hello fans
lots to update on as have been out of blogging mode for a while.
last friday we finished our tefl course, it was a relief to finish as it had been hard work. last teaching practice was the wednesday night, a 90 minute class with basic1 class - very hard work, but went ok. then thursday morning was our grammar exam, which obviously i was thoroughly looking forward to. when i got to school that morning however, i was the only one of us 4 to turn up. jayne was still really ill, as was violeta (our fellow mexican student), and skye was in hospital following a car accident the night before. some people will go to such lengths to avoid grammar... so i went back to bed as i was tired too, then did the grammar test later that day, then visited skye in the hospital. she is much better than she was, nothing broken, but hip and knee not great. wrapped in bandages, and had a lot of trouble moving and lots of pain. she stayed in hospital 2 days and is now still in guzman recuperating.
on the friday instead of our planned graduation lunch which didn`t seem appropriate given everyone`s circumstances, we hung out with skye at the hospital and ate cookies and drank water, instead of champagne and mexican food. we got her out of hospital and back home, which was quite something. you have to ring the red cross (cruz roja) to come and get you with an ambulance. we figured this would take a while, then heard there`d been an accident in guzman and the 2 cruz roja ambulances were busy. so it wasn`t until around 1030pm they arrived. they didn`t have any blankets to put on her, so we all put our coats and scarves etc over her while they wheeled her out into the ambulance. lots of speed bumps which wasn`t great either. after all the drama we left her safely in her bed and went for some beers to sort of celebrate her leaving hospital and us finishing our course.
saturday i left guzman for guadalajara airport to meet robert to go to los cabos, in baja california for the week. quite good for my fear of flights to go on a proper aeroplane with robert as he explained what all the funny noises were and how the landing is much more dangerous than the take-off. which was useful to know during the take-off but not so useful during the landing. anyway nothing bad happened, other than the peanuts they gave us were quite weird. we landed in la paz, and went to pick up a 4wheeldrive his friend was lending us. more to follow on that topic....
sunday we wandered around la paz, it`s a nice little town, everything in los cabos is essentially a resort town, full of americans mainly. would be a potentially nice place to live for a while and teach english actually as the beaches are beautiful, and i imagine you would earn a bit more than other places, as cost of living is a bit higher. i was going to investigate english schools in the area but never got round to it. anyway after stocking up with camping equipment and food and beer, we drove down the coast through a little town called las barriles, then on to a random place called el ranchero leonero. this was a beautiful little hotel right on the beach, and with hardly anyone else there. i guess it`s low season. turns out our friend porfi who had met us in la paz with the car and helped us find the shops, had used to work there, but had a fight one day with the manager and then left for la paz. we didn`t get in any fights, it didn`t seem the right time or place really. the restaurant had lots of huge fish on the walls. the sea of cortez has absolutely loads of fish in it, or maybe not so many now some are on their walls. it is very turqouise and quite calm, there were also lots of vultures and pelicans swooping around the place. it`s great fun watching the pelicans dive bombing into the sea and catching fish. also the little sand pipers are really cute, they run right up to the water then scamper off back up the beach when a wave comes near them, then hop back down to the shore when the tide goes out again. they run in such a comical way, their whole bodies don`t move, only their little legs. i took a few videos.
monday we left the lovely ranchero and carried on down the dirt track that is the main road round there, for cabo pulmo, a little fishing village further down the coast. the scenery on this journey is huge deserts full of cactuses, with mountains in the background for miles and miles, and amazing clouds, which turn pink and orange at sunset. very very mexican. the odd group of cows and horses and donkeys appear every now and then to try and block your path. the road is very bumpy and dirty, but fine in a 4wd and you don`t really meet too many cars coming the other way. a lot of the coast line, in fact maybe all of it, is now privately owned which it wasn`t in the past apparently, so you can`t just drive straight on to the beach and camp. so when we arrived in cabo pulmo we investigated and found out there`s a man called ricardo who lives in the house by the cactuses down the road, who has a key to the gate that goes on to the beach. we went to find him and paid 100peso deposit for our key and went through the gate to the beach to set up our campsite. in the meantime we also hired some snorkel gear as the sea is really turquoise and fishy here.
so on to the beach we went in the amazing 4wd ford excursion. robert decided to reverse from the rocky parking spot we`d found to go a bit further on to the beach. disaster struck as we realised the wheels were spinning us deeper in to the sand, and the 4wd wasn`t working at all. (porfi told us when we saw him again at the end of the week that they had lots of trouble with the 4wd and generally it didn`t work.....) we spent the next hour digging out the sand under the tires and finding driftwood to put under them to reverse back onto the higher ground. this was sort of fun, as in it was nice to do some actual physical exercise, and very satisfying when it actually paid off and we were back out of the sand, and it gave robert a chance to show off how strong and manly he is. but it was also quite annoying. we recovered by having an avacado and cheese sandwich from the ice box, and some coronas. some stupid american couple had appeared during this and gone snorkelling on our beach, which i wasn`t happy about. they asked us how we`d opened the gate to the beach to which robert replied i don`t really know i`m quite new to town. they got the message and soon disappeared.
we put up the tent in a derelict old building that looked like it was supposed to be a bar at one point, but maybe they`d run out of money and abandoned it. there was also an old school whose roof had blown off. all a little bit creepy if you`re that way inclined. which i am, and consequently didn`t sleep well that night. the waves seemed to get very loud during the night and i worried they`d wash the ford excursion into the sea, which to be honest after all the trouble it had been wouldn`t be such a bad thing. when we returned the camping key to ricardo we asked him about the properties, he said he owned all the land and it was for sale for 200 million pesos, for about 20 hectares or acres or something. we thought about buying it and said we`d be in touch.
the next day - tuesday - was my birthday. nice place to spend it waking up on a beach in mexico. there was an amazing sunrise and a fisherman. he had caught 2 little fish when we saw him going home. we drove down to cabo san lucas after packing up the campsite. cabo is a bigger town, very touristy and resorty. lots of lovely hotels, one of which we stayed in, called the finisterre. robert used to live down there a while ago and go hangliding off the cliffs. i had a cold and felt ill for most of the day, which suited me fine as i don`t like making a big deal of my birthdays, especially not this one. we sat on the balcony and watched the sea and saw some people flying in ultralights, then went for dinner, then a drink at a little bar by the road. and that was that.
wednesday we went to look at some very expensive houses on a hill in cabo san lucas called the pedregal. we pretended we were visiting friends who lived there otherwise maybe we couldn`t have gone up there. the houses are amazing, it`s like something out of james bond, huge concrete and glass mansions overlooking the ocean, painted all nice colours, with perfect little gardens and cobbly streets. but it`s not real life, not my sort of real life anyway, so we left and carried on to todos santos which is back round the other side of the peninsula on the pacific coast rather than the sea of cortez coast. todos santos is a lovely little town, very much american as well, but not a resort town. there are lots of new mexicans and californians, lots of artists and sculptors and things like that, and little galleries. we found a really nice place to stay called las casitas, owned by a canadian jewellery maker called wendy. we went to see the beach. by this time, i forgot to mention, both mine and robert`s cameras had broken which was quite a tragedy given the amazing scenery coming along the coast and on the beaches etc. we decided we weren`t allowed to mention the c-word though as it would only upset us. we had some tacos from a roadside stall that night for dinner.
