The Diary Of John

Saturday, July 26, 2003

I hate preparing for presentations lol

Im taking a break here from preparing for this presentation i have to give at the teachers training next week, i have to present on one of the techniques in the methodology which you can imagine i am thrilled about right? lol. Luckily the step i have been given is really just an alteration to the normal method so it wont take me too long to explain it and get it out of the way. I have already done the basic layout of my presentation and just have to go over to the school this afternoon and check out a couple of things and then use their computers to print it all off (Im not wasting my ink lol). It will only take about an hour or so to run it up on their machines and print it ready for wednesday. TTC - The most wonderful part of the semester....NOT!!!!!!!!

I have downloaded the Kazaa program and been using it to download books from the internet, yeah there are thousands of them floating around in cyber space and i got and read the new Harry Potter book in a single day lol. I have ben told that i dont read but absorb books, its not a bad book and reading it passes alot of time too. Seeing Harry throwing temper tantrums was quite funny lol. I am going to make sure that my students use this program to download books for them to read as i have mentioned alot of times before here that english books in brasil are really expensive and this would be a good way for them to get hold of the books without haveing some greedy store keeper ripping them all off. Maybe these guys should wake up and realise that charging over the top prices doesnt work anymore and they should change their failing business models for the modern world. Im sure that alot of my students who already struggle to pay their school fees as we live in a poor area will love knowing they can access these books and not have to pay stupid amounts of money just to improve or enjoy themselves. Its about time these greedy companies etc realised that just because a country is third world it doesnt mean exploit them for all they can get!!

See the new picture?, i have read all David Eddings books, they are fantasy and when i lived in england i read all these books as fast as they were written and published. I love the stories and the way then guys writes as well. I think there are about 17 books he has written now and i havent found one that i didnt like :-). If you guys get time and your into fantasy you should check him out, i think you will enjoy alot :-)

I have just been looking to see what new films are on at the cinema over the weekend, i cant go to see the new Steve Martin film as i am going to watch it next weekend with Eliane.. This weekend she is visiting her family. Hmmm the cinema says there is a new Jet Lee film, i might go and see that as he films are usually full of action. Theres a film with this terrible brasilian guy called Didi too, on the whole brasilian films are generally as bad as french films and yes seriously they are that bad lol. They have the same terrible people in them, boring and not the least bit funny and staring soap opera people (i cant being myself to use the word actors etc lol). Trust me if you will never see on then consider yourself lucky lol. I might just spend the day tomorrow window shopping or something like that,, i will decide later on :-)

I think this afternoon i will go and play at the Lanhouse as i havent had time to go there for a while now, ill just got for an hour i think as i can call into the school and get my stuff printed off at the same time. You wouldnt belive how much hassle it is sometimes to get them to print stuff for me too. Its alright for the secretaries to print off leaflets saying house for sale for their friends etc but to get things printed for my students or classes can really be a pain in the arse which them telling me they have to save paper and ink etc. After i tell them i will discuss printing with the directors though they soon change their minds as there is one rule for some and another for others.

Okay time for lunch and then im off to the Lanhouse and the market place to waste a couple of hours :-)

posted at 10:43 AM by john |

Wednesday, July 23, 2003

You just gotta love Yahoo lol

You have to love Yahoo, sometimes this company amaze me with the things they put in their news items. I have been asking my family to post me a copy of the new Harry Potter book and found out in yahoo that its possible to download free the book using Kazaa lol. Of course you can guess what everyone will be doing now right? lol. I dont know if i will bothere though as to sit in front of a computer reading something that size for me wouldnt be too great as i love to lay around with a good book but i have to admit its an interesting concept. Are books going to be the next thing that people trade with p2p programs? I am very curious to see what happens about this.

I know there is a new version of Kazaa called Kazaa Lite that has all sorts of things shoved into it to stop the RIAA from finding out informations etc about people using the program to swap music etc, im also curious to see if this works or not. I like watching these big guns in the music industry trying to hold onto their pathetic business models when the rest of the world has already moved on. For anything they come up with there will be some computer genius that has already though of something else to foil them.. It gets more and more fun to watch as this unravels lol. Heres what the Kazaa Lite site has to say about the RIAA...

