The Diary Of John

Friday, July 16, 2004

Chillin'..

Im just passing time here and preparing some stuff while waiting for Roberta to finsih her exams here. Im in the middle of preparing words here for my MEC groups, most people always think here that all bad words are swear words like shit etc that give offence and i like to show that not always is it these obvious words. Unfortunately some obnoxious FAT ulgy woman in the teachers training who had a little bit of education in a uni tried to say this to a room full of teachers but i wasnt going to bite just for her amusement lol. After all there is an expression for people from uni's we have that goes like this.. A little learning can be risky but a lot of learning can be fatal. It showed me one thing though, that i wont wanna attend any more trainings with the teacher from the other schools, i think their ideas are so different from mine that we have nothing in common. Man, i never realized i was so radically different in my classroom techniques hahaha!! No wonder my groups always ask to study with me semester after semester, After all stagnation in the classroom wont encourage the students to think for themselves, to look and find out things for themselves because they want to and not because some teacher tries to force only the things she wants them to learn onto them in a classroom. Hopefully my students will always continue to feel inspired to find out question everything and never take everything on face value :-)

I'm listening the the songs from Avril Lavignes newest cd from her website. I havent had time to listen to anything from it yet apart from the couple of songs she has released and its really impressive. The songs are alot more mature this time around and the lyrics seem alot more forceful. My students will love listening to these in the lyrics classes i give for them :-) The songs Together and How does it feel are really powerful, i'll definately use these in class with my teenagers.

This weekend i dont have to go to the other school so im not sure what we are going to get up, something interesting i hope. I know there is a rock festival this weekend but due to a major screwup in my wages i wont have the cash to get over there. Im sure me and Roberta will think of something to do, i have a pile of clothes to iron hahaha!!! Looks like it'll be video and popcorn time again :-)

I'd better go and get this stuff printed off before we go to get some lunch otherwise it wont be ready for when i need it..

posted at 9:46 AM by john |

Thursday, July 15, 2004

The Darkness Rocks Missouri

Well as you can see The Darkness are setting the standards again :-) Also i can upload too, the security on Win2000 must be shite if i can get around it this easily or my admin guy didnt set it up properly. Anyway who cares as its not my problem but the admin guys right? I will still be glad when we get the other computer back though as it was pre-loaded with all of the programs the teachers needed plus all of my webpages that i designed for my students to use next semester.

Anyway time to go sign the book so i get paid and get more coffee!!!

posted at 6:39 PM by john |

This sucks..

Well now i know why i cant see the new stuff, our win2000 only has IE 5.5 on it and we cant update because the admin wont allow the update so basically i have to wait till they bring a new computer here which could take days or use another computer somewhere else instead. I think that Wbloggar will still let me upload though, let me install it and see lol..

Okay we are downloading here, it can be got as a zip file so i dont have to install it and get around hopefully the admin here. Well its an easy way to get around the security lol. okay i need to reboot here..

Okay im installed and in lol.. Let me try upoolading here..

posted at 6:18 PM by john |

Bad weather..

Im online talking to my friend from Florida and hes telling me that they have just issued a tornado warning for right where he lives. He just dropped me the site for the EAS (Early Warning system) and you can see the message there below..

Emergency Alert System
OPERATIONAL AREA #5 - Jacksonville/St. Augustine
EAS receivers should be set to monitor LP-1 WROO 107.3 and LP-2 WMXQ 102.9. Recent EAS Activity ( updated Thu 07/15/2004 18:25:03.29 ) :

------------
Alert Received at 07/15/04 18:15:01 on monitor #2
Already heard
The National Weather Service has issued a Tornado Warning for
Nassau, FL beginning at 6:10 pm and ending at 6:55 pm (WMXQ)
ZCZC-WXR-TOR-012089+0045-1972210-WMXQ -

Looks like they are in for some seriously bad weather i guess. I told him to get his camera out just in case. I guess though they will be getting ready incase it actually happens.

I read just on the blogger homepage that there is now a new editor for the post page but im here and all i can see is the low level one from before and not even the usual page. I wonder if they are just setting it all up now? I cant even get any images to upload either which is a shame but maybe it'll work tomorrow.

