Anastasia

Friday Night

For most people, Friday night marks the end of the work week and triumphantly announces the beginning of the weekend. Most of my friends plan a late night out but I can only join them on school holidays. As I come back home from work late on Friday night and go back to work early on Saturday morning, I am unable to keep my eyes open after midnight. So I spend most of my Friday nights reading my favourite books, listening to my favourite music or playing a game of chess with Alkis. If he doesn't beat me within an hour, we'll continue the game on Saturday afternoon.

How do you spend your Friday nights?

Alkis' 60th Birthday

Both workwise and socially, it's been a very busy week which started on a bright note - Valentine's Day on Monday. I know I promised to cook a special dinner - I had thought of paté of  duck liver terrine for starters and roast saddle of veal in cognac cream sauce with glazed shallots and pesto gnocchi. But due to work I didn't have time to cook, so we had an exotic meal delivered and a great greek red called "Vivlia Hora".

However, the highlight of the week was Alkis' 60th birthday - a milestone - which we celebrated just the two of us last night. A couple of weeks ago, I suggested throwing a big party, which wasn't such a great idea as we both had to get up early this morning. So, I surprised him with the traditional birthday cake which we devoured soon after a cosy and festive dinner out.

Tomorrow is the parents' evening - a cocktail party I organise for my students' parents during which we have time to talk about their children's performance and, of course, spend a pleasant evening together.

Buried in Work With Some Ice Cream

The last week of May has been particularly hectic at work with all school exams scheduled between May 25 and May 28. I'm still working on the French beginners exam paper due tomorrow. I've edited it three times so far! On Tuesday, there was a slight problem as some of my Elementary kids turned up 2 hours later - that was the second exam session - while they were scheduled for Tuesday 2:30 pm not 4:30 pm! They're ten-year-old kids who only came on the right day but at the wrong time! And they had all studied so hard! Fortunately my eighteen seats accommodated everyone ...and the exams went on uneventfully!

In between exams I had some ice cream to cool me down and while savouring my rasberry, blueberry and vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips, I googled ice cream! And here's what I found: Ice cream was invented in Italy. One theory says that the Grand Duke of Toledo was probably the first person to create and eat ice cream, something like the sort we eat now. This was meant to keep his drink cool with snow, you see, that was the only way in which they kept drinks cool in the 16th century. The Grand Duke of Toledo invented a mixture of boiling grape juice, which he poured over iced milk, and drank this in the middle of the night to get rid of his indigestion! He then tried mixing frozen milk and egg yolk, and there was the first ice cream! According to some other site (please forgive me for being too lazy or too tired to post the links), there's evidence that in England ice cream was served to the king in the year 1671.

Ice cream was a really fashionable food in 17th century England which was only fit for royalty and the very rich - something like foie gras and Dom Perignon today. Then in 1856, an Englishman called William Fuller invented an ice cream making tub and published a book on ice cream recipes. And in the 20th century, refrigerators made it possible for ordinary households in England and in the world to make and store ice cream for themselves. But no one could imagine then the evolution of ice cream in the 21st century - it's something like the evolution of technology - ipad for instance!

Nowadays, there's a trend for ....unexpected and revolutionary flavours, like cheese and onion ice cream, tomato and egg ice cream or ...tuna fish ice cream! To me that sounds rather dreadful, although I did try tomato and egg ice cream at a Japanese restaurant and hated it, of course! I'd rather stick to my all classic favourite ice cream flavour: pistachio and chocolate chips..or vanilla ice cream with Crepes Suzette! How about you?

The Transition to Work

 

Most of my friends and family think I am  workaholic and to some extent this could be true. But when you love your work so much, you simply consider it to be one of your hobbies. To me, it's my most favourite hobby. Funnily enough, at the beginning of a school break such as Christmas, Easter or Summer, I am overwhelmed by a feeling of bliss and all I can think about is the exuberantly cheerful transition to leisure.

In my leisure time, I read the books that have piled up bearing the label: "to be read before September 2010." I am a bookworm and derive so much pleasure from reading literature, poetry and occasionally best sellers. I also go shopping , hang out with friends or just with my significant other, I certainly blog more often or  try some new recipe I've dug online.

But as soon as the holiday is over and I go back to work, my online time is limited to about an hour and often much less and I know I won't have time to finish the book I started reading a day or two before I had to go back to school again.  Yet, once there, I make a happy discovery! I realise how much I missed my kids - their laughter, their jokes, their pretty faces and their willingness to participate in various class activities.