Privacy protection
Are you afraid of the entertainment industry? Does your country have stupid copyright laws? You don't share because you are afraid you get caught for doing so? The newest version of Kazaa Lite (2.10 build 3) has got the solution for you! It is now possible to prevent other people from listing your shared files (find more from same user). Go to Options -> More Options. There you can enable the option to prevent people from listing your shared files. There is just one little downside to this, because it may let people think that you are not sharing any files. But for some people privacy is what counts. Enabling the option doesn't mean that you don't share files anymore! People just can't list your shared files anymore. In fact more people should be able to start sharing because of this.

Anyway im off to get some sleep finally lol... Gnite all

posted at 9:31 PM by john |

Im taking a break here lol

Im just in the middle of preparing some stuff for friday and thought i would take a break for a little while and do something different :-). On friday night i am going to help out organising an activity for some of the students at the school. Usually i get paid for this but because i have nothing to do and i like taking part in activities i said i would go give a hand :-). the students are going to watch a film which is always fun as they take cake and popcorn and all sorts of stuff with them to eat while they watch their film. This time it was left to me to get a film for them, it has to be in english with portugues subtitles and i will just take them to the video store on the corner next to the school and let them choose one as its easier :-) I spent time earlier on ringing around to see how many other students i could get interested and they are passing the message around themselves to just turn up friday with some goodies if they wanna watch the film :-). All the ones who said they are coming are students that i have taught and some that a few that i know from the school but havent taught yet.. but they all get to have classes with me sooner or later lol.

Some of the students that are going always ask me if i can create some english expressions and phrasal verbs etc for them, they love these things and ione of them called me to remind me to please take a few expressions for them on friday :-). Most of my advanced students have had at least one class where i teach just expressions and maybe a few swear words if it is a mature group. Why the swear words are you wondering?.. Because swear words are a part of the english language too and can be found in most dictionaries. I have found a few new sites online that contain expressions and i will take around 25 of them for the students on friday and copy them onto a set of index cards so they can look them over themselves at home or just email the list i create to them instead. I found one site that listed now and then american expressions that were really funny, i know my students are just going to love hearing those ones. I love high level groups as they have interest in most things i give them that arent part of the methodology and different from the usual classroom CCAA stuff :-)

Hmmm my email program wont send out emails for some reason, it must be the isp connection as it was working when i got the sites, its just sitting there doing nothing. Let me login again and see if it will go as Elianes email is sat there waiting to download too lol. Haha it is going now :-), i got an email from eliane earlier on but i cant open the attachment for some reason. I will get her to send it to me again :-) Sometimes the POP isp is terrible especially at night when there are many users all online at the same time. The internet here is so expensive though that i think alot of people must never use it which is a shame as there is so much useful information they could be accessing and reading as well as contact with people from other countries who they might otherwise never talk to. Im really happy that my students have access at the schools now as for students learning english it lets them access so many sites that are in english and are about learning english as a foreign language :-)

Ill end here as i want to go get something to drink and then try to get some of those expressions done now while i have free time or i will end up rushing at the last minute to get them ready lol.. Nite nite everyone :-)

posted at 8:47 PM by john |

Well im back yet again :-)

Im BORED!!!!!!!! lol Ive got around 90 minutes and then i have to leave to go over to the other school but only because i am the only teacher there to cover the school for extra classes etc. You can imagine how thrilling this afternoon is going to be cant you? lol I might just go to sleep i think as its a nice day here today.. just fall asleep by the swimming pool ;-). somehow though however nice that sounds the chances are it wont happen as they are bound to find me something to do lol. Ill hide in the toilet and just lock the door :-)

I might just spend the afternoon hogging their internet, when i spoke on the phone yesterday with eliane she thought it might be fun for both of us to practice our portugues and english by sending those online cards as they only need small amounts of words so theres something else i can do. Any emails i write i do here at home as i cant install the translation program at the other school as the cdrom drive doesnt want to accept the cd lol.

