Challenge: Let's do the laundry!

It’s lesson preparation time (well, basically it is my time off, but over here that means that this is your time in which to prepare for the lessons, which I still don’t really understand as the activity organisers have time off as well and in that time they’re just off), so I have time to update my blog.

I’m feeling more and more at home (despite the food and the room), but at the moment I’m actually having a cup of coffee in my room and that is a first. Of course I had to buy a flask in Starbucks (where else ;-)) but it at least means I don’t have to be in the office if I want coffee as that means that you get pulled into working (don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind working, but when I’ve been on duty from 7am to 5pm, I really want some time off). Another good thing is that my clothes are in the washing machine and will be all fresh and clean in 25 minutes (I hope, because the machine looks a little bit dodgy and I bought some gorgeously smelling detergent only to realize that the machine uses its own (?) which again I don’t understand, so I hope my clothes smell of my stuff and not the suspicious pinkish liquid from the plastic tank next to the washing machine. It is quite typical that I only discovered the pinkish liquid after I had pressed start.)

I went into town today with another teacher and we had a really nice morning/afternoon and even managed to grab some delicious pub food from one of the pubs in Oxford I actually know and I had Pimms for the first time in 2 years :-) So, you can understand how happy I am at the moment. Plus the kids aren’t here, which means it’s really nice and quiet. Swindon Oasis day is the reason why the only people left on campus are the teachers.

As for Oxford... It is packed!!! There are so many people here that it’s difficult to walk on the pavement and it’s sales time, so it’s not only tourists who crowd the streets. But I love this town! It’s got history and magnificent buildings and I love the atmosphere.

And work? I can honestly say that I expected to be teaching according to a program and would not spend too much time on the activities. But it turned out that besides not having a program to follow I keep being on duty in the afternoon or evening, so I tend to stay up late or get up early to finish lesson planning which is also more complicated than the usual mainstream school. Not having a program and a coursebook to follow everything is pretty much left to me so each lesson requires more time to plan. The students also have no own books which means I need to photocopy materials and that takes ages. I do love teaching and I got a very positive feedback from our DoS who observed my lesson on Thursday, but at the end of the day I feel drained. And I haven’t done any sport in months now, so I’m not only being tired most of the time but I’m also gaining weight and it’s driving me insane. ARGH!!! And on top of everything I was really in a hurry going to work in the evening yesterday and I managed to break the buckle on my favourite high-heeled sandals. Which almost made me cry. Hawaiian disco was a success though and I did look extremely elegant in my try-not-to-breathe dress :-) After the disco we put the kids to sleep and gathered in the office for wine and cheese. I loved it! It’s great how all the staff gets together and the atmosphere changes - it almost felt like being home on the couch, your feet up and a glass of white wine in your hand. It’s a wonderful bonding opportunity and the newest clever idea is that all schools should put sofas in the staff room :-)

Now, my clothes have been washed and they don’t smell of my lovely detergent but of some mixture of my detergent and I assume the pinkish liquid used for washing masses of campus sheets and stuff. :-( The new challenge is to dry them as most of them should not be put in the dryer. Now I have wet clothes hanging in my wardrobe and I hope they will eventually dry. The sooner the better.
Cheerio!

Departure day

The departure day is finally here. And I am ... tired and exhausted. I honestly hate packing. I can never decide what clothes to take or which shoes would be the most functional, so I usually end up with a random selection of clothes and an even weirder collection of shoes (most of which I never really wear). This time it's also a bit different as I'm not going on holidays, so casual clothes and flip-flops have been replaced by smart shirts, skirts, high-heels and and enormous amount of paperwork, which is making my duffel bag incredibly heavy, but I refuse to deal with and get stressed out by logistical problems as I am determined that I WILL manage to drag all of that to my hotel.

I still have pretty much an entire day before my take off and since this is the very first time that I'm packed and still have a lot of time to spare, I have no idea what I should do with myself. The usual scenario is nothing like today. Whenever I travel and I still have a couple of hours before I need to show up at the airport, I tend to suffer a minor breakdown as my clothes haven't dried yet, there is no way I can close my suitcase (even with my brother and me sitting on top of it), I forget to put in something and then unpack everything to shove this thing or the other into the case and/or bag. Then I show up at the airport with too many pieces of hand luggage and try to explain to the check-in lady that "Yes, everything I'm holding in my hands DOES fit and WILL go into one single piece of hand luggage." They usually let me pass with a look of desperation aimed at me, the-well-travelled-passenger, who is at the airport so often that she is almost on the first name basis with the entire staff and who apparently gets completely overwhelmed by such a simple act as packing a suitcase. I am absolutely positive that people who travel with one suitcase and one piece of hand luggage only fly to a destination for a day and then back, just so they can make us, the we-cannot-pack people, feeling even more incompetent. My boyfriend is one of those people. His suitcase is always professionally packed and he always has space left in it. I watched him pack and I still don't understand how he does it! The last time we were packing together, I think he got frustrated with me and told me to sit down and watch while he packed my suitcase. I watched, but I didn't learn.

I will now go and observe my suitcase. It still isn't closed though. Maybe if I stare at it kindly, it will close. Fingers crossed....



* suitcase image credit snarking.files.wordpress.com