Anyway i gotta go get something to eat here, man im starving lol

posted at 5:22 PM by john |

I need more coffee!!

I just realized that two cups of coffee just isnt enough to get me going anymore in the morning lol. Maybe i should just bring the thermos next time or maybe have a drip fitted ;-)

This morning here is pretty tame and a little boring so im just surfing while downloading some stuff to read over that might have some interesting stuff for my students next semester. I try to use alot of conversation stuff in my lessons if i can get the time or in extra classes if the students come. At the training i found that a lot of the teachers from the other three CCAA's were not interested in this type of activity, i think they have fear of encouraging the students to speak about things they aren't comfortable with themselves and dont wanna be embarrassed to say they are too prudish to tackle everyday subjects that teenagers like to talk about. Of course though i have advantages, not just being a native speaker but also a parent of three teenagers so i have hands on experience in the things they go through and language they use in their everyday lives. Of course some of the teachers there only want to teach grammar and structure but thats because they didnt learn anything else, Brasilian uni's here tend to just concentrate on this from what i have seen in my visits to these places and so students that graduate from them have no real understanding of true spoken english and thus cannot pass on anything to their students when they begin to teach. Sad but the truth, i guess thats why my conversation classes at the other CCAA in Formosa were so popular, i gave the students a chance to try out their english is many ways and unlike prudish Brasilian teachers i have no qualms about hearing or explaining colorful language. I am more than confident that put side by side with some of the other teachers students from Gama or Val Para (This is where the prudish teachers seem to be from hahaha!) that my students will sound alot more natural and comfortable about speaking in English. My MEC4 students this semester will be tackling SEX (yes, you read it correctly) this semester and how we treat sex in society and how we feel and behave around this subject. My MEC groups have no fear about asking questions about any subject and this group is all adults so they will love this lesson :-)

Oh someone here needs the computer, let me get off it hahaha!!!

Okay finally back again, even if it is the evening lol. I spent the day finishing off some stuff for my lessons next semester and also creating some vocab sheets that i am going to use in my groups too. I think next semester will be a lot of fun as i get to try out all of these new things ive been messing with lol. The students will get a lot of conversation practice this final semester of Master classes :-) I was hoping that maybe i would get some lower groups this semester but after not doing the training that looks grim now but never mind eh?

Time for me to go get something to eat here.. ;-)

posted at 7:41 AM by john |

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Wasting time..

Now i have nothing really to do, its nice to just sit on my arse and chat online for a while. I got around the win2000 admin problem by just installing Trillian instead which links god knows how many types of IM programs :-) I was hoping that maybe my brother would have emailed me but nothing yet. I guess he is still getting his pc up and running after formatting it :-)

I'm busy talking with my friend Online from CCAA and another from Florida too, yeah thats you Weatherman and now your famous cause i mentioned you on my site :-) I dont often get chance to chat online though as i have groups in many schools and also love to spend alot of time with Roberta whenever possible.

Man my messenger is getting busy here lol. I need get get another pair of hands to keep up with all of this, either that or im getting old. Ill stop and go carry on chatting..

posted at 5:03 PM by john |

New internet connection - Totally shite!!!

We have a new net connection here now, its shite, talk about being fucking slow. I cant understand why we signed up for this one when the one we had before seemed to be alot faster. Still not really my problem i guess as i aint paying for it.. thank god!! Plus we are saddled with Windows 2000 and they didnt add any updates to it so its a shitty old version of the browser and no messenger too, we cant even install it as the admin privs forbid it. Man, and they said it was going to be an improvement?? Good news is that its going to be fobbed off into the secretaries area hahaha!! Good luck with this pile of shit girls ;-)

Last nite i spend ages finishing off one of the lessons i am going to give to my MEC group next semester, posters for the wall and other stuff. Its going to be a 90min story telling and narrative lesson just to do something different in the classroom. Luckily my MEC4 group love to do different things so this should set them up a treat :-) I have a pile of stuff i can try out with them this coming semester so it'll be fun to get some feedback from them about what they enjoy and what they thought was crap too. AS for the other groups, i'll only know at the end of this month whats going to happen there and then i will also decide whether to continue teaching at this school or move to the other two instead. Plenty of time for me to make up my mind yet :-)

I was hoping that my brother would have emailed me by now but with the old browser on this computer i cant get into my google mail to see if there is anything there from the UK. What good is this if we cant use it to access anything? hahaha!!! Like i said, good luck to the secretaries..

