Nearly the holidays and 76.84!

Well the last three days of school passed without major incident, well barring one lesson on Thursday, but less said about that the better. School timetable did go rather chaotic in the last couple of days, because seven teachers were like ill or on training, or skiving (only joking, they're all a lovely hard-working bunch). Emailed Brum uni German Department about change of topic, year abroad tutors seem ok with it, tis up to my supervisor now!

Friday was cool, got to help teacher with marking the presentations in the first lesson, then a double lesson with the cute class 5s, fun and easy as always, even if the poor darlings are still rather confused as to how to tell the time in English, quarter to, quarter past and half past caused problems, cos telling the time is the other way round in Saxony. You say quarter-one meaning quarter past twelve, and three-quarter one means quarter to one, while half one means in fact half past twelve in English, yes you're confused, imagine how the kids felt! Class 10 was some fun speaking games for the last 20 minutes, (thank you Matt Sheeler for those ideas, they worked rather well, well as well as any ideas do work with class 10!

Friday night I went for a meal and drink with the teachers and parents of the ski trip back in January. The idea was for every adult to turn up, in the end only seven did, including myself. However, fun was still had, lovely and cheap food (but what would you expect from a village Bierkeller!), was followed by showing the photos of the ski-trip, on a big screen (kindly drilled into place on the overhead beam by the Bierkeller staff) using a beamer and a laptop. Good photos, good memories! After the meal and four beers (well four for me), we headed home, a very enjoyable night!

Today was spent a little bit in the library looking at old newspaper articles as part of my research, and generally mooching around Dresden and chilling here. Next week at school is only project days so nothing to prepare, and it is only Monday (when I am not there anyway) Tuesday and Wednesday, cos as of Thursday it is the holidays. Highlights of holidays could and probably will include, a visit by the legendary Morven, a visit by the lovely PGF (Parental Governing Force), and a visit to Freiburg to see Tom Hall, as well as a bit of uni work. Should be good, here's to the rest of the working term, and the up and coming holidays!

Oh yes and that leaves me with the number that's in the post title. 76.84, it's the cost of this month's phone bill. Yes that's right 76 euros and 84 cents. That's nearly half as much of my monthly rent again, (140) and over three times as much as the normal phone bill, I am paying nearly as much in VAT as my housemate is paying overall! The reason? Well those elections of course! Ringing your campaign manager on his mobile on a daily basis for a week is going to cost, ah well that'll teach me to run an election campaign from abroad, let that be a lesson to you all, campaigning from abroad costs money! Now I wonder if I can claim that cash back from the Guild somehow......

Leipzig and French Beaurocracy

Well in the end the lesson on Monday went quite well, certainly better than all other odd weeks we've had, even if not as good as weeks 2 and 4, but I'd still say we've managed to buck the trend I mentioned in my last post! School on Tuesday was ok, nothing extra special, supervising one lesson, while kids did project work, and taught in the other lesson, into which I even managed to slip in an easter quiz, which is always good.

Once I had finished school for the day Tuesday afternoon, I then get the bus to Dresden, to get the train to Leipzig, to go the French honorary consulate to do some paperwork. (Jeez how many tos in a sentence!). Just managed to get the 14:55 train, despite the fact there was a queue at the ticket office, and the machines had people who were taking absolutely ages (no doubt to piss me off on purpose, because they could see I was in an exasperated rush!). But no matter, I got on the train without a ticket after checking I could buy one on the train. I had to get to the consulate in Leipzig before it shut at 5pm, and I had to do it on Tuesday because that was the day when they had special people down from Berlin who could do what I needed to be done. What was needed to be done was filling-in a form so my mum can vote for me in the French presidential elections.

