The Diary Of John
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy? - Gandhi
Saturday, August 30, 2003

The more i see of me, the better i like dogs

- Marie Jean Rolland


Half the day gone already lol, wow i must have had alot of fun this morning. To tell the truth though i did as the group from sat mornings is great and they like alot of fun and games in class which always makes the day go faster for both me and them too and they learn while having a good time as their class is three hours long. Next week we are going to go out for lunch, me and the whole class which is nice as they will get to bond a little more with me as they havent had classes with me before apart from a few substitute classes. I like TT2, they are fun, like a laugh and joke and speak alot of english too. I hope they will carry on to become MEC students later as MEC groups also love to have a laugh and joke and have fun :-) We will see what happens right? :-)

Also looking good, 17 students asked me about joining the little site i created for them so once it gets going i think that it will be good fun. A couple have had teething problems getting signed up but it seems to be working today and i noticed that there are people appearing in the list now that i can also make admin. The idea was never for me to be in charge of it, i just came up with the idea but i want that they run it themselves and have a bit of fun at the same time. While it says on the xite its by CCAA students i thought it would be nice to have just the students involved and not the school as the school can have its own site and of course the school would obviously want to use the site to promote itself where i want to just use english with the students and have a little fun and a laugh at the same time :-)

Hmm hotmail is saying that some of my students have let their email accounts expire lol. I will have to run off some emails to the others to find out if they have other addresses i can use to get their web invites out to them :-)

I might go to see Pirates Of The Caribbean this evening if i get time. It'll be a good film i think and its got good reviews on the internet too. For me its a good excuse to waste a couple of hours having a bit of fun too :-) I love the atmosphere at the cinema when its a big film with all the people there, i might go tomorrow yet, it depends what everyone else is doing i guess.

Okay i had best get something done here or ill still be sat here come tonite lol.. Bye Bye :-)

posted at 12:50 PM by john |  

Friday, August 29, 2003

American Embassador Pied

On August 28, an anti-FTAA activist pied American Embassador Peter Allgeier, co-president of the FTAA, during a press conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The activist, a member of Bakers Without Borders, released a note protesting the negotiations of the FTAA. The FTAA will concentrate wealth, increase poverty, and destroy labor, consumer and enviromental rights, said the note.
The protest also focused attention on the disregard Brazil's government has shown for a September 2002 unofficial plebiscite in which over 10 million people voted "No" to the FTAA. Last month, President Inacio Lula da Silva said at a meeting with George Bush that negotiations will proceed and should finish by 2005. Brazilian social movements and NGOs protest the continuation of negotiations. The pieing comes just two weeks ahead of a WTO meeting in Cancún, which will be met with massive protest.


I found this online but im curious to find out just what Lula is signing up for here, if i find out ill post the link here for you guys okay?

also discovered an interesting piece on George Bush too, you can read it HERE okay?

posted at 2:25 PM by john |  

A liberated woman is one who has sex before marriage and a job after

- Gloria Steinham


Wow ive been so busy this week now i have the students excercises and stuff arriving lol. Im on top of them all at the moment though so my weekend should be clear after i have taught on saturday morning :-) I have had very little time to even get online and sort out my emails to people or to look at the students site too. The start of the semester is always like this though and settles down after a couple of weeks. Most of my students are the same ones i had last semester so they are already used to my accent and i dont need to have to speak slowly all the time which is nice lol.

Talking of the students site, they have been trying to join it but said they had problems joining from the email. I cant see why it wont work but tomorrow i will be at the other school (yeah i know) so i can ask the teacher what problem he has because i cant see whats not working as i dont have to join lol. Ill sort it out though and have around 10 people on the list waiting to get signed in.. nice i think once it takes off and they all start to post stuff. I'll have to find some jokes and stuff to get it going and one of my students sent me a crazy pic of what he says the Brasilian firefighters are like that ill shove there later this afternoon when i get time.

This evening i am going to watch Terminator 3 with the students.... yeah its coca cola and popcorn time again :-) Im going to see if my brother can send me some films from England again too as i love to spend time here watching films with the students. Trying to get the friday activities up and running here at the school you see ;-) The films usually work best and at the moment there isnt any conversation classes running as students arent asking for them, i guess it will be later in the semester when i am getting bored when they ask for them.. i hope lol.