thursday we wandered around looking at the little galleries and doing other touristy things like going in the markets and asking the prices of things, and then not buying them, but it becomes so hard to leave as they have engaged you in a big bartering conversation. found a nice english book shop and bought a map of mexico. had a coffee to recover from the stress of shopping. then we went out for thanksgiving dinner, as it was indeed thanksgiving, to the hotel california of eagles fame. they had in fact stayed there and written their song about it. it is now owned by canadians and is very nice. we had turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce and all the trimmings - i even got a sprout! what a treat. was so stuffed after all that that i couldn`t even manage the pumpkin pie. a man played violin and guitar while we ate - he played a violin version of hotel california. we stayed thursday night in todos santos too as we liked it a lot.
in the middle of the night in todos santos at around 5.45am, i woke up to hear some really surreal singing, led by a person (the priest?) with a loud speaker, and some chanting too. i thought at first i was having a really strange dream, so i got up to look out of the door. across the street was a group of people with candles all singing and having what seemed like a religious service. i don`t like being woken up at any time of day, let alone 5.45am, so i was quite outraged at this. i thought maybe it was some funeral rite or something so decided not to go over and vent my rage on them, but put my earplugs in and went back to sleep, a bit spooked. we asked wendy what it was the next day, she said oh isn`t it beautiful, they are going round praying for peace, each morning on a different street in the town. how sweet indeed, and how ironic to pray for peace by waking the whole town up out of their sleep... she assured us we wouldn`t hear it again as it would be on a different street the next day. but they had only moved to the next street along by the next night, so the same thing happened, only this time accompanied by a choir of local dogs barking for about an hour.
friday was the end of the holiday so we drove back to la paz, gave porfi the car back and went to the airport. i met my friends jen and jo, from america for the weekend in guadalajara where i am now, and robert went on to belize, potentially via cancun. i will write about guadalajara another day as i have written lots today. so far it seems nice, very fountainous (if mountainous is a word i decided that fountainous could be too).
i still haven`t found a job, but have applied for some, and am thinking of living and working in oaxaca in southern central mexico. if anyone has any information or advice or words of wisdom about oaxaca i would love to hear them.
Sunday, 30 November 2008
Tuesday, 18 November 2008
a day in the life
my TEFL course is nearly over here. i am very excited about that as it has been exhausting and we have all succumbed to having afternoon naps like old people just to get through the long days. i thought in homage to the course i would write a day in the life about it.
i wake up at 7.30ish and at some point between then and 8am el lechero (the milkman, but that title makes him sound rather lecherous) arrives to bring the milk to the fridge. he has a very loud voice. he owns lots of cows, obviously, in a field nearby, rosa told me. he plays them classical music while he milks them, apparently it makes the milk taste better. i wouldn`t know as i have only had his (or rather the cows`) milk in coffee in case it tastes funny on its own as some foreign milk does. the milk in japan tasted like meat. as the weather is getting colder now, rosa told me el lechero is going to put little coats on the cows. i have a funny mental image of the becoated cows being milked by the very loud milkman whilst listening to mozart. anyway. i get up, have breakfast (orange juice, coffee, quesadilla or omelette or marmalade sandwich like paddington bear, fruit). then i cycle on la bicibura to school through the one way system, or sometimes if i`m feeling lazy and illegal, the wrong way through the one way system as it`s quicker. it isn`t quite as strict here when it comes to cycling the wrong way down one way streets as i think the mexican police have far bigger corruption and drugs, oops i mean fish, to fry.
we have lessons with juan from 9 on things like grammar / theories of language learning / language awareness, until 11ish when we go for a coffee break at the casa de pasteles next door. we drink coffee and sometimes eat cheesecake, then we either have more classes with juan or with savannah. then at 12.30 it is lesson planning time until 2ish when we leave for lunch. but sometimes the lesson planning turns a bit frantic if we have a hard topic or class, or if the lesson is early (earliest they start is 3.30). generally though, we go home and have a siesta, and lunch which i always hope is quesadillas and avacado - the avacados here are absolutely amazing. today i had meat with vegetables and tortillas. rosa keeps making jelly too, so last night my supper was bright green jelly and chunks of melon. i was still hungry, so made her make me a quesadilla which i ate while we chatted about the cows, and an english cement company here called cementos toltecos, and discussed that my surname means pepinillos.
after lunch i finish lesson planning, either at school, or in bed, depending on the topic. not sure what i mean by that, but anyway. then we teach at either 3.30, 5, 6.30 or 8. then we usually go to our local bar PM for a post teaching beer, and depending on our communal state of (usually fragile) mind, we either stay for one beer or 5. the main meal here is lunch, so i don`t have to be home for any dinner really. and now that we have discovered the most amazing hamburger stall in all of mexico, we usually stop there on our way home to soak up the beer. who would have thought a year ago i was a triathlete... on sunday night me and skye went for a hamburger, and got halfway up the block when we decided it was so good we wanted another one, so went back to get another. senor hamburguesa found this quite funny.
rosa has 2 little canaries at our house, i asked if we could name them shakira and nacho (thanks to jo molloy for the suggestion!), but this was shunned for the more macho names of carlitos and lucrecia. rosa was telling me she used to have a lot more birds in the past, i think she said 1,600 altogether, but i`m fairly sure my amateur spanish must be at fault on that particular fact because i don`t know how they would have fitted in the house.
last night i started reading el principito (the little prince) by st exupery in spanish, i bought it in peru and have been carrying it round with me all this time. yesterday had been very stressful and i had a craving for reading something totally escapist. it`s a good book to learn spanish with as it has pictures, and is for children.
so tomorrow we have our last day of lessons and teaching, thursday we have a grammar test in the morning and present our portfolio of work in the afternoon, then we do an hour tutoring a student one to one, then drink ourselves into a stupor in relief at it all being over. friday we have a graduation lunch and more drinking. we discussed buying big ball gowns for the occasion but this idea went off the boil in around week 2. plus there aren`t too many ball gown shops in ciudad guzman.
and then on saturday i go to la paz in baja california, mexico for a holiday with robert, hooray, then to guadalajara for the weekend. i have applied for 3 jobs so far, one has written back from tlaquepaque in guadalajara, so maybe i will puruse that one. sounds good and you get free accommodation.
fact of the day - in your whole life, you will communicate 95% by speaking, and only 5% by writing. when learning a language, or anything in fact, you retain only 35% of information presented orally, but 70% of that presented in written format.
and finally - a brief synopsis of last weekend - we went to a club near the lake called 446 as it was free whiskey until midnight. drank lots of free whiskey. got home at 4am a bit drunk. spent saturday in an ongoing dilemma of where to find a hamburger seeing as senor hamburguesa doesn`t open until dark. got an unsatisfactory hamburger, then went to the cinema on a bus to see the new bond film. had an ice cream but still wanted another hamburger. the bond film is good, filmed in chile, panama, and mexico. we didn`t fully understand the plot, but enjoyed it nonetheless. had another dilemma about whether or not we wanted to go out again, but didn`t in the end. sunday was spent shuffling around, tidying my room, eating tortillas, doing homework, riding my bike etc.
over and out.
