I have quite a busy term this term! I am mentoring a new teacher so I ahve to go and meet him Monday morning each week then I teach an afternoon class who I really like. They follow the rules and work hard, and they get really stuck into speaking activities and offer up millions of opinions which makes a nice change. The teacher I share the class with said "they practically teach themselves" and it is kinda true - there is no needto babysit them - you just give them a piece of work and they get on with it! I teach them on Tuesdays too, and then on Wednesdays I have a morning class with the new level I've not taught before. So far it's going pretty well and the book for this level isn't too bad, and they're another class who work well and are willing to share their opinions. I teach them on Thursday and Friday morning too, but on these days I also teach an afternoon class who are horrible! There are a group of boys who act like they are five years old. Thankfully they other teacher had already raised the issue so before I taught them for the first time last Thursday the manager went in and shouted at them, plus the naughty students got letters sent home threatening them wih expulsion. They're better behaved than before but they're still hard work, plus as they are a lower level I have to be really careful with how I speak to them otherwise I'm met with 17 blank faces. Doubles are a real killer - geting to work at 7am to get everything sorted, then teaching for 4 hours, a one hour break then another 4 hours until 5.15. I also have to keep the lower level class entertained - I can't set them up with a big academic writing and instead have to constantly give them things to do to keep them focused on English. Still, I'm earning a nice bit of money for my trip at least!

Other than work I've not done that much recently. Calder flew to America last week and then after a week with her parents here Alison flew there to join him yesterday, so I went to Derrys for a drink or two on Thursday. They're gone for 3 weeks so my partners in crime for Derrys are no longer in town :'o( I also went to a cool cinema to see some Mexican films a couple of weeks ago. It's the place we go at the end of each term to show the students a movie on the last day and as it's set up as a private members club it means they can avoid the censors and show films that mainstream cinemas just wouldn't (couldn't) show. There is a nice courtyard to sit in beforehand and inside the seats are really comfortable, plus you can take your drinks in to enjoy during the film. It's a nice place to go - far nicer than the regular cinema! I only go to see new films at the proper cinema if I can go to a lunch time showing in the middle of the week as then there are only a handful of other people in there, but at any other time the cinema will be full of people making as much noise as possible and making it really hard to actually watch the film. This members place is much nicer but tends not to show lots of new films. There is usually a theme for each week - Mexican, Vietnamese, art house, silent films - and some appeal more than others but as membership is something like £5 for a year, plus a donation per film it's not a bad place!

I only have three more weeks at work to get through and then its holiday time! I should really start to actually think about things I want to do I guess and start getting things sorted!

Also this is kinda cool!

Yes yes! Shapeshifter! Sucks I missed them in Brighton this year :'o(

My kitchen floor is currently home to lots of dead and dying cockroaches. The bug killers came today and sprayed the house in chemicals and now all the roaches are crawling out of theih hidey holes to die. Nice!

Yesterday was the last day of term so was a cruisy day with a trip to the cinema and then back to the school to hand out certificates. All the students in my morning class passed which is always nice. I don't know about the afternoon or evening classes I had as I don't teach them in the second half of the week so I didn't mark their exams but hopefully they all passed. My afternoon class were nice - they kept giving me random gifts. Granted, not very nice gifts, but still! I got given mooncakes (last weekend was the mid-autumn festival and people go nuts over mooncakes for the festival) but don't let the word cake fool you. They look a little bit like pork pies but are filled with all sorts of random things like green sticky rice. After Alisons description of one - "if you're really lucky there's a duck foetus hiding inside" I decided to give them a miss. Still, that they liked me enough to give me things is good. I also covered a class the other week that had quite a few of my old students in it and they all cheered when I walked into the classroom. Always a good way to start a lesson!

The next term is the last one before the parents come out and I have a term off. I'm teaching a new level that I've not taught before so I have new stuff to teach and I'm also being a mentor for a new teacher who is starting this term. I even get paid for doing this - $50 at the end of the term! I do have morning classes three days a week which means early starts, and on two of these days I'm also working afternoons so I'm gonna be knackered by the end of the day but the money will cover lots of shopping in KL and HK!