Hmmm i wonder how many of my students are visiting here reading this now? lol So guys are you here?... you can sign your names on the tag-board if you wanna okay? :-) I was hoping to add an easy way for the students to add links to their weblog as i do here but blogrolling have suspended sign-ups at the moment and i cant find another service like this online. If anyone knows of one you could tell me about it right? ;-) The others bits i will add later on just to get more people into the site from other sites etc. Blogsnob is great for this and hopefully we will find a few other people who study english that will have sites also online :-)

**Playing the Offspring here.....Nice and LOUD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**

Ive already got onto my brother again about some cds and also i read there is a new Offspring cd out so i wanna copy of that too lol. I need to go to the Paraguay fair here to stock up i think but i just dont have the time to go over there and pick some cds and stuff up. The main problem is that its miles from my place and also i would need a truck to transport all the stuff i want back from there too :-)

I?d better end now as i have some stuff to print out and take to the copy store to get copied for next week for my groups. We could do with a photocopy machine here as i spend a fortune on copies each week. The other day i clocked up R$6 just on copies :-( Still it helps the students and some of it was extra stuff that i will give out in class thats not part of the methodology just for something different. I have to remember to take the copies over to the other school too, they sit at home but i never remember to pick them up when i go over there.

anyway time for coffee and printing so Bye guys lol

posted at 1:59 PM by john |  

Wednesday, August 27, 2003

Bring Your Daughter...
...To The Slaughter

- Bruce Dickinson


Honey its getting close to midnight
And all the myths are in town
True love and lipstick on your linen
Bite the pillow make no sound
If there's some living to be done
Before your life becomes your tomb
You'd better know that I'm the one
So unchain your back door invite me around

Honey its getting close to daybreak
The sun is creeping in the sky
No patent remedies for heartache
Just empty words and humble pie

So get down on your kneees honey
Assume an attitude
You just pray that I'll be waiting
Cos you know I'm coming soon

So pick up your foolish pride, no going back
No where, no way, no place to hide

Bring your daughter, bring your daughter to the slaughter
Let her go, let her go, let her go

posted at 5:57 PM by john |  

In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman

Margaret Thatcher - 1970


Im here just resting at the moment before the task of having to go and suffer teaching and being spyed on by the god damned cleaning woman at sobradinho lol. Maybe today i will get either a rest from here or a bollocking from the director of the school.. who knows whats been said as no one even asked me. But for me to be honest, if the crunch comes for me its okay to quit this one school and just work at the other one only and pick up some more work somewhere else. After all we are talking of just R$300 a month, i know i can clock over R$75 a week easily if i really want to with private and conversation classes etc. Maybe the trouble some cleaner will teach my MEC groups there, that would be something i would just love to see lol. We will see what this wonderful beautiful day will bring me wont we? ;-)

Well the students should be all getting the emails to join that weblog thing now so hopefully they will post soon there, jokes pics etc, so long as its english thats the main thing. I have a couple of others that i also added that arent MEC but they have excellent level of english and i think they will enjoy having a laugh there too.. A few of them need to get hotmail to restart their email addresses though as i get errors when blogger tries to invite them from hotmails mail servers. I'll have to show them how to FTP stuff to the servers too, for pics or files and stuff.

I think that tonite in Plano Piloto alot of people will go to see Mars as it is the closest it will be to earth for around 60,000 years i read on yahoo. I wont go as i dont have time but i read on the Hubble Website about the pictures that it has taken etc. Interesting stuff really :-)

**Listening to - Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit**

I have to remember to get some photocopies this afternoon for my MEC group in planaltina tonite, i wonder if there is a place near the other school i can get copies from? Maybe i should get them done here but i dont really have the time to go running around as i have to leave in a while to go over to the other city for class. Perhaps i could get them to write it all out? ;-) Just kidding lol

Okay i'd best get something to eat and get outta here lol

Mars From Hubble

posted at 11:11 AM by john |  

Tuesday, August 26, 2003

If god had wanted us to think with our wombs, why did he give us a brain?

Claire Booth Luce - 1970


Just a quick post here while i am checking my email and also inviting the students to join the MEC weblog lol. A few students seem to have let their hotmail accounts expire though so they need to get that sorted out so they can start posting stuff :-) I added few things already though just to get the ball rolling and i hope soon they will get posting so we can really have some fun. At the moment they are practicing their english with my dictionary of Bad words lol

Anyway time for class so bye for now :-)

posted at 5:58 PM by john |  

"Oh My God" - Guns And Roses

It's not how you're thinking
Like you've been right
You've been living a trade-off
Believe your own version
Believe your enslavery and drain out your soul
What can I do when there's so many liars
That crawl through your veins
Like millions of spiders
That seek out their victims
And ruin the wiser
Watch out
Gotcha