I arrived in Leipzig just after 4, and proceeded to find tramline number 9 (I had sensibly found out beforehand the address of the consulate, and also which tram was required to get there!), found it no problem, although I just missed a tram, and then had to wait 10 minutes. Tram arrived and I was on my merry way, two stops later, I got off, and started working around the Thomaskirchhof (Thomas church yard, loosely translated) looking for the consulate. After about 10 minutes I started to think it was going to be one of those occasions where I didn't find something that was straight in front of me, or worse I would find it after closing time. In the event I did find it, and I had walked past it minutes before and not seen it, but with only twenty minutes til closing and French beurocracy notoriously long and slow (I once waited three hours to be seen to for a passport!), I fully expected to be turned away because of lack of time. In the event I had to wait five minutes, the form-filling took another five, and I was done a whole 10 minutes before closing, not bad for French beaurocracy, must be that efficient German influence ;-).

Being done quicker than I expected meant that I had time to enjoy the sun and the city. It was my first time In Leipzig and it wasn't bad at all. I got some chips, and then an ice-cream, and just general bummed around some of the streets. I'd been told that Leipzig was bigger and my mentor teacher had said it was more modern than Dresden. It is bigger in population this is true, though not by loads, and yes the city was more modern if you will. It felt more like a city than Dresden, in the sense that everything is packed closer together, the buildings are taller and the streets narrower. There were also fewer things growing. Now granted I was only there for a grand total of two hours, but Leipzig certainly felt like other German (or even European cities) I've already visited. Dresden on the otherhand, does not have as many high-rise buildings, has wider streets, more open spaces and generally just feels less busy and more relaxed. This is not to say I didn't like Leipzig, I did (well what little I saw), I just Dresden is, as we say in German etwas besonderes (something special). Well I think so anyway.

And so after my analytical walk through the city centre I mosied back the the train station and got the regional train back to Dresden. On the way in I'd got the Inter-City-Express, but at a cost of 15 euros single I decided as I was not in a rush I would take the regional train. The regional takes longer, but it is a couple of euros cheaper, and I only had to pay half the distance, because my wonderful semester ticket was then valid on it, once we reached the Upper-Elbe ticketing region. So in the end I only paid 5 euros 30, yay me! The 1 hour and 40 minute train journey, as opposed to 1 hour and 10 allowed me time to think, and get bored. Think so much that I decided to randomly change my essay topic for my German Year Abroad Essay. But that's another story for another post. In the end I got home safe and sound, after having, in the end, I rather enjoyable afternoon!

The Last Week

Well this brings me right up to doodley doodley date, woohoo! Well it's been an average sort of week, but one that hasn't been overly bad. Started well, with our teachers' lesson on Monday going well, and them enjoying it for a change, although I see a pattern emerging of the odd-week lessons (weeks 1 and 3) not going as well as we'd hoped, and the even numbered weeks going a lot better (weeks 2 and 4), here's hoping tomorrow will buck the trend!

Tuesday at school was rather easy, having only the one lesson, meant things weren't too bad. Wednesday, as always, was rather more taxing, but I managed it still, mission accomplished. Planned next Monday's teaching lesson with Lara on Wednesday afternoon, quietly confident this one is going to be a good'un, but you never know! Thursday unspectacular, apart from the fact the day kind of got wasted school aside. Friday was again a challenge, but the lessons went well and were enjoyable, even though I had to tell class 5 off for the first time ever (the poor little things, they were so shocked!), but the lessons on my own aren't going too badly.

Then onto the weekend of fun! I went out for a little bit of a pub crawl with another language assistant, Louise. Lost track of the bars we went into, or the glasses of wine, beers, and cocktails we drank, but it was still a quality night. Although the wall I threw up on might disagree somewhat. (Hey it doesn't happen often that I throw up on the night in question, heck I rarely throw up at all with alcohol! Well rarely....). Woke up on Saturday fully-clothed, I'd fallen asleep on my bed as soon as I got in (this was more cos I had been up for 22 hours straight than because of the alcohol, honest!). I then wasted most of the day, did 90mins research in the library before going off for a meal at someone's house.

Today I have spent chilling and dossing, because I can without feeling guilty, seeing as the library is shut...Ah well, I'll do some schoolwork eventually! Toodle-pip!

