Just down the road from the school, there is a tea shop opening. I'm not sure when it will open, or indeed whether the owner is building it for his unborn children, because I have never seen such a slow shopfitting in my entire life. Now I'm no expert on the matter, and so I would appreciate anybody putting my expectations right if they are wrong, but I would expect a shopfitting, for a pretty small shop, to take not that long. They had started on it when I arrived. They look as though they are maybe half way now, 7 weeks later.
In an almost unrelated vein, I went for dinner tonight, at what is fast becoming my favourite restaurant, for reasons not wholly related to food. Outside, they were putting up a banner, ostensibly to attract business. When I arrived, they were a fair way into this exercise. When I left, 75 minutes later, they hadn't yet finished. This was a banner that would take Mike and I maybe 10 minutes to put up. If we were drunk. And didn't have a ladder.
I'm not sure what all of this means, but I thought I'd mention it and let you draw your own conclusions.
Saturday, 29 September 2007
Thursday, 27 September 2007
Apologies and reasons
I feel I must apologise for my pointless, puerile, and ultimately pointless post of earlier. I was rushed, and I thought that my inane ramblings on the events of this week would be suitable. I realise now that I was wrong, and what is needed to satisfy me is the posting of my actual thoughts and deep insights.
Ok, enough bollocks. The fact is that I have, I think, unearthed if not THE, then certainly a very big part of THE reason why China is taking over the world. Everybody talks about work ethic, schooling, and all that stuff, and they are absolutely correct, but there is a principle behind all that.
See, Chinese waiters and waitresses don't expect tips. Indeed, if you leave a tip, they will bring it back to you saying you forgot your change (or the Chinese equivalent).
So what?
Well, the word "tips" originates as an acronym for To Insure Prompt Service. Which is very much not the way Chinese people think.
You see, what ensures prompt service is the fact that IT'S YOUR JOB to deliver promptly.
Therein lies the key. China (and this goes beyond just the waitrons et al), seems to have absolutely zero sense of entitlement. If you want something, you earn it. Nothing is for free, or for more than you have originally agreed.
I really like that. A lot.
I hope it lasts.
Ok, enough bollocks. The fact is that I have, I think, unearthed if not THE, then certainly a very big part of THE reason why China is taking over the world. Everybody talks about work ethic, schooling, and all that stuff, and they are absolutely correct, but there is a principle behind all that.
See, Chinese waiters and waitresses don't expect tips. Indeed, if you leave a tip, they will bring it back to you saying you forgot your change (or the Chinese equivalent).
So what?
Well, the word "tips" originates as an acronym for To Insure Prompt Service. Which is very much not the way Chinese people think.
You see, what ensures prompt service is the fact that IT'S YOUR JOB to deliver promptly.
Therein lies the key. China (and this goes beyond just the waitrons et al), seems to have absolutely zero sense of entitlement. If you want something, you earn it. Nothing is for free, or for more than you have originally agreed.
I really like that. A lot.
I hope it lasts.
Tuesday, 25 September 2007
Walruses... Walrie... The Walrus
¨The time has come¨, the walrus said, ¨to talk of many things....¨
I haven´t, of course, posted since I went to the beach. This is because I am lazy, not because there has been nothing to say. In fact, this has been a week filled with fun and adventure, most of which I forget right now.
So let´s start at the beach. Last weekend (being last Monday and Tuesday, because that´s how I roll), we all squeezed into a bus made for people with little legs, and travelled to the beach. Now, already I can hear statements along the lines of "Beach? In China? Must have been terrible, with millions of people running around."
You are incorrect. Unless you weren't thinking that, in which case you aren't incorrect.
Point being, the beach was fantastic. We rented tents from a little shop near here for 25yuan, climbed into the bus, and drove for about 2 hours South or
East or Southeast. Arriving at the beach was quite something. See, in South Africa you know that you've arrived at the coast for all of the final 100Km before you get salt in your carburettor. Here, we were about 200m from the sea without realising it. I don't know why - I don't know if we can maybe smell the sea from where we live, and so are used to it, or because there are no waves. At all. Barely a ripple. It was like swimming in a big salty bath with your clothes on.
Whatever the reason, we only realised we were at the beach when the driver stopped and said "There's the beach". We then ambled around for a while picking a beach to visit, because they're all really open, and completely lack (thank God) the plague of housing that infests every single kilometer of South Africa's coast.