While i am listening to Ac/Dc i wonder if the neighbours are also listening too? lol I think they are probably dancing along to it.. well if its possible to dance to the song **Honey, What Do You Do For money?** lol.

I guess i had better go and have a shower and get my arse off to work... Later guys and gals :-)

posted at 11:42 AM by john |

Debi advert from the California anti smoking adverts

This is an advert from California where tobacco companies are trying to prevent these adverts from appearing as they are giving tobacco producers a bad name. Yeah of course we would nt want them to get a bad name from all those people who get cancer etc from using their tobacco products would we?

posted at 9:57 AM by john |

Can too much coffee make a person hyper? lol

I tried to have a lie in this morning as i was awake as usual around 7am but no matter how long i tried to get back to sleep i couldnt so i ended up getting out of bed. Brasilian television is terrible and in the morning its even worse. There are loads of religious programs etc that i never watch and the news tends to be mainly brasilian stuff and hardly any international... Thank god for the internet :-). Oh and coffee too ;-)

This morning i am trying to think of something to do as i dont have to work until this afternoon, in the estancias there really isnt alot of things to do, i think that this is because the estancias tend to get quite violent so people dont think of community things apart from the churches that are scattered in each block. I think that it will be when they have layed the tarmac that things will probably improve with better access for the police and emergency services. Then we will see other things appearing for kids and people to do, after all teenagers will turn to other things if there is nothing for them to do, in england this was soon discovered but there too they didnt really do anything to create things to interest children or to give them places to go at night time. Of course having corrupt officials voted into power all the time wont really improve things as these politicians rely on poor people to vote them into power with promises of things they will never deliver.... it will be a long time i think before the estancias will realise their potential.

Ive ran out of books to read too, i visited the library here in planaltina once to see if they had any material in English there but they just have books translated into portugues and very few non fiction ones too. Its just a small community library for the city and really to find a good library means going downtown and i cant be bothered lol. I will have to go to the book store again and load up with more stuff lol. In the back of the books are lists of books they say they have released but in the book stores they only have very few of the books on the list. To buy books in english as i have said before here if really expensive with books selling for three or more times their original value. If you ask people to post them to you from overseas they charge huge amounts of tax on everything so doing it that way is sometimes a waste of time too. It doesnt help that i can read a book in a day if it is a good book that i really get into. For example the Harry Potter book - The Goblet Of Fire i read in just about one day and it was inches thick lol. I dont think it will take me long to read the new one either once i get a hold of a copy of it :-)

Talking of reading.. i was reading a couple of magazines that are published by the British Council here and they were asking questions about getting more people to read and why alot of people tend not to read now. The magazine itself showed one of the biggest problems.. that they promote obscure authors that no one has ever heard of instead of material that people will enjoy reading, we have the internet which is the biggest source of imformation and the sites their magazine lists are all to me really boring about authors that most people i dont think would be interested in. I read a piece by one person who said that modern books are brash and lively and this isnt a good thing but of course it is, books have to change and not be stuck in the past or for publishing houses to just push out what they see as wonderful stuff (Boring in other words) when we need to get more popular authors who write good stuff that interest people and teenagers and children especially because i think we lack alot of good books to capture childrens interest. Reading what the Childrens Laureate from england had to say made me laugh....

Whats on the cover has become a whole lot more important than whats between the covers. Some are more vulgar and tasteless than anything permissable back then (in her childhood i think she means). Books dont seem to be allowed to take their own time to get started in the way they could thirty years ago. So, in a way, theres a wider range in one, more gung ho direction, and a narrower range in the other, more reflective and gentle direction.

Does she really think that books should stay in the same way as they were written thirty years ago? :-( I think this is very sad as literature should move on and adjust to keep people interested and also to show to new readers that books are exciting and fun too. Shakespeare as a book will never become interesting lol. Why do these people who are stuck in the past always get voted to be the Poet or Childrens Laureate?. Its time for a change to keep not only books but the people who promote books and literature fresh and modern.

