are waiting for the flash that you should just pretend as if we were friends. There was a strict three drink limit (two alcoholic, one soft drink) which was enforced with vigour and IH King even said a few words. I'm being harsh it was fun, but going out after was a lot of fun. It ended at six in the morning so work the next day was a trial. Luckily the morning was all stuff like seminars where attendence is merely "expected" and not compulsory.
Sunday night football is soon becoming a highlight of the week. Such deftness and skill is hard to imagine. I was pretty terrible last time out so I'm hoping to up my game to 6/10 today and if I can't score I least want to take someone out with a hideous two footed challenge. Due to the snow Charlton have barely played in the last month, I have been like a recovering smack addict. I've been shivering, swinging between fever and cold and muttering Thierry Racon's name under my breath. Normal service has resumed in the cricket. It was my fault, the day before I gave Kevin some trash talk and cue a good old fashioned batting collapse.
School is great at this time of year. I get to read my book while students do the exam and then the last class is just listening to Christmas songs and looking at words like elf, north pole and reindeer. Michael Buble's version of Let It Snow works well as the students can get the words pretty quickly though mid way through the second listen through I want Michael Buble to be locked into a sound proof (airtight) box. It truly is a magical time of year.
See you soon for yuletide japes.
love love love x
Sunday, 19 December 2010
Sunday, 12 December 2010
Lips N' Stuff
Hello!
When I started teaching it was a little strange. Very strange in fact. Years and years of being a student switched on me and now I was that guy standing at the front trying to come across as calm and authorative or that I know the first thing about cleft sentences. I'm not sure when exactly happened but it has become normal. However it got weird again. It was my first ever parents evening, albeit a parents evening that took place on a Saturday morning. It was strange being on the other side of it.
Parents are crazy! There seemed to be two types. My favourite were the ones that came in and were there for about forty five seconds.
Do they behave? - Yes.
Are they improving? - Yes.
Fine, see you next term.
What heroes. Then there were the other ones. One girl got really good exam marks thats not surprising as her English is probably better than mine. She got the same mark for reading, speaking and listening, all high, but her writing was 0.2 lower but still very high. His face dropped. He assured me from now on she will be writing more at home. He said he'd set her some writing tasks for her to bring to me for check. I felt bad for her as clearly he had very high standards, but then maybe thats why she speaks such good English. That all passed away as soon as realised just what he said. WOAH! WOAH! WOAH! Don't get her to bring me more stuff to mark! You mark it. Some were thrown as normally the students have lower marks in the first report of this year than the last report from last year. I tried to explain that it was because they had gone up a level since then, its more difficult, but that didn't seem to matter. Well that and marks always get better as the year goes as a sly trick to make us look better. Shameful stuff.
The parents were all very nice. We just spoke through their reports. They probably noticed that I had completely forgotten exactly what it was I had written, though I'm pretty sure I managed not to directly contradict myself. I wonder if my teachers were winging it as much as I was? Probably. Luckily my class is lovely so I just got to say wonderful things about their kids which they all enjoyed.
There were a few added complications. It was hard not to giggle when one student was identical to his dad and his sister. One student is always late, his mum apologized saying they live far away so can be difficult so thats why he's always five minutes late. In that case I wonder where he is for the other half hour. I also knew that she is from Croydon and thus a c*****l p****e fan so whenever she was speaking I just had this running through my head
www.youtube.com/watch?v=acAYv8wBotk
Happy times, though how bad is the defending?
Its exam time again so I'm off to look through pages and pages of identical papers, shouting "I never said that!" Marking one classes exam will be easy as by some strange coincidence after I mentioned there was an exam last week only three of them showed up this week. It will be waiting for them. So far the marks have generally been good, I've been so lucky with students this year. It's not a bad way to make a living.
See you soon
love love love x
When I started teaching it was a little strange. Very strange in fact. Years and years of being a student switched on me and now I was that guy standing at the front trying to come across as calm and authorative or that I know the first thing about cleft sentences. I'm not sure when exactly happened but it has become normal. However it got weird again. It was my first ever parents evening, albeit a parents evening that took place on a Saturday morning. It was strange being on the other side of it.
Parents are crazy! There seemed to be two types. My favourite were the ones that came in and were there for about forty five seconds.
Do they behave? - Yes.
Are they improving? - Yes.