Eventually we chose to go to a resort type place, where we paid very little to be allowed to camp on the beach itself, literally 30m from the sea. What a fantastic experience. We spent the day playing touch rugby, touch rugby, a little frisbee, touch rugby, and a game called Radball, which involves hitting a ball as far into the water as you can, for the "fielders" to fetch. That may not sound like much, but it entertained us for a good 2 hours.
We ate lunch at a restaurant on the beach, where they served the freshest seafood I've ever eaten (except for the oysters & mussels I ate with Bill straight off the rocks), and then played more beach sports.
The evenings activities involved a bonfire, some beers (hehehe... Ok, lots of beers), and a fair bit of trying to sneak into the water for a swim, followed by getting chased out by a security guard with the patience of Job (Repeat. Many times). Lovely guy, but I wouldn't want to be him.
The long and the short of it is that we had a magnificent time at the beach, and all returned to Huizhou really well rested and ready for the week. Not.
The week consisted of a great deal of teaching (which I am starting to grasp slowly). I had my first observation last week, and the feedback was surprisingly decent. Our training is also in full swing now, so learning a lot on that front.
Outside of school, this week saw the mid-autumn festival, which all of the western staff approached with great enthusiasm after a rousing talk by our fearless leaders. Essentially, as I understand it, the festival is to celebrate the middle of autumn, and the full moon, and some other stuff. It's massive. (cue Chinese people laughing in the background).
Turns out, it used to be massive, some years back. This year, all the Western staff and all the Chinese staff, walked down to West Lake (a beautiful big lake in Huizhou, where the festival is held) with lanterns and mooncakes to celebrate. West Lake, unfortunately, looked exactly the same as any other night, with the exception of a few more people, and more kids than you would expect carrying little lights and things.
It turns out it's compulsory for the Chinese staff to go (and semi-compulsory for us), but they are all bored stiff every year, because they know it's rubbish. And they laugh at our eagerness.
In the end, we didn't have a bad time - we hired a couple of peddle boats, which brought out my competitive streak (I knew he was hiding in there somewhere), and resulted in a race over about 200m. The key problem here is that the peddle boats are made for Chinese people, and while I may have mentioned that they don't seem that much smaller than me, they definitely have shorter legs. So I kept hitting my chin with my knees. We won though, which is what counts.
On the bicycle saga, good news. Unfortunately it covers bad news. Next week we have a ten day holiday, which everybody is of course very excited about. My plan, when I heard about it, was to fly out to see Mike in South Korea. Unfortunately, my passport only got back from the Chinese visa office yesterday, and there is no possible way to get a Korean visa in time. So I will have to do that another time.
You may be asking how this links up to the bicycle, and I'll put you out of your misery (and the ongoing misery of the longest bloody blog post in the history of forever) - I am going on a cycle tour. I don't know where just yet, but somewhere into the mountains. At the moment, I'm planning it, and rallying the troops (which is not going well). Still, it will be 5-6 days outside of Huizhou, in the fresh mountain air, cycling around, camping, eating at dodgy little restaurants, and all in all having a great time.
On that note, I hereby end this long and somewhat rushed ramble, because I'm supposed to be at school planning lessons.
Send news from home. (Email, no comments - I can't see them).
I haven´t, of course, posted since I went to the beach. This is because I am lazy, not because there has been nothing to say. In fact, this has been a week filled with fun and adventure, most of which I forget right now.
So let´s start at the beach. Last weekend (being last Monday and Tuesday, because that´s how I roll), we all squeezed into a bus made for people with little legs, and travelled to the beach. Now, already I can hear statements along the lines of "Beach? In China? Must have been terrible, with millions of people running around."
You are incorrect. Unless you weren't thinking that, in which case you aren't incorrect.
Point being, the beach was fantastic. We rented tents from a little shop near here for 25yuan, climbed into the bus, and drove for about 2 hours South or
East or Southeast. Arriving at the beach was quite something. See, in South Africa you know that you've arrived at the coast for all of the final 100Km before you get salt in your carburettor. Here, we were about 200m from the sea without realising it. I don't know why - I don't know if we can maybe smell the sea from where we live, and so are used to it, or because there are no waves. At all. Barely a ripple. It was like swimming in a big salty bath with your clothes on.
Whatever the reason, we only realised we were at the beach when the driver stopped and said "There's the beach". We then ambled around for a while picking a beach to visit, because they're all really open, and completely lack (thank God) the plague of housing that infests every single kilometer of South Africa's coast.
