February 19th, 2016

February 19th, 2016

10:08 am

I got up and left a little early yesterday- all the time I had spent at this other Web location meant I had no chance to make any of my regular stops to Carrefour for water, and I was running low. Did you know we need water to live? Crazy!

Ah, I also had only that one last little package of oatmeal for breakfast, and very few raisins left. Food, food is also a requirement for me to live. So high maintenance!

It was a gorgeous day yesterday- sunny and too warm for my jackets. All signs of the recent snowstorm have almost melted away.

I considered blowing by the Carrefour door attendant, but instead dutifully approached to put my backpack in a sack- but whether it was because I was willing to get sacked (what do you mean that's funny?) or because it was the top floor entrance, or whatever, the attendant waved me on- yes! Backpack goes... ON my back. There we go.

Arriving at Web, I dropped my things off and got some small foodstuffs at Food Bazzar- a couple of foods-on-a-stick type deals, nothing major, but it was what the doctor ordered. Returning to Web I tried to get my facebook on, at least to pass some blog posts on- but it took forever, and didn't want to load, I got frustrated.

These connectivity issues didn't bode well for my ability to prepare for my English Corner- the other reason I came in early. However, I had my answer for that one. I decided to copy the text of Hamlet onto my USB and go over it with the class, line by line, explaining EVERYTHING to the best of my ability. Besides copying the text into easily navigatable folders and doing a quick review for any tough words for MYSELF it was an easy presentation to prepare for. And looking through my lessons for the day I didn't need to do any photocopying (er, well, the one maybe, but I could do without it).

My first class was a homework review, going over the schedules of our best friend- two of the girls, Gabriella and Freya, were each others best friend, so they talked about each other (it's what makes them so easy to remember now)- Gabriella was often quick to raise her hand and volunteer to participate first- she even said "First!" one time, though I doubt she's aware of that as an internet phenomenon, and referred to Freya as staying at home and playing games all day. The third woman, I forget her name, but her best friend's name is Momo. If that helps.

The remainder of the class was spent with "what if" questions, altering the original schedule with a "but what if this happened...?" I described it like being that annoying kid that says "why?""why?""why?""why?"

As an example, I suggested what if Freya's neck disappeared, and she couldn't wear her neckerchief anymore? Alarmed, Gabriella said she'd take her to a hospital. I said she could pay the doctor all in neckerchiefs, since Freya didn't need them... ah, but then if the doctor is successful, she'll have a cold neck. I was perhaps a little silly.

But it was a straightforward exercise, and they seemed to enjoy it. They were less enthused about the predicting the future element of the class- I originally planned for eight rounds of guesses about the future to cover all the vocabulary of degrees of certainty- probably/definitely/might/certainly etc. etc. things like that- but we got three deep, and the class was almost over, and the three clearly wanted to not be doing that anymore. So we just chilled out and chatted for the last few minutes.

Next was my Hamlet English Corner- I had a lot of fun! I talked about scripts, the strengths and uniqueness (sp?) of plays, how they change entirely based on the director, actors, staging, all sorts of things, and I talked about expository dialogue- very key at the beginning of Hamlet. Some people seemed REALLY into it, some people seemed to hate it- so, pretty much the same reaction Shakespeare gets in any class of people. We made it as far as the ghost exuent-ing and just before someone gets into the nitty-gritty of the political circumstances surrounding Denmark vs. Norway. Really, we stopped at a perfect place, it was about to get VERY exposition heavy, even compared to what happened before. I'm considering skipping the last few things of dialogue in the scene and jumping ahead to scene 2 for todays English Corner.

During the break I went with Sylar and Leo to get some food, but actually stopped and joined Melody at this food cart thing I'd always wanted to try, but needed some guidance- essentially it's a cart for a kind of pancake/crepe wrap with lettuce, er, lunch meat, and some flaky cunch cracker thing that sets the whole thing off nicely. It took a while to prepare, and was too hot for me to dive into right away, but it was great.

Have to take a break now, I want to do some exercises before work starts! - 10:55 am

February 24th, 8:23 am

I took a few days off, being sick and low energy- so let me quickly run through the remainder of my notes for the 18th.

Adam invited me to his birthday, but he got the day wrong on the calendar because he was looking at the screwed up calendar on my computer. Once we determined I was correct about the date being wrong I played up one of those "hey, obvioously, don't you know I'm always right?" type of bits, which Adam was happy to go along and agree with.

Still talking to Adam, I asked Stella about the "single dog" song- I knew they referred to single people here as "single dogs" but I didn't know there was a song- another student mentioned it in class today- but apparently it's not a REAL song so much as it is the words "single dog" to the tune of "jingle bells".

I remained with Adam and Stella right up until the bell for my next class- "Making Movies" where students had to come up with genre and whatnot. For an example I came up with a comedy about a clown (Daniel Radcliffe) who falls in love with an acrobat (Rachel McAdams), which I kind of want to see now. I went with McAdams because one of the only western  films my students were familiar with was "The Notebook". Also there was a girl in this class with this weird accent- like it ALMOST sounded like a perfect Canadian/American English accent, and then she'd say something different and break the spell.

Oh, hey, it's snowing outside- one of those nice, light "why, it's Christmas Day, sir!" types of snowfalls. Idyllic.

And I turn away to use the bathroom and get some hot water in a cup, and it stops snowing. Life is fleeting, fellas.

My next class was on intonation, pronounciation and rhythm when speaking, and it had Belinda, Sam, James, and Candy. I'd never taught Candy before, but she was pretty quick and had a nice laugh.

My last class was on corporate benefits/requirements for jobs- I split the class in half to come up with a separate list, then took one from each side and mashed them together for role play interviews. Notable participants are Galaxy and Harry/"Goliath" (who was today named "Nikita" but I told him "Goliath" was better- I've since heard him referred to as "Harry" again, which is a better fit than "Nikita") at the end of the class I had Galaxy role play as a boss in front of everyone with Haven as the employee on the cusp of firing. They had, probably too much, fun, and then I let them choose the next group, and Galaxy chose Harry- who is a very slow speaker, tortoise-like, really, and you know Galaxy is sharp enough to have chosen him because she thought it would be funny. A little mean- a trouble maker!

And those are all my notes for that day. I need to catch up. 8:57 am