Science Museum

I had a good weekend, pretty social this past weekend. Spent most of Saturday with some friends from Nipissing (teacher's college) who are all teaching in London like me. Two of the four of us had just arrived within the last two weeks, so were still getting over jetlag. I had brunch with Erin at a lovely crepe place near the museum, and then we met Theresa and Jess at the Science Museum. There was lots to see there, beginning with a materials exhibit--we saw some housing material that had been fashioned together from all kinds of different materials (from carpeting to wood to plastic and foam). That is to say, each layer was fastened together to make very heavy and well-insulated walls. We also looked at a display which showed all the different materials that are used to make replacement body parts, from dissolvable stitches to pins for hips and knees to stints to keep blood flowing through one's veins. The high heels made out of carpet were a highlight, as was the evening jacket made out of steel wool.

We also saw an interesting exhibit outlining different inventions that have changed our society over the last 1000 years, and a favourite of mine, showing the progression of "things" in our homes over time--from the wash tub and scrub board to the oldest washing machines to a contemporary one; and similar displays for irons, lamps/lights, stoves, etc.

Toasters!
Me, Theresa, Jess, Erin.
the progression of agriculture:Massey combine harvester, circa 1953, I believe.

Sunday I got to the London Mennonite Centre for their monthly lunch, and then played piano at church. I was able to sign the "leaving book" for the LMC hosts who are heading back to the States in just over a week's time, and then skeddaddled on home to do some schoolwork which I had left largely undone for most of the weekend. Finding the right balance between wanting to go in prepared Monday morning and needing time off to relax too is something I'm still working on. My kids are quick to comment every time I forget to change the daily schedule or the day's helpers or the behaviour board! Happy late January to you....

Goodbye to my Canadian Housemates

It's been a busy week. On Thursday, Melissa and Dusty left Park Avenue for the last time. They arrived in September 2008 on the Holidaymaker's visa, which entitled them to live here for 2 years, but only work for 12 months of that. I'm on the Youth Mobility visa (applicants up to 30 years old may apply) which replaced the Holidaymaker's visa) and I'm allowed to live and work here for two years. So we had a farewell dinner at a local restaurant early in the week, and then I said goodbye to them on Thursday morning. They took 7 massive suitcases/hockey bags to the airport with them. I'm missing them already. I am finally starting to get to know my Swedish housemates a bit. The two teens (Sona and Dennis) have been working really hard on correspondence studies to complete their high school education and get ready for university this fall, so I had barely seen a trace of them the first week they were here. Maria quit the job she had taken on mid-week, she got thrown into a nightmare class without any warning or support. She is now much happier on day-to-day supply work. Two of my friends from teacher's college arrived in London this week, so I'm hoping to get together with them soon.

School continues busy. We had our first "Big Write" on Friday. The kids got between 20 (yr 1) and 40 (yr 3 and up) minutes to write about the best day of their life. This coming week the theme is the worst day of your life. There's been lots of insets and information going around about that to get everyone on board. We're playing games each morning that target four things: Vocabulary (WOW words), Connectives (but, and, if, etc), Openers (how to begin a sentence), and Punctuation, known by the acronym VCOP. To make this a special time, the school has gone to a lot of effort to get folders for each child to store their Big Writes, special pens and paper that only get used for Big Write, and candles (fake for the younger kids) for the desks. Before recess we play a bunch of quick VCOP games, and then give the kids time to compose their thoughts on graphic organizers, and then after playtime, they come in and we play quiet classical music during the silent writing time.

David ( a friend from the Mennonite church) and I had dinner at an Italian restaurant near Leicester (pronounced Lester) Square last night and then went to see a show called The Misanthrope. It was played in the Comedy Theatre, but it had more of a postmodern cynicism to it...interesting anyway. It had the rhythms and rhymes of Shakespeare in contemporary prose with a modern theme. It was my first experience of standing to watch a show--we got the last two tickets available in the house. The theatre was very tall--we were standing on the third balcony, and looked to have been built in Victorian times. Leicester Square is an amazing part of London. There is theatre upon theatre upon comedy club upon theatre upon more comedy clubs for several blocks.

Snow and the V and A Museum and Little South Asia

London has been dumped with massive amounts of snow this week...approximately 1 inch or so. It's also been extremely cold this week--about -2 C or thereabouts. For this reason, most sensible and paranoid Londoners have stayed home instead of going out into the dreadful weather. My school however, opted to stay open since the main roads were clear (and Gascoigne is located on a main road). The teachers in my staff room were joking that if this were the London Blitz, our head would have said, "The skies are clear. School's open." Sarcasm aside, it has felt damp and chilly this week, and unfortunately the children have not be allowed out to play in it because none of them have snowsuits--an unheard-of thing in London. So they've been pretty hyper this week as it's been an entire week of indoor recesses (and they REALLY want to play in the snow since it's such a novelty), after two weeks of holiday excesses and being spoiled rotten. Furthermore, it's been less than 15 C in my classroom this week as one of the radiators wasn't working. It hasn't been a great week for teaching. However, I've been trying to keep the above things in mind and not take it personally when they get up and start pacing around the room in the middle of a lesson. I'm hoping it warms up soon so they can get outside again.

I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum with a friend from church today. I believe it started out as a gallery for Victoria and Albert's collection of things. It's an extensive museum now, somewhat like the ROM in Toronto. We spent four hours touring through three exhibits: sculptures from Medieval and Renaissance Europe, including Roman fountains and depictions of the three magi among other things; various artifacts from China: Ming vases and furniture from various dynasties, clothing and grave relics (I'm not sure if that's the proper term...various articles that were buried with the dead) and some modern art pieces; and finally an exhibit of photography, of which my favourite was a photograph of a woman selling newpapers while behind her was a flurry of activity making a statement about the constant motion of time about us.

For dinner, we walked down Brick Lane, which was clearly a hub of Indian and other South Asian restaurants and stores. At each restaurant, there was a man outside doing a hard sell job on each person who passed to convince them to come into his establishment. Free wine and beer were on offer, as well as 25-30% discounts off menu prices, and special deals where you get an appetizer plus main course plus dessert and drinks for a single rate. We were accosted more than a dozen times in the span of two blocks by these marketers. I had to laugh as each man politely waited for the man in front of him to finish his spiele, and then as soon as we walked on towards him, he'd launch into his appeal for why his restaurant was better and how many awards it had won from various sources and what better deals he could give us . It reminded me of time our family spent in Nigeria some twenty-odd years ago, when fruit sellers would complain, "Why do you not buy from my hand?" after my mother had purchased bananas from a competing trader.

Have a good week all. JKN