Eventually we chose to go to a resort type place, where we paid very little to be allowed to camp on the beach itself, literally 30m from the sea. What a fantastic experience. We spent the day playing touch rugby, touch rugby, a little frisbee, touch rugby, and a game called Radball, which involves hitting a ball as far into the water as you can, for the "fielders" to fetch. That may not sound like much, but it entertained us for a good 2 hours.
We ate lunch at a restaurant on the beach, where they served the freshest seafood I've ever eaten (except for the oysters & mussels I ate with Bill straight off the rocks), and then played more beach sports.
The evenings activities involved a bonfire, some beers (hehehe... Ok, lots of beers), and a fair bit of trying to sneak into the water for a swim, followed by getting chased out by a security guard with the patience of Job (Repeat. Many times). Lovely guy, but I wouldn't want to be him.
The long and the short of it is that we had a magnificent time at the beach, and all returned to Huizhou really well rested and ready for the week. Not.
The week consisted of a great deal of teaching (which I am starting to grasp slowly). I had my first observation last week, and the feedback was surprisingly decent. Our training is also in full swing now, so learning a lot on that front.
Outside of school, this week saw the mid-autumn festival, which all of the western staff approached with great enthusiasm after a rousing talk by our fearless leaders. Essentially, as I understand it, the festival is to celebrate the middle of autumn, and the full moon, and some other stuff. It's massive. (cue Chinese people laughing in the background).
Turns out, it used to be massive, some years back. This year, all the Western staff and all the Chinese staff, walked down to West Lake (a beautiful big lake in Huizhou, where the festival is held) with lanterns and mooncakes to celebrate. West Lake, unfortunately, looked exactly the same as any other night, with the exception of a few more people, and more kids than you would expect carrying little lights and things.
It turns out it's compulsory for the Chinese staff to go (and semi-compulsory for us), but they are all bored stiff every year, because they know it's rubbish. And they laugh at our eagerness.
In the end, we didn't have a bad time - we hired a couple of peddle boats, which brought out my competitive streak (I knew he was hiding in there somewhere), and resulted in a race over about 200m. The key problem here is that the peddle boats are made for Chinese people, and while I may have mentioned that they don't seem that much smaller than me, they definitely have shorter legs. So I kept hitting my chin with my knees. We won though, which is what counts.
On the bicycle saga, good news. Unfortunately it covers bad news. Next week we have a ten day holiday, which everybody is of course very excited about. My plan, when I heard about it, was to fly out to see Mike in South Korea. Unfortunately, my passport only got back from the Chinese visa office yesterday, and there is no possible way to get a Korean visa in time. So I will have to do that another time.
You may be asking how this links up to the bicycle, and I'll put you out of your misery (and the ongoing misery of the longest bloody blog post in the history of forever) - I am going on a cycle tour. I don't know where just yet, but somewhere into the mountains. At the moment, I'm planning it, and rallying the troops (which is not going well). Still, it will be 5-6 days outside of Huizhou, in the fresh mountain air, cycling around, camping, eating at dodgy little restaurants, and all in all having a great time.
On that note, I hereby end this long and somewhat rushed ramble, because I'm supposed to be at school planning lessons.
Send news from home. (Email, no comments - I can't see them).
Friday, 14 September 2007
1 month on
Chinese painting, bumps on cars, and no rugby.
It's been, unless my maths fails me pretty badly, a month since I arrived in China. Well, a month and two days.
I made a decision, the week before last (or around then) to try and fill my spare time with something other than watching DVDs or walking myself to death and getting lost. So I have taken up the ancient art of Chinese painting, basing my learning purely on a book I downloaded from the internet. This is not going as well as you may have expected, thanks to my well known artistic streak, and other factors to follow.
I have also started Tai Chi (Or dzjaaid sneeze, as I believe it's called here). Many people (myself included until yesterday), see Tai Chi as a beautiful, slow, balanced and graceful martial art. This is incorrect. In a one hour session, we spent 30' doing stretches that would make my physio cry with happiness (at the money she could make repairing us), 20' practising kicks and jumps and lifts of sorts (The lifts were particularly special - my partner was a great guy called Tristan, who weighs about 60Kg. Suffice to say I remained firmly on the ground), and a final 10' of doing one Tai Chi step. All of these moves were surprisingly complex, and if it weren't for my unmatched physical fitness and legendary coordination, I might have seriously hurt myself.
