Odds and Sods...

Hello again. This blog entry is a mish-mash of lots of little details.

I got up at 6:30 this morning to go and meet Emily at the airport. After showering, I went online to check her flight status fortunately, for I suddenly realized that her flight is scheduled to leave Toronto at 21:50 tonight, May 29, arriving at 9:55 tomorrow morning. I had misread it as she was arriving 9:55 on May 29. So I took the opportunity to go to a walk-in clinic about a persistent sore throat/tickly cough I've had the last week or two to make sure it wasn't anything serious. The message I got was that it's a virus and Ibuprofin and hot drinks/good hydration are the best remedy. It's a rainy, uninspiring day here, so I think I'll do a bit of planning for my tutoring students and then relax with a good book or movie...maybe a puzzle.

This is an example of the clothing collection flyers that come through our mail slot at least twice a week here every week without fail. They promise that you are helping people in Britain who collect, grade, and transport the clothing, and people in Third World countries who earn money sorting them, and who can access inexpensive clothing. I'm less than certain about the benefits to the Third World nations receiving this charity, but they must have a lot of people convinced given how many different organizations send around weekly or bi-weekly flyers soliciting my unwanted clothes.
This is a map showing the approximate route of my trip around Europe with Karen this August. (We've revised the schedule since I drew this map, so the numbers don't all conincide perfectly.) The stopping points are as follows: 1) London; 2) Paris; 3) Bruges (Belgium); 4) near Koln (Germany: to visit IVEP friends); 5) Amsterdam; 6)Berlin; 7) via Prague to Vienna; 8) Salzburg; 9) Ingolstadt (near Munich, to visit another IVEP friend); 10) Zurich (Switzerland); 11) Bern (Switzerland: to visit another IVEP friend); 12) Venice; 13) Rome; 14) Cinque Terre (Italy) 15) Avignon (France) via Nice; 16) Barcelona (Spain); 17) Lisbon (Portugal).
And this is a picture of Primrose Hill, where I had a picnic with Theresa and Jess (Cdn teacher friends) last Saturday. The weather was gorgeous and the hill afforded a nice view of London as you can see in the picture above.

Another Week Almost Over

It's hard to believe May is practically over. I've had a good week this week, supplying in Yr. 3 and 4 classrooms for the first half of the week. This morning, I was in a rush on the way to work and then I walked through Dagenham East tube station. Beethoven's 9th was playing: not the big, brash "Let's get 'im, boys" triumphal anthem where the orchestral and choral forces all come together, but the serene chamber statement of the theme. Like Kennedy station in Toronto, Dagenham East always plays classical (and usually string quartets and other chamber music) music. It helped me to relax into another day.

One more day of tutoring this week, and then I'm off for another week of vacation. My friend Emily arrives on Saturday morning from Toronto, and I'll be spending the week with her, touring around London and hiking around English cottage country. We're taking the train up to Moreton-on-the-Marsh and then hiking to Chipping Campden. We're walking along the Cotswold Trail over the next three days, through old medieval (and maybe even a Roman) villages dotted throughout the countryside. I hope to get lots of pictures of picturesque thatched cottages and such.

I'll be updating with photos next week.

Cheerio.

An Afternoon with Michael Rosen

The school I tutor at had a visit from Michael Rosen today. Rosen, for the uninitiated, is a fantastic children's poet and novelist, the fifth Children's Laureate (2007-2009) with a wonderful sense of humour that everyone can relate to. He told us stories and recited poems based on his family relationships. The way he related things and the facial and vocal expressions he used had the kids in stitches for most of the hour-plus assembly. I went out to an ATM after school in order to have some cash to buy a few of his books.

This was my favourite poem of his.

Washing Up:

On Sundays,

my mom and dad said,

'Right, we've cooked the dinner,

you two can wash it up,'

and then they went off to the front room.

So then we began.

First there was a row about who

was to wash and who was to dry.

My brother said, 'You're too slow at washing,

I have to hang about waiting for you,'

so I said,

'You always wash, it's not fair.'

'Hard cheese,' he says,

'I'm doing it.'

So that was that.

'Whoever dries has to stack the dishes,'

he says,

so that's me stacking the dishes

while he's getting the water ready.

Now,

quite often we used to have mustard

with our Sunday dinner

and we didn't have it out of a tube,

one of us used to make it with the powder

in an eggcup

and there was nearly always

some left over.

Anyway,

my brother

he'd be washing up by now

and he's standing there at the sink

his hands in the water,

I'm drying up,

and suddenly he goes,

'Quick, quick quick

come over here

quick, you'll miss it

quick, you'll miss it.'

'What?' I say, 'What?'

'Quick, quick. In here,

in the water.'

I say,

'What? What?'

'Give us your hand,' he says

and he grabs my hand

then my finger,

'What?' I say,

'That,' he says,

and he pulls my finger under the water

and stuffs it into the eggcup

with left-over blobs of old mustard

stuck to the bottom.