Did you guys fall asleep yet? lol. try drinking lots of coffee as it works wonders :-) I guess i had better try to find something to do or i will be stuck here in front of the computer and do nothing else all morning and its already 11am.

posted at 9:24 AM by john |

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

Wow the queen of england had a cheap thrill lol

I just read in the news that some teenager went to a party held by the queen of england and decided to try to streak around the place lol. I copied and pasted into this site in the news page so you guys can read it :-). I couldnt stop laughing when i read it, i can just see this guy running around with his undierwear around his ankles and the queen watching on, well in the news report it said that she didnt see anything but you can be sure that she must have seen something. Whether they will prosecute him i dont know. Knowing England i am sure they will do something to punish him as the royal family are known not to have a sense of humor. Anyway click HERE to read it okay? :-)

Awww i just finished reading Elianes email :-). yesterday i got a really cute attachment on my email from her with all these smiling babies in it :-) Ill give her a ring in a little while just to say hi :-). Later i think i will see what films are on the tv or maybe try to watch the end of Matrix 2 as i fell asleep this afternoon and missed the end of it lol. I get to try to speak alot of portugues when we talk as its good practice for me. Usually most people i have contact with speak english so it is very difficult for me to practice speaking portugues and i tend to forget verbs etc so i try to listen and remember alot of the worlds she uses so i can learn as we talk :-). I have this little book too that i tend to write words in so i can look them up later on in the dictionary when i dont understand something :-)

Earlier too i was clicking on the little advert that Blogsnob has on my page and looking at some of the other peoples sites, i love to read other sites that have been created as i find it interesting to see what other people post anf have to say. Hopefully now the school has access to the internet i can get something going with the students, sort of a multi weblog with the students posting in english to practice. Ill chat with them about it on Friday as some of them will be there for activity night - movie and popcorn remember? lol Maybe some of my students will have their own weblogs too, itll be nice to see what these guys post on their sites lol

anyway im off to eat and have a shower and see if the tv is available to watch the rest of the film. Have fun okay? ;-)

posted at 8:13 PM by john |

Wow im bored lol

I dont have to work today, its so boring in the city i live in too lol. I dont think they realise that people need something to do other than work or visit the church. Although Planaltina is a big city they havent got a theater, cinema or even a Mcdonalds.. I have never seen a city without one of those before :-). On Friday though i will go over to the school i think and watch a film with the students as activity day people can just go and do all sorts of things. I rang a couple of the students and they will ring around the others and ill get a video or pirate film and popcorn and cola too. These film nites tend to usually be really good as the students that cant speak alot of english can use the legends at the bottom. Now i just have to find a film for us all to watch ;-). At the CCAA in my city they have sorted out the Asdl internet so we have a high speed connection and this morning i called in to the school to use the toilets and tried it out... There are no public toilets in Planaltina that i would use. Trust me the ones in the bus station are... i dont think there is a word to describe them yet lol.

**Song playing - Linkin Park - With You**

I was roaming the internet earlier and came across a site called Blogshares but the only page i can get to load is the title page.. none of the others load and it gives an error the pages dont exist lol. This must be my isp as it seems a big site and looks as though its popular too. I can always check it out tomorrow when i go over to the other school. They told me that i am the only teacher covering standby there as everyone else is on their vacations now.. Great isnt it? lol. You can imagine how busy i am there right? :-). Still i get to do extra classes with the groups i dont usually get to meet which is nice.. for the students too as some of them are morning groups that i dont get to meet. I wonder if any of them will be my students next semester? I guess i will have to wait and see :-)

I just read that there was a fire at the top of the eiffel Tower, i have never been there and was amazed that people want o go and see this rusty pile of iron lol. I personally think that it looks very ugly and a good coat of Flourescent Glow in the dark green paint would improve it by around a thousand percent ;-). I visited France a couple of times and didnt think much to it, the french people dont like english people much.. i was told that its something to do with the british saving frnech people in the wars but whether this is true i dont know. I have to say that i prefer Brasilian food to french food though as i found french food to be very greasy with no taste apart from loads of garlic. BIG cheers for Rice and Feijao lol

