Week 3

>Can't access my gmail very reliably here. The facebook seems to be working better at the moment as is myspace so use those, post a reply on this, or even telephone me if you'd like to get in contact. As ever missing everyone loads.<

Half way through my time here and things were looking up. I found a wicked retro clothes shop in the Grassmarket area of Edinburgh, it's called Armstrongs and is somewhere between Oxfam and a costume shop in it's stock. I got this below the knee and above the belly button, tweed, A line skirt for £7. I wore that, a diamond print t-shirt and sensible shoes last Monday and brought open university dull-as-shit style to the pupils along with a scowl and zero tolerance rules. I found it difficult to align myself with the notion of school discipline, being one to feel like a caged bird at school in my own youth, but the prospect of acting the teacher rather than being it helped me through (long live the spirit of the dressup lunch). So last week I planned all the lessons on the Sunday, behaved like a teacher and it all went swimmingly.

This week however we're at full capacity, two management have left, the Italian and Spanish children are threatening gang war and the weather is muggy - I feel a storm may break...

(to be continued...)

Week 2

Social Highlights:
The Stand - sick of teachers and teaching I broke free and visited a comedy club alone. I felt like a bit of a weirdo for a while but then ran into a guy I'd met two years ago at a Cambridge comedy night, had a chat and ended up eating Pringles and dips with the stars of the Edinburgh comedy circuit in the tastefully leopard print green room of The Stand.
Albarrio - After the kid's 'P' disco (in which the only thing vaguely 'P' related they achieved was puke) I was finally warming to teachers and went out with my colleagues to Albarrio which is a Latino night club in what is known as the 'pubic triangle'; an area of Edinburgh dominated by strip clubs. We spent the whole night fending off invading men who tried to pick the women off like lions picking off wildebeests straying from the herd. A good exercise in teamwork.

An extract from the teaching week:
Background Info
Class of 16 kids, average age of 14, sent to UK by mummy and daddy to learn English. Exceedingly apathetic. Key Phrase - "Can I to toilet please" - meaning can I leave the room and speak to Camilla from class 3 for the next fifteen minutes. On discovering this toilet visits were banned in my class.

Story
Ana begins to cry and runs to the door. I ask her where she's going.
"Can I to toilet please?" She says between sobs. I take her out of the class and ask her what's wrong.
"My ankle" she replies
"What happened to your ankle?"
"He die las week" I try not to laugh, her poor dead ankle... She continues, "I think about and I sad... Can I to toilet please?"
"No," I say cruelly as I look at her rubbing her dry eyes and sobbing. Back in the class I realise there's only fifteen minutes left of the lesson and ignore Ana's crocodile tears as I try to sort out the bedlam that has ensued. Martina sits with Ana 'comforting her' eventually I go over and remind Ana that when we cry there are tears and tell Martina to go and get on with her work. I rush through the activity, and look at my watch, there's still half an hour left till the end of the class and Guilio has the look of someone trying to suppress a grin as I tell him to correctly set the time on the clock for me. Repeat ad infinitum.

Week 1

Just so you know, I've sent links to this blog to everyone I thought of in a five minute period, but please do pass it on, it's open for anyone to read.

OK, so now all my friends are truly dispersed everywhere I thought I could keep you all updated on my *wild* life via the geeky medium of blogging. Little update for all those I haven't spoken to so recently:

I graduated, I'm now teaching English in Edinburgh for the summer.

So, graduation ceremony; it was Saturday 1st July and too hot for gowns and furry hoods, but I kept mine on all day just to prove (to myself) I really had done a degree. I got up earlier than I'd have liked to, processed to Senate House pulled Laura Preston's finger, bowed to Onora O'niell and, was congratulated by Terri Apter then 'bang' I'd moved from the dangerously limminal status of 'Graduand' to 'Graduate', and was free!...

...to pack.

8 hours later I was in the car to go back to London, where I unpacked and re-packed my life and got on the 9am train to Edinburgh. Within 24 hours I'd moved from Graduand to Teacher, not bad for a day's work, eh.

So, that brings us up to speed. The first week here has been pretty hectic. The centre is a summer school where we cater for up to around 250 kids. There are about 20 members of staff. I'm a Teacher/Activity Leader (or in management speak T/AL). This means that I teach two lessons a day and most of the rest of my time supervise &/ run activities with the kids. By most of the rest of my time, I do mean I'm working pretty much 14 hour days. Disadvantage is I now have no life, advantage is I now spend no money. Extra advantage is I earn enough to maybe even save a little for my forthcoming trip to Berlin.

Anyway, that's my life in a nutshell. I'm now this moment on a rare afternoon break, so might go and sleep or something, will keep you posted on furthur developments.

> Cambridge friends; I miss you all terribly. I'm very bad at writing e-mails at the best of times, but I'll try to be in touch with you all individually at some point.