i wake up at 7.30ish and at some point between then and 8am el lechero (the milkman, but that title makes him sound rather lecherous) arrives to bring the milk to the fridge. he has a very loud voice. he owns lots of cows, obviously, in a field nearby, rosa told me. he plays them classical music while he milks them, apparently it makes the milk taste better. i wouldn`t know as i have only had his (or rather the cows`) milk in coffee in case it tastes funny on its own as some foreign milk does. the milk in japan tasted like meat. as the weather is getting colder now, rosa told me el lechero is going to put little coats on the cows. i have a funny mental image of the becoated cows being milked by the very loud milkman whilst listening to mozart. anyway. i get up, have breakfast (orange juice, coffee, quesadilla or omelette or marmalade sandwich like paddington bear, fruit). then i cycle on la bicibura to school through the one way system, or sometimes if i`m feeling lazy and illegal, the wrong way through the one way system as it`s quicker. it isn`t quite as strict here when it comes to cycling the wrong way down one way streets as i think the mexican police have far bigger corruption and drugs, oops i mean fish, to fry.
we have lessons with juan from 9 on things like grammar / theories of language learning / language awareness, until 11ish when we go for a coffee break at the casa de pasteles next door. we drink coffee and sometimes eat cheesecake, then we either have more classes with juan or with savannah. then at 12.30 it is lesson planning time until 2ish when we leave for lunch. but sometimes the lesson planning turns a bit frantic if we have a hard topic or class, or if the lesson is early (earliest they start is 3.30). generally though, we go home and have a siesta, and lunch which i always hope is quesadillas and avacado - the avacados here are absolutely amazing. today i had meat with vegetables and tortillas. rosa keeps making jelly too, so last night my supper was bright green jelly and chunks of melon. i was still hungry, so made her make me a quesadilla which i ate while we chatted about the cows, and an english cement company here called cementos toltecos, and discussed that my surname means pepinillos.
after lunch i finish lesson planning, either at school, or in bed, depending on the topic. not sure what i mean by that, but anyway. then we teach at either 3.30, 5, 6.30 or 8. then we usually go to our local bar PM for a post teaching beer, and depending on our communal state of (usually fragile) mind, we either stay for one beer or 5. the main meal here is lunch, so i don`t have to be home for any dinner really. and now that we have discovered the most amazing hamburger stall in all of mexico, we usually stop there on our way home to soak up the beer. who would have thought a year ago i was a triathlete... on sunday night me and skye went for a hamburger, and got halfway up the block when we decided it was so good we wanted another one, so went back to get another. senor hamburguesa found this quite funny.
rosa has 2 little canaries at our house, i asked if we could name them shakira and nacho (thanks to jo molloy for the suggestion!), but this was shunned for the more macho names of carlitos and lucrecia. rosa was telling me she used to have a lot more birds in the past, i think she said 1,600 altogether, but i`m fairly sure my amateur spanish must be at fault on that particular fact because i don`t know how they would have fitted in the house.
last night i started reading el principito (the little prince) by st exupery in spanish, i bought it in peru and have been carrying it round with me all this time. yesterday had been very stressful and i had a craving for reading something totally escapist. it`s a good book to learn spanish with as it has pictures, and is for children.
so tomorrow we have our last day of lessons and teaching, thursday we have a grammar test in the morning and present our portfolio of work in the afternoon, then we do an hour tutoring a student one to one, then drink ourselves into a stupor in relief at it all being over. friday we have a graduation lunch and more drinking. we discussed buying big ball gowns for the occasion but this idea went off the boil in around week 2. plus there aren`t too many ball gown shops in ciudad guzman.
and then on saturday i go to la paz in baja california, mexico for a holiday with robert, hooray, then to guadalajara for the weekend. i have applied for 3 jobs so far, one has written back from tlaquepaque in guadalajara, so maybe i will puruse that one. sounds good and you get free accommodation.
fact of the day - in your whole life, you will communicate 95% by speaking, and only 5% by writing. when learning a language, or anything in fact, you retain only 35% of information presented orally, but 70% of that presented in written format.
and finally - a brief synopsis of last weekend - we went to a club near the lake called 446 as it was free whiskey until midnight. drank lots of free whiskey. got home at 4am a bit drunk. spent saturday in an ongoing dilemma of where to find a hamburger seeing as senor hamburguesa doesn`t open until dark. got an unsatisfactory hamburger, then went to the cinema on a bus to see the new bond film. had an ice cream but still wanted another hamburger. the bond film is good, filmed in chile, panama, and mexico. we didn`t fully understand the plot, but enjoyed it nonetheless. had another dilemma about whether or not we wanted to go out again, but didn`t in the end. sunday was spent shuffling around, tidying my room, eating tortillas, doing homework, riding my bike etc.
over and out.
Friday, 14 November 2008
pastel de queso
i have a kipling update from padre pepinillo in inglaterra, quoted verbatim below:
i went to the same school as Kipling and was in the House called Kipling so be careful he was a very intelligent sensitive white suprematist my school was founded by the East India Company to train people to govern India that´s the end of that
thanks PP, that was your 15 minutes of fame. anyone else got any further kipling comments?
today we are researching teaching jobs, which is actually very exciting. i have so far found one in la paz, bolivia, which sounds cool. but doesn`t quite fit with my plan of staying in mexico, so not sure about that. and the more we look at the job websites, the more i don`t know where on earth i want to be - it´s quite strange to have so much choice, and for someone as indecisive as me it`s a very confusing situation to be in.
so we have finished teaching for the week. it has gone ok generally, some lessons better than others. i taught a basic3 class about object pronouns, ie me-him-her-them-us etc, which is actually harder than it sounds when their english is so basic. they were filming our teaching that day too which will be horrendous to have to watch, but it`s part of savannah´s ploy to get us to be more positive about ourselves - she told us off for being so self-critical and negative about our teaching the other day.
and now for a funny story which i have just remembered. last saturday before leaving for manzanillo with juan and alfredo and jayne, i went to get a phonecard to top up my mobile. i went to the telcel shop in the square - telcel is the main network over here - and went in and said buenos dias, and the guy working there shook my hand and gave me a kiss, which threw me a bit, then he said hi lucy how are you... i was thinking wow you get really good customer service in mexico, but how does he know my name.. ? turns out we´d been talking to him in the club on thursday, and i´d forgotten due to copious whiskey drinking. anyway i turned up for my advanced2 class on wednesday, and there he is again, asking me how my trip to manzanillo was... ha ha. good ice breaker anyway to have already met most of your class when drunk in a nightclub. it was a really good class, we were discussing what advice you would give people to stop biting their fingernails, or organise their busy lives etc. one group came up with squeezing a stress ball to stop biting your fingernails, but obviously this ended up being squeezing your balls...
this week`s other news - skye fell over on one of the very potholed pavements here. she is ok and it was quite funny (maybe more for me than for her). jayne got taken out for birthday lunch on wednesday and consequently missed teaching her class that night as she was too drunk. skye is going on a date with gabriel, the waiter from our local bar, who we have renamed el angel gabriel as he is so lovely. i will update how it goes next week, if i´m allowed.
i went to the same school as Kipling and was in the House called Kipling so be careful
thanks PP, that was your 15 minutes of fame. anyone else got any further kipling comments?
today we are researching teaching jobs, which is actually very exciting. i have so far found one in la paz, bolivia, which sounds cool. but doesn`t quite fit with my plan of staying in mexico, so not sure about that. and the more we look at the job websites, the more i don`t know where on earth i want to be - it´s quite strange to have so much choice, and for someone as indecisive as me it`s a very confusing situation to be in.
so we have finished teaching for the week. it has gone ok generally, some lessons better than others. i taught a basic3 class about object pronouns, ie me-him-her-them-us etc, which is actually harder than it sounds when their english is so basic. they were filming our teaching that day too which will be horrendous to have to watch, but it`s part of savannah´s ploy to get us to be more positive about ourselves - she told us off for being so self-critical and negative about our teaching the other day.
