The Diary Of John

Saturday, May 17, 2003

"What if we chose the wrong religion? We're just making God madder and madder every Sunday."
-Homer Simpson

Yeah its party nite here lol, well i will go just for a couple of hours i think just to say hi to everyone and also to wish my bosses daughter a happy birthday. The main reason for the party is the birthday but for me is nice to get out just for a little while although i cant dance to save my life lol. All the years must seem to be hanging heavily upon my shoulders dont you think? lol

A nice thing today is that i have a keyboard that all works so any spelling mistakes are all mine this time :-). I never did figure out how to get the ? to work on the schools computers lol. wierd i know but there it is i guess right? oh shit im waffling here ;-)

**Shoves Red Hot Chilli Peppers in the machine**

I picked up a cd this evening by a group called Linkin Park, i had a quick listen to it at the place and it sounds okay. Wonder if the neighbours will like it? lol. Its a little difficult to get hold of english cds here so i try to grab up any i think that look interesting :-) I may use it in conversation classes or something else if i get a bit of time to prep it and the lyrics. Got some great stuff though from online the other day to use in my conversation classes, card games from ESL that all seem to be popular :-) Well i had just one student who didnt like it but that was because he wanted something that will be hard for me to do with all the group but i will see what i can come up with. Myself i thought the ESL stuff was great and alot of the students said they were good fun too :-). Chalk them up as a success i think...... YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope thaty a few of the teachers will go to this party tonite or i will end up having no one to talk to as my portugues isnt very good lol. Ill just do some... hmmmm whats the world i need........ oh yeah...... Mingling lol. It needs to be a little warmer than it was last nite though as after the parents day we went for pizza with the boss and it was 1am when i finally got back home and then had to be awake again at 6am to go to Sobradinho to teach another class and then sprint back to Planaltina lol. Its a good job i have long legs with all of this rushing about all over the place lol. It will be good for me i think and keep me fit and energetic :-)

Okay i will stop here as i need to get something to eat and get showered and then get a bus over to the other school, its a shame they arent using the nearer one to my house but that one doesnt have a swimming pool. I wonder though who will use the pool at night as the water will be freezing lol. Tchau Tchau!!!!!

posted at 5:13 PM by john |

posted at 4:57 PM by john |

Friday, May 16, 2003

Well as you can see im here again, bored and waiting now to see if an email i just sent has made it or not. The internet setup here at work is bloody terrible and hotmail will not work with it no matter what i try so i had to create a new yahoo email address just to send one document to my home so i can print it because there are no working printers here. Can you believe this of a school lol. I still havent figured out how to make a question mark appear either, oh my god what a day i am having lol

One nice thing is that today the sun is shining and that most of today will be beautiful. Later on i have to go to a parents day and cant wait for that to be over. They are always so boring and i have to have a translator anyway because alot of the parents dont speak any english. As you can imagine living and working in brasil is quite an experience lol.

anyway time to go see if they can make the computer access hotmail or if i need to hit the computer with my tennis shoes to make it function lol

posted at 1:04 PM by john |

I need some Coffee!!!!

Well here i am at work and trying to use their computers but they are out of the ark and nothing seems to work properly at the moment. I think they must have got the keyboards from off the back of a very dodgy lorry as you have to hit the keys with a hammer to make them work lol. Maybe we should have a whip around for some cash to get new ones, what do you think guys lol. Even the question mark key isnt working so you can imagine how bad things are now i guess cant you lol.

Later today i have the meet the parents evening, i am really looking forward to that as you can tell right. Grrrr why doesnt this bloody question mark work here. There isnt even anyone here to sort it out today either as they are preparing for some party they are having later on. Oh well such is life i would imagine!!

Ill stop here as this is taking so long and i will have grey hair before i finish typing all i have to say lol.

posted at 11:42 AM by john |

Tuesday, May 13, 2003

Im on top of the world Ma!!!!