Fine, see you next term.
What heroes. Then there were the other ones. One girl got really good exam marks thats not surprising as her English is probably better than mine. She got the same mark for reading, speaking and listening, all high, but her writing was 0.2 lower but still very high. His face dropped. He assured me from now on she will be writing more at home. He said he'd set her some writing tasks for her to bring to me for check. I felt bad for her as clearly he had very high standards, but then maybe thats why she speaks such good English. That all passed away as soon as realised just what he said. WOAH! WOAH! WOAH! Don't get her to bring me more stuff to mark! You mark it. Some were thrown as normally the students have lower marks in the first report of this year than the last report from last year. I tried to explain that it was because they had gone up a level since then, its more difficult, but that didn't seem to matter. Well that and marks always get better as the year goes as a sly trick to make us look better. Shameful stuff.
The parents were all very nice. We just spoke through their reports. They probably noticed that I had completely forgotten exactly what it was I had written, though I'm pretty sure I managed not to directly contradict myself. I wonder if my teachers were winging it as much as I was? Probably. Luckily my class is lovely so I just got to say wonderful things about their kids which they all enjoyed.
There were a few added complications. It was hard not to giggle when one student was identical to his dad and his sister. One student is always late, his mum apologized saying they live far away so can be difficult so thats why he's always five minutes late. In that case I wonder where he is for the other half hour. I also knew that she is from Croydon and thus a c*****l p****e fan so whenever she was speaking I just had this running through my head
www.youtube.com/watch?v=acAYv8wBotk
Happy times, though how bad is the defending?
Its exam time again so I'm off to look through pages and pages of identical papers, shouting "I never said that!" Marking one classes exam will be easy as by some strange coincidence after I mentioned there was an exam last week only three of them showed up this week. It will be waiting for them. So far the marks have generally been good, I've been so lucky with students this year. It's not a bad way to make a living.
See you soon
love love love x
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Skinny Love
Gather around, it's been a good twenty three years but I fear the end is not much further. Yes that's right I'm ill. Only a short post as I have been in bed for most of the last few days so I've got even less to say and have been boring than usual. Though it has given lots of excuses to have great fun with the word constupado which is the Spanish word for cold. It's only a short post but you may have guessed what it would be about:
YYYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSS!!!!!!!
How good has the cricket been recently?! It's a long weekend here so I have been able to sit up all night watching internet streams. Some of it has been from Australian TV which normally would be dreadful but was an absolute joy! Greg Chapell is furious! My streams were perfect until the last day when they inevitiably struggled to keep up which caused me to swear loudly at the my lap top at three in the morning much to Julia's confusion. It didn't matter we were so much better than them! This is what it must have been like to be Australian for the last twenty five years. They now know how it feels to be be battered by a superior rival, well they would if any of them could be bothered to support their team. For years the Australians said they wanted a better England team to see some competition, they don't seem so interested now they've got it.
The amount of gloating around, including from myself, is dangerous as its only 1-0 and there are three left to play but it was just so perfect. First time they have lost by an innings since 1993, they looked incapable of taking wickets and England compiling batting records for fun, it was crazy. The universe has shifted, as Mike says I have expect to wake up and realising it was all a beautiful dream.
Even if we lose the rest of the series 3-1, we'll always have Adelaide.
love love love x
YYYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSS!!!!!!!
How good has the cricket been recently?! It's a long weekend here so I have been able to sit up all night watching internet streams. Some of it has been from Australian TV which normally would be dreadful but was an absolute joy! Greg Chapell is furious! My streams were perfect until the last day when they inevitiably struggled to keep up which caused me to swear loudly at the my lap top at three in the morning much to Julia's confusion. It didn't matter we were so much better than them! This is what it must have been like to be Australian for the last twenty five years. They now know how it feels to be be battered by a superior rival, well they would if any of them could be bothered to support their team. For years the Australians said they wanted a better England team to see some competition, they don't seem so interested now they've got it.
The amount of gloating around, including from myself, is dangerous as its only 1-0 and there are three left to play but it was just so perfect. First time they have lost by an innings since 1993, they looked incapable of taking wickets and England compiling batting records for fun, it was crazy. The universe has shifted, as Mike says I have expect to wake up and realising it was all a beautiful dream.
Even if we lose the rest of the series 3-1, we'll always have Adelaide.
love love love x
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