For those that can't read between those lines and don't know me well - I hurt myself.
I have also started formal Chinese lessons, and been given my Chinese name: Shu Lin (The u is a flat tone, and the i is a 4th tone) - it sounds like Shoe lee-en. This is a crucial moment in any man's development, and certainly I like the sound of it. Shu Lin - mighty wood who stands tall as a pine tree and is strong like an oak. No, that's not what it means. It means (cue the jokes) Forest. I am starting running tomorrow.
Enough about my new hobbies though, and on to more wildly inaccurate but all encompasing observations of China based on my limited experience in a very un-Chinese city.
In an earlier post I mentioned how appallingly Chinese people drive, but on this count I believe I was mistaken. Although they park anywhere, drive through non-existent gaps, insist on turning across oncoming traffic, and are generally an absolute menace to my mental health, I have not seen a single car with a scratch on it. I mentioned this fact to a couple of the other teachers, and we've all been looking - Chinese people simply don't make mistakes when driving. It amazes me. I come from a city where any car without a scratch is being driven to go get one, and so this lack of unintended ornamentation is surreal. I can only put it down to one thing - There are very few women drivers in Huizhou.
I also went to a police station the other day, which was interesting. I have not been arrested yet Mom, don't worry - we had to be present to get our working Visas. We arrived, and sat in a little huddle while one of the guys from the school did the admin work. I was called up first, and given the Spanish Inquisition about when I arrived, what I did before I came here, was I ever a criminal, how many marshmallows I could fit in my mouth at once - all the usual. I returned to our group, and wished the next person luck. Nobody... NOT A SINGLE OTHER PERSON... got asked anything. NOT A SINGLE QUESTION. Bloody police. I digress though - what was interesting was that the police stations are almost exactly the same as in South Africa. Two people doing all the work (slowly), and a hundred standing around behind looking thoroughly bored, but conscientiously avoiding anything that might be construed as effort. I hypothesise that these people are there as bouncers, lest anybody suddenly get so fed up with the absolute bloody minded inefficiency of the whole place and go nuts. Read that last sentence again, and it'll tell you everything you need to know about my thoughts on bouncers.
On the school front, things continue to go well.
My classes are, for the most part, magnificent. I'm not going to go into detail about each kid, and what this one or that one did that was cute, or clever, or whatever. Suffice to say, they are mostly great kids, and the ones that aren't I'm working on. I think I might be able to get into this teacher vibe.
Upcoming attractions - This Monday/Tuesday (those are our days off), we're heading down to the beach. We rent tents and camp on the beachfront, as I understand, which should be a great experience. More than that, I cannot tell.
- My long awaited cycle is absolutely going to happen some time in the next month. I have so far ridden my beautiful little bicycle all the way from the shop home. But wait!!
- Not really an upcoming attraction, since there is no attraction to the fact that I STILL CAN'T WATCH THE RUGBY. I hate Australians. If nobody had told me that they were getting the rugger, I would have continued in my state of having written off watching it, and gotten on with my life. However, since the Aussie bastard said he would be getting it and showing it as his pub, I have been more excited than a basket-full of puppies on speed. He has, of course, utterly failed to deliver on his promise so far, but now I have all this hope with nowhere to go. I have spent incredible time and energy, and misused a number of school resources (luckily the principle is a rugby nut), trying to find anywhere in Huizhou that is showing it. It appears though, that I will have to revert to my original plan and go to Hong Kong to watch us beat New Zealand in an epic final. No Aussies are invited. I hope you lose to Wales. And Canada. And Fiji.
It's been, unless my maths fails me pretty badly, a month since I arrived in China. Well, a month and two days.
I made a decision, the week before last (or around then) to try and fill my spare time with something other than watching DVDs or walking myself to death and getting lost. So I have taken up the ancient art of Chinese painting, basing my learning purely on a book I downloaded from the internet. This is not going as well as you may have expected, thanks to my well known artistic streak, and other factors to follow.