So after an agreeable interval, I am back to my kingdom, back to my classes and soon afterwards I start planning the hardest part of the school year: final exams! And when exams are over, I start dreaming of the summer break!

Midterm Fever!

This is what I took home this afternoon just after classes. To be marked and assessed by Monday. But I've got plenty of time to finish all this marking: this afternoon, all day tomorrow and Monday morning. So much for a teacher's so-called "long holidays!" The long holidays hardly make up for the the weekends spent marking my students' tests and homework. Midterm exams add to the load of work. And being your own boss isn't always a bed of roses. So, this is why I haven't been around much lately.

Too much work and no play resumes nicely my "blogless" week. Alkis was away on a business trip in Germany, I came back from work well after 9 pm and there was no one to give me a big hug - the only exception being my Diary...my paper-oriented diary. However hard I tried to explain all the great things I've done for it, like promoting it to electronic, it won't learn!  It's pretty much like switching from the new TypePad to the old TypePad. So My Diary decided to switch back to its...paper version! How sad!

Yet sadness flies away on the wings of time, so I'm sure I'll talk my paper-oriented diary into switching back to its electronic nature. Well, at least I hope so ...hope dies last, after all.But what really makes me happy today is that Alkis is coming back tonight.

Wicked February!

For years "Pumpering Day" was on a Friday but as Friday is almost invariably a very busy day at work, I changed it to Thursday which is a relatively quiet and easy day. Pumpering Day translates into a couple of hours at my beautician's for a manicure, pedicure and a facial followed by massage. So today, I got up earlier than usual in order to finish marking before my appointment. After almost a week of brilliant sunny days which seemed to promise summer would be here soon, wicked February brought winter back as a last farewell, I guess.

So I woke to a gloomy sky - so very unlike the sunsplashed island of Aphrodite- but didn't seem to worry too much feeling certain that the sun would be shining again by midday. And just as I was about to get rid of coats and leather jackets, the chilly morning made me change my mind. It was cloudy and chilly by the time I got to my beautician but, at least it wasn't raining. And I was still hoping that the sun would come up soon! But it didn't.

 After a divine manicure and facial and a very relaxing music at the background - including birds singing and waves flirting with the sand - I rushed home to have lunch and get ready for work. I was at the computer checking out my mail and commenting on some friends' blogs, when it really got dark! And it was only 1:30 pm! The sky was threatening with a storm, so I thought I'd rather hurry to work.

At  about 2:00 pm as I was driving to work, the storm broke out causing havoc on the roads.

Well, I had a safe journey to work-just in time for my first class - my Junior B. Out of nine only four of them turned up.                                                       

Sunday Musings

I've been in a contemplative mood all day today which is not very much like me - especially on my one and only day off work. I've been thinking about a million unrelated issues such as:

• The people in Haiti and how the people manage after that terrible earthquake.
• The political crisis in my country - sounds like our President Mr Christofias will be left alone as most of his partners seem to abandon him.
• The weather - it really feels like summer or almost despite some dust in the air which comes from either North or South Africa - ah right! I'm wreckless at Geography which was my least favourite subject at school, by the way...after Maths , of course!
• Eleni Menegaki and her divorce which sounds like a ...National Divorce!

• My second love after Alkis - The  Sea!
• Planning our summer holiday with my significant other - Alkis. We both want to visit Alexandroupolis again.
• Midterm tests and exams at work which means I'm going to be very busy marking in the next couple of weeks. Meaning...I'm not going to be around much next week!
• Trying NOT to get addicted to Blog It!

The Warmth of Moral Satisfaction

Here I am, after a long day at work, typing this blog while lying on the carpet by the fireplace.It's been bitterly cold since Monday - it was only 7*C in my car yesterday when I set off to work at 9:30 am. Oh, how I hate it when it's freezing! It's been ages I haven't put on a coat to go to work! But summer will come again!!!

The oxymoron was ...cold warmth! It was that very special warmth of moral satisfaction when I looked up the IGCSE results on the British Council site for November 2009. I just could not believe it! All my students passed! Not one single failure! And what's more, there was only ONE A in Larnaca and that went to Nicolas - one of my 2009 IGCSE students. In the speaking test he got Grade 1 meaning A*. I remember his excitement when he got back from the Speaking Test and said the examiner told him it was a pleasure talking to him. And then I told him he'd pass with flying colours! And that was the second A in IGCSE ESL for my school,  after Kyriacos who got his A in May 2009 and Grade 1 in speaking. Both boys are 16-year-olds. In most other countries of the world , it's so hard to find kids, teenagers who speak a second language very well. And , please , allow me to say that I am very proud of my kids! I am very proud of all of them because  a  B or a C are great results as they constitute passports to all British universities and great qualifications in their adult lives.

