Hansie Cronje

How do?

I've just been dealing with the landlord, I really don't trust him.

Against my better judgement I did go to watch the rugby. Whats the point? What are they doing? One girl got very annoyed with me when I was asked what I would do to improve the game and suggested just stopping and playing cricket. England won which is apparently relevant in some way.

This week has mainly been spent kicking puppies in the face. Not literally obviously but thats how its felt having to tell some students that they should think about not sitting certain exams in the summer. The First Certificate Exam in particuliar. The FCE, as we in the biz call it, is the one they all want. It's the one that proves beyond doubt that they can handle themselves in the English speaking world. These last few weeks we have been sitting mock exams. I say we, I've been reading my book while they hate themselves for not knowing whether to put in or on in the box. If they don't get 60 percent on the exam we recommend that they shouldn't sit the real deal as its expensive and you probably won't pass. Most did the 60 percent which was great but a few didn't. The reactions varied from sheer burning self hatred to defiance. I half expected one of them to stand up and shout fuck you at me before swearing to pass the exam just to spite me. They have all been working hard and its horrible to have to tell them that they probably won't be ready. I feel responsible and then we both cry together and the hug the whole thing out.
It will be worse with the teenagers. Their first four classes were an exam, they really hate me already.

I'm still hoping to set an exam like this:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=--TW18e2HPQ

I've started an intercambio! I'm so smug! On Sunday afternoons I trapse down to a cafe meet a serious young lady named, of course, Maria. We speak in English for 15 minutes and then Spanish for 15 and so on and so forth. She is a lot better than me. A lot, lot, better than me. She asks me difficult questions about grammar and the subtle differences between words, I smile politely. She brings a huge pad and writes down everything and hangs on my advice which is strange as you know most of what I say is bullshit. I mumble and stumble through and she gets more and more annoyed as the gender of my articles never matches the gender of my nouns, which is the story of my life. The amount of times she told me, its unA palabrA!! If the word ends in A the article needs to end in A, it's not fucking rocket science, but I just kept doing it again and again and she got frustrated. We have met a few times but I we have already realised that we have nothing to say to each other in any language. My Spanish classes are blowing my mind still but they are useful. The best thing however has been able to gloat at Claire because my Spanish teacher touched my shoulder and according to Claire "he's totally cute." Then we all laugh at her silly American English. In our training seminar the Scottish trainer dismissed the English of around 400 million North Americans as a dialect which is a bit rich from a man who says "laddie".

Alex is here on Thursday!

love love love x