It's all slimey.

'Oh Horrible.'

I was an idiot to have believed him.

So I go on drying up.

Suddenly

I feel a speck of water on my neck.

I look up at the ceiling.

Where did that come from?

I look at my brother

he's grinning all over his big face.

'Oy, cut that out,'

He grins again

sticks his finger under the water

in the bowl and

flicks.

Plip.

'Oy, that got me right on my face.'

'Did it? did it? did it?'

He's well pleased.

So now it's my turn

I've got the drying up cloth, haven't I?

And I've been practicing for ages

on the kitchen door handle.

Now he's got his back to me

washing up

and

out goes the cloth, like a whip, it goes

right on the--

'Ow--that hurt. I didn't hurt you.'

Now it's me grinning.

So he goes,

'All right, let's call it quits.'

'OK,' I say, 'one-all. Fairy squarey.'

So I go on drying up.

What I don't know is that

he's got the Fairy Liquid bottle under the

water

boop boop boop boop boop boop

It's filling up

with dirty soapy water

and next thing it's out of the water

and he's gone squeeesh

and squirted it right in my face.

'Got you in the mush,' he goes.

'Right, that's it,' I say,

'I've had enough.'

And I go upstairs and get

this old bicycle cape I've got,

one of those capes you can wear

when you ride a bicycle in the rain.

So I come down in that

and I say,

'OK, I'm ready for anything you've got now.

You can't get me now, can you?'

So next thing he's got the little

washing-up brush

and it's got little bits of meat fat

and squashed peas stuck in it

and he's come up to me

and he's in, up, under the cape with it

working it round and round

under my jumper, under my chin.

So that really makes me really wild

and I make a grab for anything that'll

hold water; dip it in the sink

and fling it at him.

What I don't know is that while I went upstairs to get the cape

he's got a secret weapon ready.

It's his bicycle pump,

he's loaded it with the dirty washing-up water

by sucking it all in.

He picks it up,

and it's squirt again.

All over my hair.

Suddenly the door opens.

'Have you finished the...?'

It's Mum AND Dad.

'Just look at this.

Look at the pair of them.'

And there's water all over the floor

all over the table

and all we've washed up is

two plates and the mustard pot.

My dad says,

'You can't be trusted to doanything you're asked,

can you.'

He always says that.

Mind you, the floor was pretty clean

after we had mopped it all up.

Dreadful Day, Great Day

I had an awful day in a year 2 classroom on Tuesday this week. I basically lost complete control of the class and ended up falling back on yelling at kids who wouldn't listen again. Lots of thoughts like, Why did I become a teacher again? and Who do I hate more right now--myself or these children? and How do I get to the end of the day? The guest PE teacher who was teaching them had almost as much difficulty with them.

Wednesday was a completely different day. I'd had a conversation with another teacher in the staffroom on Tuesday who said I had to establish my authority first thing, as soon as I met the kids lining up in the playground. I've heard this before in teacher's college, but something about the way she said it, or perhaps after being in the trenches awhile it finally sunk in and made sense, it was different this time.

So I headed off to my Yr 5 class on Wednesday morning, determined to try it out. I made a point of watching my assigned class for a minute or two before it was time to meet them, and trying to gauge which children to watch for. Then I went up to meet them and immediately gave the kid who was messing around the option to "stand sensibly" (a British favourite) now or practice with me at playtime. He--and everyone else--chose the first option. I had a really great day with them. I laid out my expectations really clearly first off and asked them to go over the class rules. Then I gave them a riddle to think about, and established a reward system--index cards for everyone, and the opportunity to win stamps for positive behaviours with a few prizes handed out at the end of the day for the most stamps. In truth, it was a pretty easy day: the class teacher had missed science last week because of SATs tests, and with a trip to the Royal Observatory planned for next week, the other Yr 5 teacher suggested spending the whole day doing science. So we spent the day talking about and looking at computer models of the relationship of the moon and earth to the sun, the hemispheres of the earth and the equator and the North and South Poles. Then we drew shadow landscapes. The kids were crazy to find out the answer to the riddle and I had one kid ask, "Can you come back tomorrow?" Wow. That's a first ever.

I'm hoping I can use this new insight to help improve my management techniques...I feel a bit silly it's taken me eight months to figure it out, but I guess better late than never. :)

Live and learn.

An Eventful Week

It has been an interesting week here. Monday, David and I walked along the Thames Trail--a trail that incidentally disappeared quite frequently. Fortunately, David knew his way around the area and got us to Greenwich, where we saw the Royal Observatory and the Meridian line (though because it was closed for the Bank Holiday, the gate was locked, so we couldn't actually stand with one foot in either hemisphere).