and now for a funny story which i have just remembered. last saturday before leaving for manzanillo with juan and alfredo and jayne, i went to get a phonecard to top up my mobile. i went to the telcel shop in the square - telcel is the main network over here - and went in and said buenos dias, and the guy working there shook my hand and gave me a kiss, which threw me a bit, then he said hi lucy how are you... i was thinking wow you get really good customer service in mexico, but how does he know my name.. ? turns out we´d been talking to him in the club on thursday, and i´d forgotten due to copious whiskey drinking. anyway i turned up for my advanced2 class on wednesday, and there he is again, asking me how my trip to manzanillo was... ha ha. good ice breaker anyway to have already met most of your class when drunk in a nightclub. it was a really good class, we were discussing what advice you would give people to stop biting their fingernails, or organise their busy lives etc. one group came up with squeezing a stress ball to stop biting your fingernails, but obviously this ended up being squeezing your balls...
this week`s other news - skye fell over on one of the very potholed pavements here. she is ok and it was quite funny (maybe more for me than for her). jayne got taken out for birthday lunch on wednesday and consequently missed teaching her class that night as she was too drunk. skye is going on a date with gabriel, the waiter from our local bar, who we have renamed el angel gabriel as he is so lovely. i will update how it goes next week, if i´m allowed.
Wednesday, 12 November 2008
el dia del cartero
so today is day of the postman. in mexico they have days for pretty much everyone and everything. i haven`t seen any postmen to wish them feliz dia del cartero, but if any are reading this blog, then feliz dia del cartero. on that same subject, i received a parcel from mama pepinillo on monday this week, how exciting. gracias mama. i cycled to the post office to pick it up. in particular we enjoyed the after eights you sent, they were quite stuck to the packet and inedible, but what a lovely reminder of england. i shared them around my classmates. jayne said it was like when soldiers get a parcel in the war with food in it.
there is a teachers`day but i`m not sure when it is.
today is also jayne`s birthday, so me and skye have bought her some fruit, as she never gets any fruit or vegetables in her homestay.
fact of the day - rudyard kipling`s jungle book is actually a story which was supposed to show the british how to behave in the hindi caste system in india. his father was the indian ambassador. and lewis carroll`s alice in wonderland was to teach people about anarchy. neither of these are childrens` books, contrary to popular belief.
there is a football team here at ictc (the place we study at), i asked if i could play, but there is a strictly no girls rule. i guess it`s part of the mexican machismo culture (ie very sexist). nicky said that`s just the way it is, but i was welcome to come and watch them. i politely declined. he obviously isn`t aware of my skills, and why would he be. my last match was in peru, and i know it takes a while for news to spread in this part of the world. i did buy a nice green dress to make up for this upset.
all for now, going to observe some lessons before teaching later.
x
there is a teachers`day but i`m not sure when it is.
today is also jayne`s birthday, so me and skye have bought her some fruit, as she never gets any fruit or vegetables in her homestay.
fact of the day - rudyard kipling`s jungle book is actually a story which was supposed to show the british how to behave in the hindi caste system in india. his father was the indian ambassador. and lewis carroll`s alice in wonderland was to teach people about anarchy. neither of these are childrens` books, contrary to popular belief.
there is a football team here at ictc (the place we study at), i asked if i could play, but there is a strictly no girls rule. i guess it`s part of the mexican machismo culture (ie very sexist). nicky said that`s just the way it is, but i was welcome to come and watch them. i politely declined. he obviously isn`t aware of my skills, and why would he be. my last match was in peru, and i know it takes a while for news to spread in this part of the world. i did buy a nice green dress to make up for this upset.
all for now, going to observe some lessons before teaching later.
x
Sunday, 9 November 2008
pepinillitos
so we have finished the first 2 weeks of our course, and are still alive. 2 more weeks to go.
i taught a lesson to teens on thursday, was not looking forward to it, and the topic was boring (a reading comprehension about deaf people.....). consequently it was quite a dull lesson, even i was bored, so how must they have felt. anyway i taught them what sign language is, and also the word drive-thru. we had meetings with our tutor savannah on friday about jobs and cvs and where we want to live etc and will start sending out job applications in a the next 2 weeks. we discussed our options with juan - i told him i`m quite flexible as long as i`m in a big city, that isn`t too hot, and has lots of things going on - ie either guadalajara or mexico city really. he immediately wrote off mexico city as being far too dangerous in terms of road safety. the car has priority over the pedestrian there apparently, and if you drive over and kill someone, the victim`s family often has to pay damages to the driver`s car if it is damaged in the process, and there are posters up reminding people that the car has priority. apparently there were around 22,000 road traffic deaths last year. i explained to juan that although this is indeed not great, i didn`t want to limit my job prospects based on the pedestrian crossing access of cities. he wasn`t having any of it and demanded that i do further research. me and skye were having a hungover giggling fit for most of this bizarre conversation so i don`t think juan was too impressed with our commitment to our future careers.
so to recover from our week me and skye and some of her friends from her trip to mexico before went out on thursday night to a club called plush, which was indeed very plush. it was 50 pesos (around 2 pounds) to get in and free beer until midnight which we took full advantage of. there was a strange dance routine and a band too, playing i suppose what you would call salsa rock. from somewhere a bottle of whiskey appeared so we drank most of that. a strange mexican boy kept asking me if i thought he was attractive compared to various other boys he kept pointing out. i told him i didn`t understand and that he was really weird. despite this strangeness it was really fun to go out and not think about teaching for a while.
friday afternoon i went to help ace ventura pet detective at the university again, with juan2 as well. they did some work from the text book then some more songs, this week we had something by foreigner, can`t remember what, and imagine by john lennon, and hey jude by the beatles. ace ventura drew a little picture of john lennon on the board so i took a photo of him next to it, he`s quite artistic and has also painted some murals in our school of a map of the world and little people on it. i explained that the word lyrics isn`t part of all the song titles, but means words of the song. because every song had the name of the singer eg the beatles, then the title, a day in the life lyrics. so they couldn`t understand why each song had the word lyrics in it.
i then cycled home, was too tired to cycle to the lake to watch the sun set again. jayne came over and we had a nice chat with rosa, with me as interpreter as jayne doesn`t speak spanish yet. this made my brain hurt but was really funny too. rosa told us that mela (jayne`s mexican mum) was engaged to juan1`s uncle, but he died 3 days before the wedding, and that mela`s family used to be sort of aristocracy but then lost a lot of money, and that they were something to do with pemex, the main oil company here and also have a supermarket on the edge of town somewhere. juan1 didn`t know of the uncle story when we asked him yesterday. me and jayne then went to our local for a beer to celebrate it being friday, but one drink turned in to lots of drinks and some crazy strong tequilas too which made our heads spin. we learnt lots of spanish from the waiter and in exchange taught him some english. he laughed his head off when i translated my surname, in spanish it is pepinillos, and if i have children they will be pepinillitos, as a pepillinito is a small pepinillo. we went to our amazing burger stall for some post tequila food and met some more strange mexicans, turned out one of them had lived in jayne`s town in canada. mundo pequeno.