Im going to eat now as it sounds as though everyone is arriving home.. catch ya later :-)

posted at 3:47 PM by john |

Monday, July 21, 2003

Im eating breakfast lol

If theres alot of spelling mistakes its bcause i am typing one handed and eating at the same time. I hardly ever eat first thing in the morning just coffee and out the door so now i am feeling hungry lol. I just got back from work and giving recuperation classes which was nice and easy as it was just the one student as well as finishing off her oral exams too.. which she passed :-). now i just have to go over to the other school in Sobradinho which will be easy i hope as its just standby hours again.. more time to use their internet lol. Hopefully they will have the new Terminator 3 film copied onto a cd now so maybe ill watch that instead :-). I know they were downloading quite a few films and if they burn them to cd i can use them with the students to make a film nite with popcorn etc :-). Will have to see what they say when i get there later this afternoon

One nice thing i found out today is that in the Planaltina school i dont have to give any more standby hours because of hours that were owed to me for giving extra and conversation classes so until July 29 i am free... YEAH!!!!!!!!. I dont know about the other school but will check later on and see what they have to say but i think it will just be the one school as i really didnt give many extra classes in sobradinho. This is nice as it means that Tues and tThurs nights i dont have to give classes etc so ill ring or email eliane and maybe she would like to do something for a couple of hours. Time to boot up the translation program :-)

I have another commenting gizmo to add to the webpage but i cant really figure out where in my html the code should be copied as there are stacks of stuff and does it after go before or after this or in the middle?... lol Omg. Ill figure it out at work i think as i have three hours of doing nothing there apart from trying to keep my eyes open ;-). Maybe i could teach the cleaning person how to make coffee as there is never any coffee when i go over to the other school. I was told that she hides it so that she doesnt have to make any or clean up the cups etc. Weird aint it? lol

This afteroon ill have to work on geting some of the lyrics for the cds i got the other day so i can use them in some games or something in the new conversation classes next semester. I keep meaning to download them but just keep forgetting to do it :-).. is this yet another sign of my old age i wonder? lol wheres my Zimmer frame? ;-) Now i have not so many standby hours i will get them sorted and copied to diskette and then decide exactly how i am going to use them in the classes.. it depends really on what groups i am going to get and the level of the conversation groups too, oh it sounds really thrilling doesnt it? lol

posted at 8:56 AM by john |

Sunday, July 20, 2003

Still waking up here lol

Well im just about awake here, im with my coffee (Second cup) and just finished checking my email to find loads of junk email that isnt supposed to get through the junk filter in hotmail. I get so tired of deleting all those useless emails that i get, maybe all those hackers around the world should target these spammers and do the world a favor and wipe them off the internet.

This afternoon i am going to the city park with Eliane, should be good fun right? :-) I used to love to go to the park of nature reserve in england so going to the park this afternoon will be great :-) I was hoping to get a lie in this morning but i was awake at 7am the first time and then spent ages trying to get back to sleep and by 9am i was in the kitchen having bread and coffee lol. I just cant seem to sleep in no matter how hard i try :-) I gotta remember to take my sun block with me or i will fry with being in the sun all afternoon.. Let me shove it in the bag now :-) Eliane said not to ring her too early as she loves to sleep in on Sundays lol. Today i think is going to be a good day.. dont you? ;-)

I tidied up a bit of the html today so that things like the blogsnob Ad is in the right place and the font is nice and small too after messing with that css stuff. Before the words here huge as they were taking their info from my template but i think they look fine now :-). Also i managed to get the adverts at the bottom of the screen to appear in a row instead of all over the place although this still needs just a little work as i have a couple of more adverts left to add and links etc. Ill keep changing things a little at a time until it looks how i think it should lol. Ill go over the template and see what things i can play around with in there to make some changes too. I need to learn a little more about this Css and Rss stuff to see what they are and do. Well Css i think is some sort of advanced html but the other is newsfeed stuff?.. Hey who knows lol

Okay time for me to go get showered and have lunch before i call Eliane and get my arse downtown lol. Have fun okay guys and gals? :-)

posted at 9:10 AM by john |