The work week passed fairly quickly, with lots of excitement here ever since Thursday when the elections happened. There had been a threat of the neo-fascist, very racist British National Party getting elected in Barking (there had been 12 BNP councillors on town council here since the last election). Labour put on a major push to educate people about this threat and it worked: instead of the 38% voter turnout that is typical in Barking, 62% came out, and the Labour incumbent, Margaret Hodge won by a landslide (24 000 to 6 000, with the Tories pulling ahead of the BNP with 8 000 votes. The BNP were wiped out, not only missing out on sending an MP to the House of Parliament, but also losing every one of their council members.

Nationally, the Tories led by David Cameroun took 306 seats, to Gordon Brown's 258 Labour seats and the Liberal Democrats (led by Nick Clegg) took 57 seats. This resulted in what the Brits call a "hung parliament," something which they are not used to, the last minority government being elected in 1974. This has led to a flurry of discussion between Nick Clegg/Lib Dems (who holds the balance of power in this situation) and David Cameroun/Tories, whom Clegg chose to talk to first since he won the most seats. This election has really made the need for electoral reform (particularly proportional representation) clear to the electorate, though the Tories in particular are dragging their feet. Ongoing talks between the Tories and Lib Dems are planned for the next 24 hours, and it could be a few days yet before a new Prime Minister is announced. In the meantime, Brown remains PM and the people of Britain have lots to talk about politically.

Yesterday, I was at a gardening party for someone at church. Lesley struggles with chronic cancer pain and has quite a large backyard to take care of, so there were about 10 or 15 of us at her house for a good portion of the day yesterday, weeding, mowing, burning dry wood and such. It was a fun day...Lesley provided lunch for us and we had a good time. My hamstrings are feeling it today...don't use those muscles quite so much normally.

Today we had a lovely visit at the London Mennonite Centre featuring visitors Alan and Ellie Kreider, who founded the LMC some 35 years ago now. They both spoke about the paradigm shift in mission (from being something that the church sends specialist people "out there" to do, to something that God calls each one of us to, right here in our own communities). Lovely lunch and a good visit--visitors who were at the church during the Kreiders' time swelled the ranks to 35 or 40 today.

Well, I'm just about ready for bed. Good night!

Another Quiet Weekend...

Well, another week-and-a-half has passed since my last post. I got a full week of work last week related to the volcano-induced travel chaos; some schools had as many as 10 or 15 teachers missing on the Monday after the holiday. Shows you how many teachers go abroad on vacation during the holidays...by this week, schools seemed to be back to normal functioning for the most part. Last Saturday, I met some friends and we had a picnic in Hyde Park. It was an absolutely gorgeous day for it, 21C, and I think half of London had the same idea. The park was filled with friends, couples, families some with picnic lunches, others with balls and frisbees and towels to lay out and enjoy the sun's rays.

Erin and Jess, my teacher friends on our makeshift picnic blanket (a bedsheet).

Sunday, Wood Green was having a no-church Sunday to encourage everyone to visit a different Anabaptist church. I chose to go back to Barking Baptist as I hadn't been there in over a month. It was good to see people I hadn't seen in a while, and I enjoyed a long Sunday afternoon to walk around the neighbourhood, and relax. Over supper, I was making a batch of banana muffins, so I had my laptop down in the kitchen (I didn't have space to bring a truckload of cookbooks with me, so if I can't find the recipe I want in one of my few books here, I look it up online and read it off the internet) and had a nice chat with a friend from my Stirling church family in between mixing muffin batter.

This week has been pretty good. I had nursery (am) and reception (pm) classes on Wednesday which was fun. So cute! On Thursday and Friday, I had my regular tutoring work again. I got quite upset and angry on Thursday upon hearing about one of my 9-yr old students (who is struggling in math) who is under a high degree of stress and being made to feel like a failure because of the government's bloody fetish with standardized testing results...the whole rant is on Facebook, if you care to read.

This weekend I have very few plans. I do need to get to a laundromat today--our washing machine broke down (with my housemate's clothing inside it) last Friday night, and because the door is on the side and it electronically locks, it won't open now (because the water is still inside). My landlord has been here several times this week, but the engineer who was supposed to come never came and now this company (who's supposed to cover any repairs with our appliances) is making the excuse that this engineer was in an accident and now they're a week behind. As of last night, it had been 7 days since Maria's laundry went in the machine...I hate to think what the clothing will look like when it comes out eventually--which could be another 3-6 days. Who knows? I cannot wait that long, so will shell out a bit of cash today to get it done.

Monday is a Bank Holiday, and Thursday is election day, so it is going to be a short week this week. Here, they close the schools and make schools the polling stations for some reason. Other than going to church tomorrow, and maybe trying to catch a walk locally here in Barking today, I have no particular plans. Heck, it's 10 am and I haven't eaten breakfast yet...must be a lazy Saturday. I should start my day.

Ciao for now.

Julie