yesterday me and jayne went to manzanillo again to chill out on the beach. we got a lift there with juan1 and his lodger alfredo. alfredo is from california and was trying to be an actor in hollywood for years, until he got fed up with just getting extra work and nothing serious. we asked him how come he had ended up trying to be an actor, and he said in his high school yearbook he was voted most likely to become an actor. i guess it`s as good a reason as any to give it a go. anyway, he`s really sweet and also used to do ballet dancing which made me giggle but not out loud. so he drove us all to colima where we stopped briefly to meet some of juan`s students who are also studying a similar course to us (but taught by nicky who also teaches at our school), but on saturdays, as they are also working during the week (mainly as teachers, or if not then they are going to be teachers by the end of the course). there was another of ace ventura`s murals of the world in this school so i took a photo. then we carried on to manzanillo where juan and alfredo were teaching the same saturday course but in the evening. we left them to it and went to the beach over the road, via a really nice italian restaurant to get some hangover food. i had spaghetti bolognaise, that classic mexican dish. jayne had chicken but couldn`t eat it all so we put it in my bag with the sandwiches that rosa had made for me, to eat later. after this we wandered to find a nice quiet spot on the beach. as there were no other people there at all this was quite easy. the current in the sea there is quite strong so we didn`t really swim, but paddled a bit then lay down again. after a while a huge freak wave (not quite a tsunami but not far off) washed all the way up to where we were lying, and washed all our stuff along the beach - all my clothes were drenched, the sandwiches and chicken were long gone, thankfully i had just put my camera in its case after taking some photos, but everything else was covered in water and sand, as were we. this was quite hilarious but also could`ve been quite bad, if for example we`d been asleep when it struck. we gathered our belongings back up and found my apple half way down the beach , but left it there with the sandwiches and chicken and retreated to higher ground to recover. i found a shower where i washed all my clothes and hung them out to dry and then tried to relax and have a snooze but wasn`t quite in the mood for it now.
after our close encounter we also found a dead blowfish (the big fat fish with spikes) rolling around in the waves. a little mexican girl came and told us about it (i think its name in spanish is pezapa) and that they were very dangerous, and then her brother came and buried it in the sand. there was an amazing sunset behind some clouds, and a huge ugly tanker out on the horizon which became quite beautiful when the sun went down and its lights came on. we left after a while, disgruntled but amused with our `relaxing` beach day, and went to get an ice cream. on walking into the shop i knocked half the bin over by the door oops. then proceeded to act out a real life charlie chaplin sketch as i had to empty all my bag out on to the counter to find my money, then my water bottle tipped over, and then a gust of wind blew my dress up so the man saw my lovely wal-mart knickers.... jayne had left the shop she was laughing so much.... i don`t think i`ll be returning to manzanillo any time soon to be honest.
we went back to the school they were at as juan had called to say his students wanted to meet us, as they always like to meet real life english speakers. they were very sweet and we asked them how the course was going etc. then jorge, one of the more talkative ones, launched into a huge beatles conspiracy story - apparently in 1969 paul mccartney died (or was killed), and there was a talent/lookalike competition to find a replacement. there are lots of references in various of their albums about this apparently (like on the st peppers album cover paul is facing backwards and the others forwards; on the abbey road one he is the only one in bare feet etc etc). i said i`d never heard of this story, as i haven`t, but that i`d investigate. the strange thing was was that jorge actually looked like the mexican version of paul mccartney, which i pointed out to him. at the other side of the class, felipe was telling jayne that he wanted to work in canada but he didn`t like flying and was it possible to take the bus all the way there? if so, he would need a transit visa to pass through america (unless obama steps in i guess). all in all yesterday was one of those strange hungover days where strange things happen and nothing makes sense.
so alfredo drove us all home, on the long curvy road (we had passed a lorry that had tipped right over on the way down to manzanillo on one of the curves). the roads here are really good quality, really well tarmaced, but just quite curvy. there is an optional toll road, but apparently it`s only marginally quicker. we stopped off in a little town called armeria to get some tacos at a road side restaurant, which by day was a parking lot. there were still a few cars in it actually, but the tacos were amazing - i had chorizo and beef ones. the street food in mexico is really good if you go to the right places. i slept some of the way back and then slept loads once i was home, didn`t get up until around 2 today. i now have to do some homework on my cv and write a mid-course self reflection, so it`s a good job i don`t have a hangover today too.
any ideas about the beatles conspiracy let me know.
another question that has cropped up this week was where exactly the midlands are. juan had referred to the dales and the moors as being in the midlands, but i would say there were in the north really, and another english person agreed. i think it depends where you`re from in england as to what you refer to as the midlands, maybe if you´re from the scottish border then you would refer to yorkshire as the midlands, as relatively it is middle way down the country from you.
adios
senorita pepinillos x
i taught a lesson to teens on thursday, was not looking forward to it, and the topic was boring (a reading comprehension about deaf people.....). consequently it was quite a dull lesson, even i was bored, so how must they have felt. anyway i taught them what sign language is, and also the word drive-thru. we had meetings with our tutor savannah on friday about jobs and cvs and where we want to live etc and will start sending out job applications in a the next 2 weeks. we discussed our options with juan - i told him i`m quite flexible as long as i`m in a big city, that isn`t too hot, and has lots of things going on - ie either guadalajara or mexico city really. he immediately wrote off mexico city as being far too dangerous in terms of road safety. the car has priority over the pedestrian there apparently, and if you drive over and kill someone, the victim`s family often has to pay damages to the driver`s car if it is damaged in the process, and there are posters up reminding people that the car has priority. apparently there were around 22,000 road traffic deaths last year. i explained to juan that although this is indeed not great, i didn`t want to limit my job prospects based on the pedestrian crossing access of cities. he wasn`t having any of it and demanded that i do further research. me and skye were having a hungover giggling fit for most of this bizarre conversation so i don`t think juan was too impressed with our commitment to our future careers.
so to recover from our week me and skye and some of her friends from her trip to mexico before went out on thursday night to a club called plush, which was indeed very plush. it was 50 pesos (around 2 pounds) to get in and free beer until midnight which we took full advantage of. there was a strange dance routine and a band too, playing i suppose what you would call salsa rock. from somewhere a bottle of whiskey appeared so we drank most of that. a strange mexican boy kept asking me if i thought he was attractive compared to various other boys he kept pointing out. i told him i didn`t understand and that he was really weird. despite this strangeness it was really fun to go out and not think about teaching for a while.
friday afternoon i went to help ace ventura pet detective at the university again, with juan2 as well. they did some work from the text book then some more songs, this week we had something by foreigner, can`t remember what, and imagine by john lennon, and hey jude by the beatles. ace ventura drew a little picture of john lennon on the board so i took a photo of him next to it, he`s quite artistic and has also painted some murals in our school of a map of the world and little people on it. i explained that the word lyrics isn`t part of all the song titles, but means words of the song. because every song had the name of the singer eg the beatles, then the title, a day in the life lyrics. so they couldn`t understand why each song had the word lyrics in it.
i then cycled home, was too tired to cycle to the lake to watch the sun set again. jayne came over and we had a nice chat with rosa, with me as interpreter as jayne doesn`t speak spanish yet. this made my brain hurt but was really funny too. rosa told us that mela (jayne`s mexican mum) was engaged to juan1`s uncle, but he died 3 days before the wedding, and that mela`s family used to be sort of aristocracy but then lost a lot of money, and that they were something to do with pemex, the main oil company here and also have a supermarket on the edge of town somewhere. juan1 didn`t know of the uncle story when we asked him yesterday. me and jayne then went to our local for a beer to celebrate it being friday, but one drink turned in to lots of drinks and some crazy strong tequilas too which made our heads spin. we learnt lots of spanish from the waiter and in exchange taught him some english. he laughed his head off when i translated my surname, in spanish it is pepinillos, and if i have children they will be pepinillitos, as a pepillinito is a small pepinillo. we went to our amazing burger stall for some post tequila food and met some more strange mexicans, turned out one of them had lived in jayne`s town in canada. mundo pequeno.
