A Month and Two Days

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

It has officially been a month since I arrived here in London, and what a fantastic month it has been. I mean there have been a couple downs, homesickness and some issues with the mates in my flat, but overall, it has been good. The tube and I are best friends now. I know how to navigate it like a pro and figure out which stations are good to do connections and what not. I’m starting to do well with the whole “excuse me I need to get out” aspect of the tube. I still have some trouble saying “excuse me” in a way that means “I need to get out so move.” Most of the time, I just push my way through or have had people notice that I need to get out. Along with the tube, I’m doing well with getting to places like school, class, and stuff like that. I attribute a lot of that with being able to read a map, which I have with me all the time. Overall, I’m doing well with this whole being on my own thing. The only problem I’m still dealing with is groceries. I’m good with buying them, but I’m still trying to figure out what’s most economical: buying large or buying the basics and buying stuff for dinner when I need to. I know how much money I have so I’m going to start budgeting and see.
With that out of the way, I have some updating to do. Monday was my second day in the schools, and it was very hectic. Almost every single class that I was in had a lot of misbehaving kids. A lot of them were off task and talking over the teacher while he was trying to teach. They were hyper, unfocused, and very distracting. The worst part was none of the teachers could get these kids focused on the lessons. I had three that day, and only one of them tried. The rest ignored those that were off task and focused on those that were. What I saw was something that really annoyed me. The behavior of the class is something that promotes or detracts from the learning. It is essential in the classroom to get kids on task because it is important for them to learn. Plus their behavior would be distracting to those that want to learn. The worst thing is that I even tried to get the students who were off task on task but it didn’t work. I just felt like that the teacher had no authority in the classroom, which was bad. It was a good learning day for me because I definitely learning what things I should do and shouldn’t do to get my class to behave. If this keeps on, I don’t think I’ll be able to do what I want to do while I’m there.
Phew, I’m off my teacher soap box for now until I write my journal. You’ve been spared a lot of my ranting that I will be doing in my journal. Anyway, back to Monday. After school, I had class, and we had a speaker to come talk to us about Every Child Matters. It is basically legislation that was passed concerning the health and safety of the children here in the UK. The session was really informative and really interesting. At the end of class, I went back to my flat, ate dinner, did work, and passed out. It was an extremely long and exhausting day.
Today, there is not much to report. Classes went fine. We had a quiz today in my Theatre, and I thankfully did not get called on about the play we had to read. Why am I thankful? The answer is I was not able to finish the play, it was very boring, and I had not retained any of the details. It’s a really bad sign when that happens because I am usually interested in reading plays. Yet, when I can’t finish one, there is little to no hope that I am going to like it. But, we’ll see.
For the rest of the night, I have a Beatles essay to finish, an EDU journal to write, Art notes to write up, a reading for Art, and pizza with some of my TFs and flat mates.
Achievement for the weekend: I decided to not clean up the kitchen the last couple of days. It was more of an experiment than annoyance that I’ve been the only one doing it. It worked because yesterday the dishes were out of the sink and washed. The counters were still dirty, but that’s to be expected. I was informed by one of my TFs that my flatmates noticed that I stopped cleaning. One of the mates thought that I was annoyed with them and just left the kitchen the way it was. He also stated that it would get done, but I was only doing it because of my compulsiveness. I do have a slight compulsiveness when it comes to cleanliness and organization, but I can control it. I really only do it if I am stressed or bored. I have been stressing out lately so I did it. It really only annoys me when that happens. Otherwise it would be fine. Also, I tend to start cleaning more when I clean up my messes. I get into the zone and just clean until I’m finished. So, that’s really what it all entails. Also, I’m done with my moaning about it too. It just surprised me that people could be that lazy and dirty. It was just a new thing to me and very interesting thing to me. I’ve gotten used to it and might have to give these guys some lessons in cleanliness. Anyway, I’m done with my ranting here.
Until Next Time,
Jefe