Now just how are my resolutions doing?

You remember that long post I made about my hopes, dreams, desires and resolutions etc etc. Well I'd thought it would be interesting, nearly three months into the year, to see precisely how many of these damn resolutions have already gone down the proverbial plug hole quicker than a rat up a drain pipe.

• To go swimming at least once a week. - This never got off the ground, don't know what i was thinking with this one, it'll happen eventually eventually, just don't know when.

• To try out a new form of exercise during the year. - I actually did this, cross country skiing was actually something I'd never done before, and by the end move myself on the damn things to some extent.
  

• To spend a reasonable part of Thursdays (and some Sundays) on my Year Abroad Essays until they are done, as well as any time when I am feeling bored. - Well I have been working more seriously on them then I was before Christmas, and although I am not spending every waking moment when I am not in school on them, I am doing some work on them every week.
  

• To worry less about every little thing that happens, to over analyse stuff less and chillax. - I think exec elections apart, I have got better on this front, granted there is plenty of room for improvement.
  

• To be more patient and tolerant. - Little improvement here I am afraid, but I have not really been put to the test yet.

• To procrastinate less, and spend less time on msn, facebook, as well as other net distractions, (whoops what am I doing on here!) . - I am cutting down msn use a little, and I have started to learn how to work without having the computer when it is unnecessary, but still could be a lot better!

• To be more studious and organised with work. - Some improvement here, but still way off, see above points

• To be less clumsy in actions and speech. - Not been put to the test here really, but this hasn't changed much to be honest.

So all in all a mixed bag, but not as bad as I thought. Only one thing have I completely ballsed-up, the rest are either still achievable or only partly achieved, but still completely achievable. And I have fulfilled one completely. Although having said that, most of my resolutions are quite vague in terms knowing when you have achieved them, which I suppose one could let me off the hook come December...

Last Saturday's Six Nations

God 9 days after re-starting my blog, I am nearly back up to date. Now we're moving onto last weekend, the Friday night (16th) was nothing absolutely special, went out with a few of the language assistants drinking some cocktails, going round the bars, and as usual ending up in Flower Power (cheese central), and as usual I went home before everyone else (still 3am) cos I was shattered.

Saturday did a smattering of work (underline the word smattering), before buggering off to the Irish pub in the evening. Now usually I don't do this in Germany, go to Irish pubs, to watch British/Irish sport and drink drinks that I can drink in Britain (and let's be honest, on the drink front I don't miss the lager sold in Britain one bit), however, occasionally with a big sporting event I do compromise and heave my behind into the Irish pub. Previous occasions have been FA Cup 3rd Round back in January, and also one time in Hamburg when I was with a load of English people. Anyway this was for the last weekend of the six nations rugby.

I arrived just as France scored their last try to take the six nations (gripping stuff) in place of Ireland who'd played the earlier game. All that was left was Wales against England. Match started at a frantic pace, and England were a little sluggish, Wales took full advantage being 15-0 up in 15 minutes, and completely dominated the opening 30 minutes. But they didn't take advantage and before you knew it it was 15-10, before Wales getting another penalty but England striking and it was 18-15 at half time.

I thought Wales had royally fucked it up. And feeling was confirmed as England levelled early in the second half, and for a while it looked as if England were going to win. But they couldn't get in the lead, and after a few penalties and a drop kick Wales were back in the lead 27-18 as the match went into the final seconds. After it finished it was pandamonium and Cardiff, and our pub was quite loud as well ;-). There weren't just Irish people, but Scots, Englishmen, Welshmen, and Germans! I never knew there were so many English-speakers in Dresden. It seemed like every English-speaking ex-pat was there! But what really summed the night up for me was text from my mate Tom at the end about the match and match-winner James Hook, which read "Fucking+Yes, I loves James Hook I do", Amen to that!

The rest of the night involved having a couple of Guinesses, and generally chatting and chilling before I left for home, not a late one for me, not after the previous night anyway!