yesterday me and jayne went to manzanillo again to chill out on the beach. we got a lift there with juan1 and his lodger alfredo. alfredo is from california and was trying to be an actor in hollywood for years, until he got fed up with just getting extra work and nothing serious. we asked him how come he had ended up trying to be an actor, and he said in his high school yearbook he was voted most likely to become an actor. i guess it`s as good a reason as any to give it a go. anyway, he`s really sweet and also used to do ballet dancing which made me giggle but not out loud. so he drove us all to colima where we stopped briefly to meet some of juan`s students who are also studying a similar course to us (but taught by nicky who also teaches at our school), but on saturdays, as they are also working during the week (mainly as teachers, or if not then they are going to be teachers by the end of the course). there was another of ace ventura`s murals of the world in this school so i took a photo. then we carried on to manzanillo where juan and alfredo were teaching the same saturday course but in the evening. we left them to it and went to the beach over the road, via a really nice italian restaurant to get some hangover food. i had spaghetti bolognaise, that classic mexican dish. jayne had chicken but couldn`t eat it all so we put it in my bag with the sandwiches that rosa had made for me, to eat later. after this we wandered to find a nice quiet spot on the beach. as there were no other people there at all this was quite easy. the current in the sea there is quite strong so we didn`t really swim, but paddled a bit then lay down again. after a while a huge freak wave (not quite a tsunami but not far off) washed all the way up to where we were lying, and washed all our stuff along the beach - all my clothes were drenched, the sandwiches and chicken were long gone, thankfully i had just put my camera in its case after taking some photos, but everything else was covered in water and sand, as were we. this was quite hilarious but also could`ve been quite bad, if for example we`d been asleep when it struck. we gathered our belongings back up and found my apple half way down the beach , but left it there with the sandwiches and chicken and retreated to higher ground to recover. i found a shower where i washed all my clothes and hung them out to dry and then tried to relax and have a snooze but wasn`t quite in the mood for it now.
after our close encounter we also found a dead blowfish (the big fat fish with spikes) rolling around in the waves. a little mexican girl came and told us about it (i think its name in spanish is pezapa) and that they were very dangerous, and then her brother came and buried it in the sand. there was an amazing sunset behind some clouds, and a huge ugly tanker out on the horizon which became quite beautiful when the sun went down and its lights came on. we left after a while, disgruntled but amused with our `relaxing` beach day, and went to get an ice cream. on walking into the shop i knocked half the bin over by the door oops. then proceeded to act out a real life charlie chaplin sketch as i had to empty all my bag out on to the counter to find my money, then my water bottle tipped over, and then a gust of wind blew my dress up so the man saw my lovely wal-mart knickers.... jayne had left the shop she was laughing so much.... i don`t think i`ll be returning to manzanillo any time soon to be honest.
we went back to the school they were at as juan had called to say his students wanted to meet us, as they always like to meet real life english speakers. they were very sweet and we asked them how the course was going etc. then jorge, one of the more talkative ones, launched into a huge beatles conspiracy story - apparently in 1969 paul mccartney died (or was killed), and there was a talent/lookalike competition to find a replacement. there are lots of references in various of their albums about this apparently (like on the st peppers album cover paul is facing backwards and the others forwards; on the abbey road one he is the only one in bare feet etc etc). i said i`d never heard of this story, as i haven`t, but that i`d investigate. the strange thing was was that jorge actually looked like the mexican version of paul mccartney, which i pointed out to him. at the other side of the class, felipe was telling jayne that he wanted to work in canada but he didn`t like flying and was it possible to take the bus all the way there? if so, he would need a transit visa to pass through america (unless obama steps in i guess). all in all yesterday was one of those strange hungover days where strange things happen and nothing makes sense.
so alfredo drove us all home, on the long curvy road (we had passed a lorry that had tipped right over on the way down to manzanillo on one of the curves). the roads here are really good quality, really well tarmaced, but just quite curvy. there is an optional toll road, but apparently it`s only marginally quicker. we stopped off in a little town called armeria to get some tacos at a road side restaurant, which by day was a parking lot. there were still a few cars in it actually, but the tacos were amazing - i had chorizo and beef ones. the street food in mexico is really good if you go to the right places. i slept some of the way back and then slept loads once i was home, didn`t get up until around 2 today. i now have to do some homework on my cv and write a mid-course self reflection, so it`s a good job i don`t have a hangover today too.
any ideas about the beatles conspiracy let me know.
another question that has cropped up this week was where exactly the midlands are. juan had referred to the dales and the moors as being in the midlands, but i would say there were in the north really, and another english person agreed. i think it depends where you`re from in england as to what you refer to as the midlands, maybe if you´re from the scottish border then you would refer to yorkshire as the midlands, as relatively it is middle way down the country from you.
adios
senorita pepinillos x
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
la bicibura
so i hope you are all as happy as we are here about obama winning. quel landslide too. we were having a post-tefl course beer (much needed by 9pm) in the bar on our way home, and a picture of obama and mccain flashed up with the word ganador under obama. winner. amazing. am now sitting waiting for the world to change, and hoping he doesn`t get assassinated straightaway. after that on the news was a report about the vice president (or one of the ministers, i couldn`t figure it out) here dying in a strange plane crash. i think he`s the drug minister actually and was on his way from a drug conference, so there are the usual conspiracy theories flying around (pardon the pun). so that`s not good news.
tonight we teach our 4th lesson of the course, me and skye are teaching a basic1 class about to be, and prepositions and the difference between a and the. all very easy, but once you`re actually standing there trying to explain it it becomes the hardest thing in the world. i know i know most of the grammar etc, but conveying it to foreigners is a totally different story. in general it has gone ok so far, each lesson seems to have improved for me in some way or other, the students are really responsive and well behaved and welcoming - it must be weird for them having their normal lessons interrupted for us to practise on them. so far i have taught the present continuous to a basic4 class, this went well, i had 5 mins left at the end so told them some things about england. someone asked me where liverpool was and i didn`t know, they had to show me in the end as somebody in the class knew.... ha ha. i also explained that although wales and whales sound the same, there are no whales in wales. and the day before that i taught there is and there are to a basic2 class, they were describing that there were some chairs in the kitchen, but one girl said chicken instead of kitchen, which resulted in hilarity. which was good as my objective for that lesson had to be to make things more humorous and fun.
today i washed my bike and went on a ride to the lake just now as the sun was setting. lovely view of the dead volcano and the pink clouds. there is a live volcano too, but you are not allowed up it, thank god (see previous volcano story from guatemala). it once erupted on ash wednesday, and a load of ash went up into the sky. what a sign. i think it`s last eruption of any note was in 2003.
i am still eating like a big fat mexican, for breakfast i get an omelette with ham and cheese, a load of tomatoes and onions, refried beans, a plate of papaya, a coffee, and an orange juice. then for lunch i have for example soup made of pasta and meat, followed by meat or stuffed peppers, or potato and cheese cakes etc. all very nice, and all with a non stop supply of tortillas. sometimes followed by strawberrys. when i get in at night around 10ish, rosa (my mother) immediately asks if i want a coffee and some food.