I guess I am a bit overexcited tonight. I don't see that as MY success as most language schools do. For one simple reason: it wasn't MY success. It was the kids' success and they deserve all the credit. But it was MY very own moral satisfaction which is worth millions of euros!

Tuesday's Positive Thought on a....Tuesday 13th

Tuesday is considered, by many Greeks, to be the unluckiest day of the week. It was on Tuesday, May 29th, 1453 that the city of Constantinople (now known as Istanbul) was besieged and taken by the Ottoman Turks. The loss of life was considerable. Conversely, Greeks consider the number 13 (on its own) to be good luck. Reasons for this vary, including the belief that having 12 apostles of Christ made Christ the 13th of the group. The ancient philosophy of Numerology considers 13 to be "the most selfless of all" and "love for the world revolves around" thirteen. The Celts also considered the number 13 to be related to good fortune. However, the combination of Tuesday and 13 as Tuesday the 13th of the month is considered a very unlucky day in Greek culture.

Today, Tuesday 13th 2009 was a very unlucky day for me. I'm not superstitious and I really don't believe there are lucky and unlucky days. Very often it depends on what WE make of our day - any day. However unlucky your day may be - even on a Tuesday or Friday 13th - a positive thought makes your day!

TODAY

1. I got up late in the morning - very unlike me - and was consequently late for work. Classes begin at 2:30 pm but I must be at the school by 10:00 am and my own boss is pretty strict .  Feeling positive, I sang "My Favourite Things" in the bathroom - yes ,don't laugh, it's my favourite song - I only had coffee and a toast for breakfast and I was at the school by 10:25.

2. I planned ALL my lessons on the interactive whiteboard. At 1:30 pm - only one hour before lessons start - the projector of my interactive whiteboard wouldn't switch on! I calmly called the company I got it from, and firmly demanded their technical support BEFORE 2:30. Indeed, a tech support guy came , only to tell me that there was something wrong with the projector and that they would need to send it to Nicosia to see what the problem was. I politely said that I would like to have my projector REPLACED at no cost at all, immediately. Indeed, an hour later the tech guy came back with the new projector.

3. On my way back from work at about 8:30 tonight, I suddenly remembered there was no bread at home.  So, I stopped at a bakery and got some.

4. As I was parking the car in the garage, a gorgeous black cat jumped in and comfortably sat at the back seat. Yes, there are a lot of stray cats in my neighbourhood. It took me a while to persuade it to get off my car because I was seriously going to lock her in!

5. Once home , Alkis happily told me about the ..great day he had at work and he had also remembered to get...some bread!

“Fear less, hope more; Eat less, chew more; Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more; Love more, and all good things will be yours”~ Swedish proverb

Back to School

After a long summer break, the first bell of the new school year went off last Thursday in my area but I thought I'd give my students the weekend off, so I started lessons on Monday 14. As I was preparing to go back to school, I realised how much I had missed my kids and how much I was looking forward to meeting my new students.

I was delighted to see that most of my old students were not seriously infected by SAS (Summer Amnesia Syndrome) which infects , almost invariably, school children!!! Ah well, some of my Junior B still confuse U and Y ! One of them forgot how to spell his surname ! Poor darling, he has such a long surname in Greek and it's already hard enough for him to spell it in Greek let alone in English. I am very proud of my Year 3 Elementary students. They're 11 and they can perfectly communicate in English. As for my Junior A, they\re adorable. I started addressing them in English and they smiled and said to each other in Greek "This is English!" Using a lot of mime (I sometimes think I'm an actress not a teacher) I asked them to introduce themselves to the other children of the class, after an example , of course. They quickly got the gist and enjoyed going round the class introducing themselves to their new classmates.

  

Classes started uneventfully and thanks to my fabulous interactive whiteboard material I can move on much faster than before. Most of my Intermediate and Higher Intermediate students had assimilated new vocabulary in class. Some of them told me today how helpful that material was while doing the exercises in their student's book. Whether we like it or not, IT technology has entered our lives. As a language teacher, I believe it should enter every single classroom. Well, the week has just flown by or almost. Happy New School Year!