Oh my god
I can't deny this
I've been taught just to kill and fight this
To bury it deeper where nobody can find it
Like nobody wanted to know

So give it away
Like they're not gonna fuck you
How long can you bear him
To come back and haunt you
To burn past your feelings
And cause you to suffer
You're starting to bleed
They don't give you up
Before its too late
What will you offer
In way of a healing
I'm so confused, abused, misused

Oh my god
I can't deny this
I've been taught just to kill and fight this
To bury it deeper where nobody can find it
Like nobody wouldn't know

Ooh, if it opens your eyes
This is better than a strong compromise
I was willing to be lost in the shuffle
If only you had let me know
Ooh, if it opens your eyes
This is better than the last compromise
I was willing to be lost in the shadows
If only you had let me know

And they wont give in
Cause they know what they're after
A kick in the face
Like its all that would matter
Ohh

Oh my god
I can't deny this
I've been taught just to murder and fight this
To bury it deeper where no one can find it
Cuz nobody wouldn't know

Ooh, if it opens your eyes
This is better than a good compromise
I was willing to be lost in the shuffle
If only you had let me know

Ooh, well its on with the show
Like the tide down on the ocean
The waves already set in motion
The only one in the game that's lost is you

posted at 10:08 AM by john |  

A woman will always have to be better than a man in any job she undertakes

Eleanor Roosevelt - 1945


Im just here at work updating a couple of new things to the other site, expressions in different types of english with some London rhyming sexual slang too just to brighten it up a little lol. Also i went to the copy store to get my copied dictionary of prohibited english lol. I am sure i will find a use for it somewhere this semester.. not sure exactly where though lol. Perhaps in a conversation class that i wont make at the school. A lot of people have asked if i will do these classes not in the school but at houses of students etc. If they set it up on a day im not working then ill get some stuff prepped for them to do :-). I will be interested to see what stuff we can create as i wont have some many restrictions hanging over me if i have more freedom ;-)

At the other school i have nothing but problems, i am beginning to seriously consider asking them to find another teacher for the three groups i have there so i can just teach here at this one school. Its not really worth all the stress of having to try to hide from that bloody cleaning woman all the time for what i get paid to give class there. Its getting to the stage now that i am hearing other teachers complaining about her too but it seems that this time she insists on following me where ever i go trying to catch me or the other teachers doing something she can report about. how can someone work in such a terrible atmosphere?.. if you know the answer to this you can tell me right? lol. I even have to lock the classroom door as both me and my students got sick and tired of her opening the door and looking to see what we were doing, unfortunately i dont think that anything will be done about her though so for me i think itll be good to just tech in Planaltina and maybe somewhere else doing conversation classes or working with the policia federal with the poor children in the city. This idea i like alot and of course there wouldnt be the aggravation. We shall see what becomes of this, i am going to see if there are teachers available to take over the MEC and TT classes i have in sobradinho and then decide what to do if there is possibility of just teaching here.

On a lighter note, i asked my brother to snap off some decent pics of interesting things in England so as soon as i get the pics and if they are good ones ill post them here okay guys?

Okay i had better end here so i can finish uploading the files and get home to have something to eat as im starving lol

posted at 9:58 AM by john |  

Monday, August 25, 2003

I found this page with links for famous peoples weblogs posted on it. you can view HERE okay? and Roberta (Yes you Roberta from OM3 planaltina lol) there is even one from Flea of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers :-)

posted at 12:05 PM by john |  

...Women have been called queens for a long time, but the kingdom given them isnt worth ruling

Louisa May Alcott 1869


Ive just been surfing The Offspring website, its quite good and has loads of stuff on it and said that both Guns and Roses and The OffSpring are going to release new albums... YEAH!!!!!!!! Its about time there was some decent new music in the charts. If you visit the site you can read all about it okay? At the end of this post are the lyrics to another Offspring song :-) I will have to see if there is anything on the G'N'R website about their new album too

**Playing - Why Dont You Get A Job? - Offspring**

checking my email here and my mum has brought a brand new top of the range laptop computer.. wow!!! lol. Here you can buy a small house for the price of a laptop computer lol, it'll be interesting to see what my mum is going to use it for :-).. More news as it arrives okay?