rosa has lived in her house for the last 50 years. the other day she decided to swap her bedroom with her studio (where she does sewing and makes cheese), so there were some workmen in painting the rooms and shuffling furniture around. they were meant to come to work on the saturday but didn`t turn up, seems that is a feature of workmen worldwide. rosa calls my bike a bicibura, which is a combination of bicicletta (bike) and burra (donkey), i think as some sort of comment that bikes have replaced donkeys or something. anyway it is always very funny when we refer to it as la bicibura, though i`m not fully sure i get the joke. i have now met the other lodger, eduardo, who is studying to be a primary school teacher at the university here, he lives here monday to friday and goes home to colima for the weekend. i spoke to him a bit in spanish and he spoke back to me in england, which is quite surreal.
the english language has 485,000 words, and spanish 675,000. i feel slightly short-changed. juan said it is because of the fact that spanish is a language with declensions. the average person`s vocabulary is 3000 words, and the more educated you are the more you know, and also you have a much larger passive vocabulary (ie words you can understand but wouldn`t necessarily use in most of your speech). i told him i think my spanish is becoming worse, but he said it is because i am becoming more aware of my limitations in it. the best way to learn a language in terms of retaining information and new vocabulary is by reading, so i bought the newspaper today and have been carrying it round with me in my bag all day, next to my spanish dictionary. i think this technique of carrying the words around with me will also work.
on friday we have to research job opportunities etc for when we finish the course (in just over 2 weeks, crazy).. apparently schools hire in early january and early august for the new terms, so i`m not quite sure what i´ll do. if anyone has a lot of money lying around that they don`t have any use for, i can send you my bank details.
i`m going to get an ice cream now. we are all trying to stop smoking, so this is my replacement therapy. i was supposed to meet skye and jayne in the square this morning for our first training session of our new fitness regime, but i accidentally set my alarm for 6.30pm oops. manaña manaña.
over and out. happy bonfire night. they don`t celebrate it here. x
tonight we teach our 4th lesson of the course, me and skye are teaching a basic1 class about to be, and prepositions and the difference between a and the. all very easy, but once you`re actually standing there trying to explain it it becomes the hardest thing in the world. i know i know most of the grammar etc, but conveying it to foreigners is a totally different story. in general it has gone ok so far, each lesson seems to have improved for me in some way or other, the students are really responsive and well behaved and welcoming - it must be weird for them having their normal lessons interrupted for us to practise on them. so far i have taught the present continuous to a basic4 class, this went well, i had 5 mins left at the end so told them some things about england. someone asked me where liverpool was and i didn`t know, they had to show me in the end as somebody in the class knew.... ha ha. i also explained that although wales and whales sound the same, there are no whales in wales. and the day before that i taught there is and there are to a basic2 class, they were describing that there were some chairs in the kitchen, but one girl said chicken instead of kitchen, which resulted in hilarity. which was good as my objective for that lesson had to be to make things more humorous and fun.
today i washed my bike and went on a ride to the lake just now as the sun was setting. lovely view of the dead volcano and the pink clouds. there is a live volcano too, but you are not allowed up it, thank god (see previous volcano story from guatemala). it once erupted on ash wednesday, and a load of ash went up into the sky. what a sign. i think it`s last eruption of any note was in 2003.
i am still eating like a big fat mexican, for breakfast i get an omelette with ham and cheese, a load of tomatoes and onions, refried beans, a plate of papaya, a coffee, and an orange juice. then for lunch i have for example soup made of pasta and meat, followed by meat or stuffed peppers, or potato and cheese cakes etc. all very nice, and all with a non stop supply of tortillas. sometimes followed by strawberrys. when i get in at night around 10ish, rosa (my mother) immediately asks if i want a coffee and some food.
rosa has lived in her house for the last 50 years. the other day she decided to swap her bedroom with her studio (where she does sewing and makes cheese), so there were some workmen in painting the rooms and shuffling furniture around. they were meant to come to work on the saturday but didn`t turn up, seems that is a feature of workmen worldwide. rosa calls my bike a bicibura, which is a combination of bicicletta (bike) and burra (donkey), i think as some sort of comment that bikes have replaced donkeys or something. anyway it is always very funny when we refer to it as la bicibura, though i`m not fully sure i get the joke. i have now met the other lodger, eduardo, who is studying to be a primary school teacher at the university here, he lives here monday to friday and goes home to colima for the weekend. i spoke to him a bit in spanish and he spoke back to me in england, which is quite surreal.
the english language has 485,000 words, and spanish 675,000. i feel slightly short-changed. juan said it is because of the fact that spanish is a language with declensions. the average person`s vocabulary is 3000 words, and the more educated you are the more you know, and also you have a much larger passive vocabulary (ie words you can understand but wouldn`t necessarily use in most of your speech). i told him i think my spanish is becoming worse, but he said it is because i am becoming more aware of my limitations in it. the best way to learn a language in terms of retaining information and new vocabulary is by reading, so i bought the newspaper today and have been carrying it round with me in my bag all day, next to my spanish dictionary. i think this technique of carrying the words around with me will also work.
on friday we have to research job opportunities etc for when we finish the course (in just over 2 weeks, crazy).. apparently schools hire in early january and early august for the new terms, so i`m not quite sure what i´ll do. if anyone has a lot of money lying around that they don`t have any use for, i can send you my bank details.
i`m going to get an ice cream now. we are all trying to stop smoking, so this is my replacement therapy. i was supposed to meet skye and jayne in the square this morning for our first training session of our new fitness regime, but i accidentally set my alarm for 6.30pm oops. manaña manaña.
over and out. happy bonfire night. they don`t celebrate it here. x
Sunday, 2 November 2008
ace ventura pet detective
so we have finished our first week on the tefl course, and are still alive. has been very interesting so far, i think it gets much more intense from now on as we have some elective lessons, and have to teach mon-thurs 45 mins a day, which is slightly scary right now.
on friday afternoon we went to the universidad de guadalajara, 10 minutes away on the bus. juan`s friend ventura (renamed ace ventura pet detective - i think he liked his new name) teaches an english class there, so we went to observe it. on the timetable juan had given us it was called leyes, which means law, so we were assuming it would be a very technical and intense class dealing with the intricacies of english legal language. how wrong were we. around 20 of the 40 students expected turned up, and ventura and his co-teacher juan (who we re-named juan2 to distinguish him from juan1) gave out some song lyrics and the lesson consisted of listening to the songs then singing them, then we divided into 3 groups, and me, jayne and skye went through the lyrics and meaning of the songs with our groups. it was all very informal and relaxed and fun. the songs were george michael careless whispers, eric clapton wonderful tonight (my favourite) and 4 non blondes what`s going on (nobody really like this one, but ventura likes them). last week he had done abba`s dancing queen with them. so now we are all thinking how fun it would be to work in a university..
then we took ventura for a beer at our local bar on the way home. he only had 1 beer, he is very sensible. we had quite a few and then found the absolute best burger stall in town (we didn`t exactly find it, some of the other tefl teachers took us to it). it was 19 pesos (90p) for a burger with salad and chillies and sauce, and it really was the best burger i`ve ever had. there was hot dogs too.
yesterday me and jayne went on a day trip to colima, a town an hour from here. it was really really hot there, so we went to get an orange juice, then decided we should not be in a town, so we got another bus to manzanillo, a coastal town further down. we swam in the sea, which was lovely and walked along the beach. manzanillo is a port, so we looked at all the crates piled up in the dock. there was a big alcoholics anonymous stall in the park, which seemed a bit inconspicuous. the town itself is a bit pokey, but if you go further round the coast there are lots of fancy hotels and beaches, i think we just went the wrong direction. as usual. we got a bus back, which weirdly took 3.5 hours compared to the 2 hours it had taken to get there. we saw loads of fireflies en route, which i`ve never seen before but jayne had. i was expecting to see lots of things going on for day of the dead, but didn`t in fact see anything. i think there are certain towns you can go to that make a much bigger deal of it, but you have to plan your trip months in advance as they get really busy.