Fourty-nine

I had a nice surprise as I walked into the staff room last Friday, and it wasn't a 50 euro note on my desk either. There was a cut-out flower silhouette pinned to the notice board with the number 49 on it. I quickly ascertained that this was the number of pupils that the school had got next year. Teachers, secretary and headmaster alike were all rightly over the moon. This was indeed good news, it means the school will be allowed to open two classes next year. My colleagues will not have to start looking for new jobs, nor pupils be shipped off to other schools, so all in all good stuff.

Readers of this in Britain (so that's pretty much all of you then!), will wonder why the hell a secondary school with only 49 new pupils is being allowed to be kept open! Well things are different here in Germany, one has to see this in the context of the German school system (I say German, it varies considerably between the different Länder), before one understands what the hell is going on.

For starters there is generally no comprehensive education system in Germany. While there are some comps in some German states, at the age of 10 after children have finished klasse 4 of primary school (the equivalent of our year 5 in age) more often than not they are sent to one of three types of secondary school, Gymansium (grammar school), Realschule,(middle ability school) and Hauptschule (secondary modern-school for the kids who really struggle), depending on their marks. In Saxony the lower two types of schools are under one rooth, and are called Mittelschule. It is generally the Gymansium kids who will go onto uni, after 8 years of secondary school (klasse 5-12), while the kids in the other types of school do 5 (Hauptschule) or 6 (Realschule), you can swap up and down, but most kids will stay where they are put.

Now leaving a debate about the merits of a comprehensive versus a selective school system (that's for a whole other post), this bi or tri school system, means that schools will naturally be smaller, although Gymansien are more the size of a british comp, the Mittelschule in Saxony aren't.

Another reason as to why the schools are smaller is that this is the country, not a buzzing metropolis, there are limits to how far you can bus pupils, so you can't simply have fewer schools per square kilometre because there are fewer pupils per square kilometre than in the cities. It may also simply be that this is just the way the school system has developed in this part of Saxony.

Now, after having worked at my school for the last six months, I happen to think that a smaller school is a good thing. Everything is so much more personal, everyone knows everybody else, there's one hell of a school ethos, not saying you don't at bigger schools, but it isn't as all-consuming, and it depends on the school, mine had one, doesn't mean all do, and it's just generally cosier. It also has the added bonus of being much more friendly and welcoming for foreign language assistants, who are then made to feel part of the school community much quicker! ;-) But alas, crude economics tend to ensure that schools have to close resulting in bigger more anonymous schools, damn those penny-pinching tax-payers ;-)

This brings me back to the school I am working at, it isn't safe forever. The local education authority seems hellbent on closing schools wherever possible, like all education authorities. But for now at least the school can look forward to another year, and hope to reach its centenary in 2008, hurrah for my school!

March and Prague

And so after elections I settled back down into my normal routine, and it was the month of March. The weather started warming up, and school was getting better and there was a trip to Prague, and all was right with the world. The trip to Prague on the weekend of the 9th March was one of the best weekends I've had in ages.

It started, as all good weekends do on a Friday, after school had finished. I went back from Schmiedeberg to Bannewitz, finished packing, and was on merry way to Dresden Hauptbahnhof. Thought the time was going to be a little tight, but again was no point having any concern. The train was late (as most of them are on that Prague Hamburg route, although it is usually in the other direction). But seeing as it had come from Denmark, maybe that wasn't such a massive surprise. (Nothing against the Danes or their punctuality, it is just the distance that reduces my surprise. Anyway 20 minutes after scheduled departure time Louise, Enrico, Tomek and I were unterwegs.

Arriving in Prague after a fun journey (consisted of me and Louise singing old scout songs), we quickly got to our rooms in our B&B and then left again to meet up with Tom Hall from uni, the lucky bugger has semester holidays from Freiburg and was in Prague too with a friend from Freiburg, Charlie. We then went for a meal, although finding somewhere to eat was harder than expected (it was gone 10), we still found somewhere, even though it was rather posh and expensive (well expensive by Prague standards anyway, still reasonable for us). We then went for a drink in a noisy bar playing crap music, before heading back to our respective hostels for bed.