I was reading in Newsweek about some interesting books written about the coming of Christ, i'll check around online and see if they are interesting and download them free with Kazaa if they get good recommendations ;-) You gotta love Kazaa, we all owe them so much.. Free stuff that is hahaha!!

Okay best go do something here.. Bye!!

posted at 2:12 PM by john |

Avril Lavigne - My Happy Ending

So much for my happy ending
Oh oh, oh oh, oh oh...

Let's talk this over
It's not like we're dead
Was it something I did?
Was it something You said?
Don't leave me hanging
In a city so dead
Held up so high
On such a breakable thread

You were all the things I thought I knew
And I thought we could be

[Chorus:]
You were everything, everything that I wanted
We were meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it
And all of the memories, so close to me, just fade away
All this time you were pretending
So much for my happy ending
Oh oh, oh oh, oh oh...

You've got your dumb friends
I know what they say
They tell you I'm difficult
But so are they
But they don't know me
Do they even know you?
All the things you hide from me
All the shit that you do

You were all the things I thought I knew
And I thought we could be

[Chorus]

It's nice to know that you were there
Thanks for acting like you cared
And making me feel like I was the only one
It's nice to know we had it all
Thanks for watching as I fall
And letting me know we were done

[Chorus x2]

[x2]
Oh oh, oh oh, oh oh...
So much for my happy ending

Oh oh, oh oh, oh oh...

posted at 12:37 PM by john |

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

My god.. How bad can things get?

I was supposed to be doing some teacher training this last few days but after a few hours both me and the other teacher from Planaltina quit the training and the teacher with me actually quit the school too :-( It was supposed to be training for old teachers but we got dumped with these new teachers who had hardly any experience at all apart from one other. There was one really FAT obnoxious one too that started on me straight away because she thought she was going to be the superior one there until she found out that i was a native speaker, stupid bitch!!! Me and Juliana thought we were going to get to ask alot of stuff from the guy who had came from Rio but after putting up with this stupid fat lump unfortunately we gave up. Still it was really an education i guess meeting people that are just donkey but luckily the bosses sister is doing the exact same training in a couple of weeks so if i dont get fired on Thursday i'll try to get permission to go to that one. During a discussion about slang language classes this fat lump even had the nerve to critisize my class technique even though she had never met me before. God why the hell did the director of the school employ such a prick? Were we desperate for teachers at that time or something?? I had to leave, i wasnt going to put up with that for a poxy certificate. Out of around 15 teachers there were just three that had two years or more experience so you can surely imagine how it must have been to be with total beginners who had no idea of the things we have been trying to accomplish with the students, such as promoting english study as fun and concentrating more on getting students to talk and take part in conversation and only touching on the grammar from the methodology. Jez!!! Talk about setting education back 20yrs, they should just shove fatty off into a uni where she would be well at home with people who just wanna have a shitty piece of paper saying they studied but didnt learn anything useful..

On a good note though two other schools rang me yesterday and offred me places to teach there, if i get fired on Thursday i wont be too bothered hahaha!! After all i know that i will have total freedom at both schools, i worked at one before doing advanced conversation classes and the other i visited last week with my friend Joao who works there to chat and see what they had to offer. If i get fired i have a shitload of material to take to use with groups there and if i dont get fired i will work at both of these schools to practice abnd iron out creases on new material i have been working on the last couple of weeks or so Now you see why theres been no posts, dont you?). I have some advanced classes that are nothing to do with the CCAA stuff, i love to get my students to experiment with english, drama i have played with a little and i have piles of stuff im just dying to get the chance to try with my MEC groups no matter which school i am at :-) We are going to do stories this semester in my most advanced groups, should be good for them i think :-)

Must remember to message Roberta, id better go and do that now as the school is going to close soon.. ;-)

posted at 6:09 PM by john |