I have also started Tai Chi (Or dzjaaid sneeze, as I believe it's called here). Many people (myself included until yesterday), see Tai Chi as a beautiful, slow, balanced and graceful martial art. This is incorrect. In a one hour session, we spent 30' doing stretches that would make my physio cry with happiness (at the money she could make repairing us), 20' practising kicks and jumps and lifts of sorts (The lifts were particularly special - my partner was a great guy called Tristan, who weighs about 60Kg. Suffice to say I remained firmly on the ground), and a final 10' of doing one Tai Chi step. All of these moves were surprisingly complex, and if it weren't for my unmatched physical fitness and legendary coordination, I might have seriously hurt myself.
For those that can't read between those lines and don't know me well - I hurt myself.
I have also started formal Chinese lessons, and been given my Chinese name: Shu Lin (The u is a flat tone, and the i is a 4th tone) - it sounds like Shoe lee-en. This is a crucial moment in any man's development, and certainly I like the sound of it. Shu Lin - mighty wood who stands tall as a pine tree and is strong like an oak. No, that's not what it means. It means (cue the jokes) Forest. I am starting running tomorrow.
Enough about my new hobbies though, and on to more wildly inaccurate but all encompasing observations of China based on my limited experience in a very un-Chinese city.
In an earlier post I mentioned how appallingly Chinese people drive, but on this count I believe I was mistaken. Although they park anywhere, drive through non-existent gaps, insist on turning across oncoming traffic, and are generally an absolute menace to my mental health, I have not seen a single car with a scratch on it. I mentioned this fact to a couple of the other teachers, and we've all been looking - Chinese people simply don't make mistakes when driving. It amazes me. I come from a city where any car without a scratch is being driven to go get one, and so this lack of unintended ornamentation is surreal. I can only put it down to one thing - There are very few women drivers in Huizhou.
I also went to a police station the other day, which was interesting. I have not been arrested yet Mom, don't worry - we had to be present to get our working Visas. We arrived, and sat in a little huddle while one of the guys from the school did the admin work. I was called up first, and given the Spanish Inquisition about when I arrived, what I did before I came here, was I ever a criminal, how many marshmallows I could fit in my mouth at once - all the usual. I returned to our group, and wished the next person luck. Nobody... NOT A SINGLE OTHER PERSON... got asked anything. NOT A SINGLE QUESTION. Bloody police. I digress though - what was interesting was that the police stations are almost exactly the same as in South Africa. Two people doing all the work (slowly), and a hundred standing around behind looking thoroughly bored, but conscientiously avoiding anything that might be construed as effort. I hypothesise that these people are there as bouncers, lest anybody suddenly get so fed up with the absolute bloody minded inefficiency of the whole place and go nuts. Read that last sentence again, and it'll tell you everything you need to know about my thoughts on bouncers.
On the school front, things continue to go well.
My classes are, for the most part, magnificent. I'm not going to go into detail about each kid, and what this one or that one did that was cute, or clever, or whatever. Suffice to say, they are mostly great kids, and the ones that aren't I'm working on. I think I might be able to get into this teacher vibe.
Upcoming attractions - This Monday/Tuesday (those are our days off), we're heading down to the beach. We rent tents and camp on the beachfront, as I understand, which should be a great experience. More than that, I cannot tell.
- My long awaited cycle is absolutely going to happen some time in the next month. I have so far ridden my beautiful little bicycle all the way from the shop home. But wait!!
- Not really an upcoming attraction, since there is no attraction to the fact that I STILL CAN'T WATCH THE RUGBY. I hate Australians. If nobody had told me that they were getting the rugger, I would have continued in my state of having written off watching it, and gotten on with my life. However, since the Aussie bastard said he would be getting it and showing it as his pub, I have been more excited than a basket-full of puppies on speed. He has, of course, utterly failed to deliver on his promise so far, but now I have all this hope with nowhere to go. I have spent incredible time and energy, and misused a number of school resources (luckily the principle is a rugby nut), trying to find anywhere in Huizhou that is showing it. It appears though, that I will have to revert to my original plan and go to Hong Kong to watch us beat New Zealand in an epic final. No Aussies are invited. I hope you lose to Wales. And Canada. And Fiji.
Wednesday, 05 September 2007
More pics
More pics, of more random stuff, up at my picasaweb site (link available in an earlier post).
We move to our evening timetable today, which means I only start work around 12, and should finish around 21h30. In anticipation of this, I have bought a Chinese Painting set, in order that I may finally release my internal frustrated genius through the medium of art. More to follow.
We move to our evening timetable today, which means I only start work around 12, and should finish around 21h30. In anticipation of this, I have bought a Chinese Painting set, in order that I may finally release my internal frustrated genius through the medium of art. More to follow.