Im hoping to get some film for the camera and get some pics from the schools on here, if i get them scanned i will post as soon as possible :-)

Okay time to go get ready for work.. Later guys :-)



The Kids Aren't Alright - The Offspring

When we were young the future was so bright
The old neighborhood was so alive
And every kid on the whole damn street
Was gonna make it big and not be beat

Now the neighborhood's cracked and torn
The kids are grown up but their lives are worn
How can one little street
Swallow so many lives

Chances thrown
Nothing's free
Longing for what used to be
Still it's hard
Hard to see
Fragile lives, shattered dreams

Jamie had a chance, well she really did
Instead she dropped out and had a couple of kids
Mark still lives at home cause he's got no job
He just plays guitar and smokes a lot of pot

Jay committed suicide
Brandon OD'd and died
What the hell is going on
The cruelest dream, reality

posted at 11:45 AM by john |  

I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves

Mary Wollstonecraft - 1792


Well here i am at work and waiting for the copy shop around the corner to finish copying a dictionary of Vulgar Sexual Swear Words i borrowed from a friend lol. They charged me just R$5 which wasnt too bad including the bindings etc, i'll try to find some half clean expressions that i can teach to my MEC groups i think ;-)

Last night i went out with Eliane, Laura and Tim to a pizza place in Plano Piloto, wow this place was really romantic, full of candles with no electric lights and a log fire burning outside for people to sit around :-). Was nice, i'll have to remember this place so we can go there again :-) Was a little expensive but i didnt really mind as i like these places that have a romantic atmosphere and this place was really romantic ;-) I found out that eliane had changed her hair coloring too, now she has blonde streaks that look really lovely :-) I wonder if her new hair color matches my grey streaks? lol

I wonder if they have made any coffee here yet.. let me go and check as i need some caffeine lol. Yeah they have... nice :-). Later on i have my MEC classes, in fact my whole day today is just these groups so will go really easy. Explanation etc is alot easier with these groups as i can use my normal english to explain instead of having to think of the simplest way to explain something and all of my MEC groups have really good english :-) I hope to get ahead of the schedule just a little as i have some extra stuff that i hope to squeeze in too if we get time, such as covering English from other countries such as Australia or London rhyming slang, just to do something a little different but still to do with their english classes. I have some of it typed up and just need to print it off and photocopy it. I'll work on it this week as some of it needs to be made smaller so i can fit it onto just one sheet of A4 paper instead of many pages lol

Okay time for me to finish my coffee and get something done here and haul my arse back home ready to go to Sobradinho :-)

posted at 8:53 AM by john |  

Sunday, August 24, 2003

Reason and religion teach us that we too are primary existences, that it is for us to move in the orbit of our duty around the holy center of perfection, the companions not the satillites of men

Emma Hart Willard
- Inscribed in the Hall Of Fame Of Great Americans


Okay as you can see today i decided to start using the quotes just from famous women in history :-). They come from all types of subjects that i will just choose at random as i am running out of funny titles for my posts lol. Anyway we will see how they go right?

This morning i have been looking online for some different english words and expressions for my students. There are many types of english and i wanted just a few words or expressions to show the difference between the different sorts. I managed to find some great stuff on australian english and then some london rhyming slang. Unfortunately this isnt really suitable for the lessons though as it is mostly very strong and extremely vulgar sexual slang and not the words that i remember from when i was a teenager so it cant be used lol. somehow i dont think that the directors of the school would be too happy if their students suddenly developed a desire to speak cockney rhyming slang to the secretaries or their parents lol. I wanna find some indian english expressions as its very formal and i have some scottish expressions as well that should show a good contrast between the different sorts. Some back english expressions would be good too as they tend to be associated with music etc. I will see what else i can find off the internet later on

Haha finally got to talk to Eliane who is busy at the moment preparing her stuff for work tomorrow and also stuff for her masters course that she is now studying. Maybe later we will go to the coffee shop downtown, it'll depend on how much she manages to get done today. This coffee shop tends to be a little expensive, the last time we went one piece of cake was something like R$5 lol. Yeah it has gold nuggets inside it lol. Hopefully by then i will be all finished here and will have the rest of the day free by then.

I wanna go to the fair this afternoon too as i need some new tee shirts, especially white ones as it is so hot here at the moment. The biggest problem is that the moment they hear my accent the cost of anything i wanna by jumps up. They have this obsession here that foreigners are loaded with cash. I am sure they think i live in a gold plated house or something lol. Still i can also pick up some english cds too as the guy told me that he might have some today. I managed to pick up a Nirvana cd the other day but i only really like a few of their songs.. i just brought the cd as it was english lol. Getting pirate copies of stuff here isnt easy if you want english music as they tend to concentrate mostly on Brasilian popular music, which i think is terrible lol. We will see what they have on offer i guess right? :-)

right back to it or i will get nothing done before tonite lol


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