The next morning the four of us headed over to Vsryhard, which is an old fort near to where we were staying. After taking ages to get back out of the fort again, (I thought forts we supposed to keep people out, not keep people in), we went into the old part of town across the river and up the hill. We looked round the castle and went into the Cathedral, before heading down to the small mini version of the Eiffel Tower they have in Prague, went to the top of that, so we ended up getting two views of the city (having already been up the Cathedral tower). Then it was back down the hill, on the cable car thingy this time, before settling down in a bar for some drink and eventually food. I say in a bar, it was a restaurant that was in a small courtyard, kept warm by patio heaters. pretty cool. After finishing eating we headed back into the town centre. Me, Tom and Charlie went for more drinks in the same bar as the night before (it was playing better music this time!), before saying goodbye as Charlie and Tom were leaving the next day, and going back to hostels for sleep.

Sunday after breakfast the four of us largely bummed about the Jewish quarter and the old town, enjoying the improved weather, it was like Friday again (Saturday had got a bit cooler), before eventually leaving during late afternoon for Dresden. Journey home passed without incident, train was on time even though it had come all the way from Budapest. And we all arrived home knowing we'd had a wonderful in (mostly)n sunny Prague.

Guild Elections

For those of you who were perhaps on another planet during the past 6 weeks, and therefore didn't hear me say it like a million times, I ran in the Brum Uni Guild elections for the position of Ethical and Environmental Officer. Position responsible for Guild ethical and environmental campaigning and policy essentially. I was doing something a bit off the wall, in that I was running for election from abroad, and I was going to be spending most of the campaign abroad. Anyway my nomination form was in for the beginning of February, and I was officially a candidate.

I then generally got stressed while waiting to leave for Britain in the second half of my February holidays. I eventually did leave looking forward to not only being on-site and able to do things, but also to see and speak to all my uni friends some of whom I hadn't seen since I left Brum last June (two short visits in August and December notwithstanding). However I was also aware that this trip would be no picnic seeing as I would have to run around like a madman sorting out as much stuff as possible for the campaign. However, there was time for the occasional drink with friends, even if it was not as much as I'd have liked.

With regards to the elections themselves, it was as last year, and the year before, and probably the year before that. Loads of people running around in silly costumes, with silly slogans and silly gimmicks, (I include myself in this, Captain Planet!), and also the mud-slinging, partisanship , casual insults and occasional obscenities.

A perfect example of this was Facebook and the last hustings outside the shitty food place. Now some background is required here, the elections in the past few years have been rather Labour Students dominated, this year members of a newly revitalised Conservative Future decided to run as well. At these hustings one of the candidates from Conservative Future running for one of the positions, instead of making a speech about himself decided to lambast the people who'd set up a group called "Let's run the clean slate Tory twats" on Facebook. He was stopped and a row then ensued once hustings were complete. I wasn't there at the hustings two days before, but by all accounts the Tories hardly covered themselves in glory there as well.

Don't get me wrong the Labour lot were just as bad, and it was members of Labour Students who set up that Facebook group originally as far as I am aware. I am not a fan of party politics in student politics, I think it's divisive, distracting, counter-productive and also irrelevant to many student issues. Overall I was just dismayed that I had come back to Britain to see the same sort of low-brow student politics that I had seen last year, which the above was but the worst example. I had the mistaken belief that things might have changed, but then again I had the mistaken belief that students were generally nicer more progressive people, shows what I know eh!

And so after three days of running around in the cold it was time to depart again, managed not to die of boredom on the long train journey home, which I also managed to avoid on the way to Britain. I then proceeded to get stressed and worried during the climax of the campaign when I was back in Germany starting school again. I needn't have got so worked up, my campaigners did a wonderful job, and did me really proud, and I also won, by a considerable margin once second and third choices had been counted.