Tuesday, 04 September 2007
Well, I didn't get to go for my cycle this morning, because we went out last night, ostensibly to go bowling, but actually to play a bowling drinking game. The upshot of this though is that I now know the exact level of sobriety needed to bowl perfectly - I got 4 strikes in a row, but then started sobering up and bowled terribly for the next 3 frames. One quick beer, and back on form.
I have now started uploading my photos - you can see them on http://picasaweb.google.com/zak.wood. There aren't many, and they aren't great, but I'll spend more time with the next batch and label them. For those wondering what the hell I was doing taking all the pics of scaffolding, you need to look closely at it. It's all made out of bamboo, and you will see some structures there that are quite amazing.
Stay well, stay strong.
I have now started uploading my photos - you can see them on http://picasaweb.google.com/zak.wood. There aren't many, and they aren't great, but I'll spend more time with the next batch and label them. For those wondering what the hell I was doing taking all the pics of scaffolding, you need to look closely at it. It's all made out of bamboo, and you will see some structures there that are quite amazing.
Stay well, stay strong.
Monday, 03 September 2007
The delays of real life
I think can now safely say that I have entered the "real life" zone here. I have fallen more or less into a routine, which involves many long and very relaxed hours at school, followed by many long and relaxed evenings at home post. That is going to change from Wednesday, as we move onto the evening timetable. I will start teaching at around 17h00, and finish around 21h30 each night. This means we only need to get to school around 13h00 for planning and whatnot.
Which leads, of course, to me having to fill my mornings, preferably with something other than hangovers. In that line, I have now bought a bicycle, the purchase of which was but a single afternoon's work, wandering around the city for 4 hours walking into every bicycle shop I saw in the hopes that they would have one my size. To explain if you are confused - a bicycle has to be a certain size to make comfortable to ride. The shops selling bicycles clearly are catering to the majority of their market, and there aren't a lot of Chinese over 6 foot. Eventually I got one to fit an extra long seat-post, and so alhough the handles are too low, I can at least almost straighten my legs. I am planning my first big ride for tomorrow morning, and will let you know how it goes.
Teaching is improving almost every day, as I get more experience, and find out what works and what doesn't. Asking the kids to read and follow and recite, does. Asking them to be creative, doesn't. Although, I am pleased to report, that a couple of my classes are starting to realise that I'm not giving up on whipping this creativity horse, and so they're making inroads.
There is a part of me that is desparate to teach them about Coleridge and Tennyson, and imbue them with a love of the English language which will carry them through long, dark, and lonely nights. But it does the heart good to sing about "I can hop, I can jump, I can do some other stuff that I can't really but it's fun to watch Mr. Wooo do."
I do have my first 1-to-1 student starting next week, and from what I understand they are generally more interested in talking about the world, so that could be fun.
I suspect I've rambled on quite enough today, I apologise for not updating the blog sooner, and I will strive to do it more regularly.
Which leads, of course, to me having to fill my mornings, preferably with something other than hangovers. In that line, I have now bought a bicycle, the purchase of which was but a single afternoon's work, wandering around the city for 4 hours walking into every bicycle shop I saw in the hopes that they would have one my size. To explain if you are confused - a bicycle has to be a certain size to make comfortable to ride. The shops selling bicycles clearly are catering to the majority of their market, and there aren't a lot of Chinese over 6 foot. Eventually I got one to fit an extra long seat-post, and so alhough the handles are too low, I can at least almost straighten my legs. I am planning my first big ride for tomorrow morning, and will let you know how it goes.
Teaching is improving almost every day, as I get more experience, and find out what works and what doesn't. Asking the kids to read and follow and recite, does. Asking them to be creative, doesn't. Although, I am pleased to report, that a couple of my classes are starting to realise that I'm not giving up on whipping this creativity horse, and so they're making inroads.
There is a part of me that is desparate to teach them about Coleridge and Tennyson, and imbue them with a love of the English language which will carry them through long, dark, and lonely nights. But it does the heart good to sing about "I can hop, I can jump, I can do some other stuff that I can't really but it's fun to watch Mr. Wooo do."
I do have my first 1-to-1 student starting next week, and from what I understand they are generally more interested in talking about the world, so that could be fun.
I suspect I've rambled on quite enough today, I apologise for not updating the blog sooner, and I will strive to do it more regularly.
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