i had a vaguely drunken conversation on friday with nicki, one of the teachers at our school (ie he teaches english there now, having done the course we are doing now there - it both trains teachers and teaches english), about grammar again... i was trying to explain that how can you not teach grammar when grammar is essentially the ingredients of english, the same way bread is made of wheat, language is made of grammar. when you correct their pronunciation, that is teaching grammar (phonetics), when you teach meanings of new words that is grammar (semantics) etc etc. i was trying not to be too drunkenly pedantic, as i do also agree with the fact that you shouldn`t make things revolve around grammar. i think the fact is is that the students should learn grammar without explicitly being taught it. which i can understand the thinking behind, but it does slightly annoy me - what is so wrong with teaching the technical workings of a language, for me it enhances understanding, and why dumb it down and not expect that they will like or understand it? for me the jury´s still out on this, and i`m sure this won`t be the last you hear about it.
other things that have happened this week
i have borrowed a bike and have ridden around a bit, nothing too strenuous. there is a bike ride round the town every thursday night where they close the roads, i´ll do that next week. i am going to try to cycle to the laguna this afternoon, apparently it`s around 3k away and on a straight road, so i shouldn`t get too lost. you can`t swim in the laguna as there are too many reeds and weeds.
when i was eating dinner one night at home, and really enjoying it, she asked if i wanted another tortilla, i said yes please, and passed her my plate. i still had some chile relleno (stuffed pepper) and avacado left, and was looking forward to finishing it with the new tortilla. but my plate came back empty except for the tortilla, she had assumed i was leaving my food and had pushed it into the bin. we laughed about it. and i have been overeating anyway, so it`s probably good for me in the long run.
me and jayne left her homestay mother, mela, a note one night to say we`d gone for a beer, but that jayne wouldn`t return home late. i thought i`d written this correctly - jayne no regresa mas tarde - jane will not return very late - but actually this means jayne isn`t coming back later. mela had panicked as she though jayne was running away!
the literacy rate in cuba is 100% because in 1960, they closed all the schools from kindergarten onwards, and all the teachers had to teach the whole population to read and write. great for the school kids as they got a year off school, and great for the population as they all learnt to read and write. it`s the only latin american country which has a 100% literacy rate. mexico is around 20% illiterate, which is quite a lot. guatemala is fairly high too, i think i heard it was 70% illiterate, but this seems a bit extreme. will investigate.
today is my 100th day since leaving england!
going home now to read my tefl books and try to become an amazing teacher overnight.
adios x
on friday afternoon we went to the universidad de guadalajara, 10 minutes away on the bus. juan`s friend ventura (renamed ace ventura pet detective - i think he liked his new name) teaches an english class there, so we went to observe it. on the timetable juan had given us it was called leyes, which means law, so we were assuming it would be a very technical and intense class dealing with the intricacies of english legal language. how wrong were we. around 20 of the 40 students expected turned up, and ventura and his co-teacher juan (who we re-named juan2 to distinguish him from juan1) gave out some song lyrics and the lesson consisted of listening to the songs then singing them, then we divided into 3 groups, and me, jayne and skye went through the lyrics and meaning of the songs with our groups. it was all very informal and relaxed and fun. the songs were george michael careless whispers, eric clapton wonderful tonight (my favourite) and 4 non blondes what`s going on (nobody really like this one, but ventura likes them). last week he had done abba`s dancing queen with them. so now we are all thinking how fun it would be to work in a university..
then we took ventura for a beer at our local bar on the way home. he only had 1 beer, he is very sensible. we had quite a few and then found the absolute best burger stall in town (we didn`t exactly find it, some of the other tefl teachers took us to it). it was 19 pesos (90p) for a burger with salad and chillies and sauce, and it really was the best burger i`ve ever had. there was hot dogs too.
yesterday me and jayne went on a day trip to colima, a town an hour from here. it was really really hot there, so we went to get an orange juice, then decided we should not be in a town, so we got another bus to manzanillo, a coastal town further down. we swam in the sea, which was lovely and walked along the beach. manzanillo is a port, so we looked at all the crates piled up in the dock. there was a big alcoholics anonymous stall in the park, which seemed a bit inconspicuous. the town itself is a bit pokey, but if you go further round the coast there are lots of fancy hotels and beaches, i think we just went the wrong direction. as usual. we got a bus back, which weirdly took 3.5 hours compared to the 2 hours it had taken to get there. we saw loads of fireflies en route, which i`ve never seen before but jayne had. i was expecting to see lots of things going on for day of the dead, but didn`t in fact see anything. i think there are certain towns you can go to that make a much bigger deal of it, but you have to plan your trip months in advance as they get really busy.
i had a vaguely drunken conversation on friday with nicki, one of the teachers at our school (ie he teaches english there now, having done the course we are doing now there - it both trains teachers and teaches english), about grammar again... i was trying to explain that how can you not teach grammar when grammar is essentially the ingredients of english, the same way bread is made of wheat, language is made of grammar. when you correct their pronunciation, that is teaching grammar (phonetics), when you teach meanings of new words that is grammar (semantics) etc etc. i was trying not to be too drunkenly pedantic, as i do also agree with the fact that you shouldn`t make things revolve around grammar. i think the fact is is that the students should learn grammar without explicitly being taught it. which i can understand the thinking behind, but it does slightly annoy me - what is so wrong with teaching the technical workings of a language, for me it enhances understanding, and why dumb it down and not expect that they will like or understand it? for me the jury´s still out on this, and i`m sure this won`t be the last you hear about it.
other things that have happened this week
i have borrowed a bike and have ridden around a bit, nothing too strenuous. there is a bike ride round the town every thursday night where they close the roads, i´ll do that next week. i am going to try to cycle to the laguna this afternoon, apparently it`s around 3k away and on a straight road, so i shouldn`t get too lost. you can`t swim in the laguna as there are too many reeds and weeds.
when i was eating dinner one night at home, and really enjoying it, she asked if i wanted another tortilla, i said yes please, and passed her my plate. i still had some chile relleno (stuffed pepper) and avacado left, and was looking forward to finishing it with the new tortilla. but my plate came back empty except for the tortilla, she had assumed i was leaving my food and had pushed it into the bin. we laughed about it. and i have been overeating anyway, so it`s probably good for me in the long run.
me and jayne left her homestay mother, mela, a note one night to say we`d gone for a beer, but that jayne wouldn`t return home late. i thought i`d written this correctly - jayne no regresa mas tarde - jane will not return very late - but actually this means jayne isn`t coming back later. mela had panicked as she though jayne was running away!
the literacy rate in cuba is 100% because in 1960, they closed all the schools from kindergarten onwards, and all the teachers had to teach the whole population to read and write. great for the school kids as they got a year off school, and great for the population as they all learnt to read and write. it`s the only latin american country which has a 100% literacy rate. mexico is around 20% illiterate, which is quite a lot. guatemala is fairly high too, i think i heard it was 70% illiterate, but this seems a bit extreme. will investigate.
today is my 100th day since leaving england!
going home now to read my tefl books and try to become an amazing teacher overnight.
adios x
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