Well today has been a bit boring, not much happening in the city and the only high lite of the day was watching Resident Evil this afternoon lol. I had to watch in portugues but anything is better than watching brasilian soaps :-). I hope they are going to make a part 2 for this fillm as i really like the computer games of the same name.

This evening i have been making some cards for a new game i am going to play with the students at the conversation class on friday. Apparently there is a bit of a discussion whether i can show english language videos in a conversation class but how else can people get access to the new language if we dont make it available for them to listen to and experience? Its a strange thing teaching english sometimes aint it? lol. I will have to sort it out tomorrow at work and find out exactly what i can and cannot get away with. It will be a shame if videos cant be shown though as i use them to get beginner groups to come to the conversation lessons. We will see what happens right? ;-)

Time to go eat and get showered for work, bye folks :-)

posted at 3:38 PM by john |

Monday, May 12, 2003

The world is our oyster!!!!!

Today has been a bit of a wierd day i guess. I got to work and everyone was complaining how cold it was and i was standing their sweating buckets lol. Here in Brasil i never feel cold though :-). My groups went well today but i had a class with just one student which was nice to teach and we got alot done in just the 90 minutes of the lesson :-)

I also got my student card today too so i can get into the cinema at half price which is great but they managed to spell my name wrong even though i made sure i printed it clearly on the form lol. Oh well i will just have to hope that they will accept it as it is or i will have to go to the offices and get it changed again. I dont really want to though as it takes so long to get it the first time around without having to do it all over again :-)

Also today one of the teachers told me that there is s student who never stops talking about me but they wouldnt tell me who this person is lol. I have to admit to being just a little curious and all i know is that the student is female :-). I am supposed to figure out who it is myself, whether this is the teachers or the students idea i dont know as they wont tell me anything more. Looks like a job for Inspector Gadget right? lol. I have been trying to think who it could be, i have a couple of ideas but wont post anything here just yet until i am sure about it all lol.

Anyway enough as i am feeling tired and want to eat and then relax and watch a video i picked up at the video store called Resident Evil. I have seen it before but there is nothing on the Tv and i just wanted something to lay down and watch in peace lol. So its goodnite from me okay and....... HI there to all my students and friends at CCAA who are reading this & Regina too lol. Bet you didnt think you would have your name on a website right Regina? lol

posted at 7:34 PM by john |

Sunday, May 11, 2003

"If god doesn't like the way I live, let him tell me, not you."

Well the weekend has been a little boring here, believe it or not i live just 40 mins drive from the capital and there is nothing really to do here at the weekends lol. I spent an hour this morning playing counterstrike here in a cyber cafe which was okay and good fun and the price is dirt cheap too. just a pity that they dont have any other lan games to play instead of just this one. Maybe if i ask the guy he will add some more software to play with such as unreal tournement 2 or even the oldie quake 3 :-). I wouldnt hold my breath though as people here love playing this halflife counterstrike game lol.

Today was kinda boring as everywhere was closed by lunch time with it being mums day here and everywhere else around the world too. I was going to give my parents a ring but the cost of phone calls here is just too much to make even a short call to england so i didnt get to call them after all. The phone companies here have huge monopolies here and extort huge bills out of everybody. Come to think of it most brasilian companies do lol. The cost of petrol is rising daily and they tell us that its because of the war in Iraq but the strange thing is that Brasil has its own oil fields and petrol companies so you can see they are just exploiting everybody :-(

I have been trying to think of some stuff i can do with my conversation classes next week too. It was great that people enjoyed it the other week but of course the problem is coming up with the same sort of fun games again isnt it? lol. I will have to put my thinking cap on and see what i can come up with i guess and i will check out the net too as there are some good websites i can have a read at about Tofl and Toefl games and stuff :-)

This one is just a quickie as i have to get up early for work in the morning so ill stop right here okay? lol G'nite.....

posted at 8:12 PM by john |