However, it was was a bitter-sweet victory, as my Steven didn't manage to win his much harder campaign for President. Still at least we got one out of two, the support he and Becky gave me alongside that of my campaign team was really brilliant, couldn't done it without any of them! And now two weeks after the results were announced, and I have managed to absorb it all. I can say I am looking forward to starting my work in August, but also hope that Guild politics takes a turn for the better next year.

To February and beyond

Well February started with election preparation, nomination form got handed in and suchlike. (More about election claptrap in another post). Although the first thing of note might have actually been the open evening at the school. But my memory is not brilliant when posting about this weeks later. The opening evening was very much a success I think, although it made it a very long day for me at the school, was there from 8am to 9pm, although I did stay extra for the musical, and to help tidy up. The school ethos was present again in droves, especially as we all helped to take the stage down in the gym after the musical had finished.

The school term continued on its unstoppable course until a two-week holiday appeared on the horizon. Well I say holiday, but I use the term extremely loosely. I spent the first week doing work for my essay, and recovering a cold I had the previous week. The second travelling to and from and being in Birmingham for elections (again more in a later post). After I got back and a week had passed and elections were over it was March. And that my friends is a whole other story....

So just how did I beat the usual post-Christmas down feeling? Also known as January!

Been wondering this myself, when I left Britain on 2nd January I felt my stay in Britain had been rather short, didn't see everyone I wanted to enough, etc etc. I was worried that now I had to get on with school and uni work (especially the latter) that I would be a bit down. Surprisingly (well much to my surprise) the first few days back where nowhere near as painful as I anticipated, in fact they were ok allround, it was around this time that I posted my last blog entries before tonight.

So what happened to the rest of January? Well the highlight of Jan was undoubtedly the ski trip I went on with the school. My mentor teacher had said that there was a possibility I could go on this ski-trip back when I arrived in September, I hoped this was not idle empty promises, and it turned out they weren't. True to their word the school let me go with the year 7s on their ski-trip. The year 7 has three classes, which means for our school that it is by a good country mile the biggest year group(all the other years have either one or two classes). It meant that the ski-trip this year had to be split into two halves. Two classes going in one half, and the other class and the remedial set going in the second week. My mentor teacher had tried to get me on both, but when this wasn't possible, I was put in with the second group. All in all it was a great holiday, I learnt a new sport (while I have been skiing before that was always Alpine, had never done cross country before), got to know the pupils better and got to know the teachers better. As well as having a thoroughly enjoyable, even if I am not ever going to properly master the sport ;-).

After we got back it snowed here in our neck of the woods. This I found quite ironic, seeing as we had had very little snow during our trip to the Czech Republic, and had had to get gondolas up to the top of the mountain every day even for cross country skiing. Seeing as it snowed, and the snow stuck for more than the 12 hours it does in Britain, one of the teachers took me skiing (again cross country) with her the following weekend, near to where she lives. It was a good day, with a mixture of having to trudge through deep snow, as well as being able to push and glide over compacted snow on paths. Met the teacher's family, two lovely little kids and a cool husband. Bit of a sporty family all round, kids so young but easily out-skiing me!

Aside from all this January consisted of breaking my new year's resolutions, and spending waaaay to much time on msn and facebook, but what the hell. Also managed to get moving and my essay, so January wasn't all bad all in all!

Return of the Blog! The Blog Returns! The blog hath returndeth! (How many more ways can I say this?)

I bet you all thought (Well the sum total of half a dozen people who read this blog, and that was in its heyday!) that I had given up on this little barrel of fun. Well you'd be wrong, I got a little distracted by what I felt was a quite busy last two months, and this kind of got, well, neglected somewhat. I was never good at keeping a diary when I was younger, in fact I was that bad that I never kept one! (Apart from a year 6 project, which I may have if I remember correctly). But anyway the important thing is it's back and it's back to stay although I can't promise it's going to be less irregular and intermittent than it has been!. I may or may not make numerous posts tonight, but whatever I end-up doing, happy reading!