Love From Brazil ღ

You’re Hot And You’re Cold!

Just a quick update! I can officially confirm we have moved into autumn! The weather has literally changed with a click! A couple of weeks ago it was still quite hot and then suddenly one day it was cooler because it rained and since then it has been COLD. Though it’s mostly due to overcast or rainy weather, if it’s sunny the temperature can be quite warm or mild. The night gets REALLY cold, my God it’s cold! I’m using my 13 tog duvet and the thermal PJs my mum thankfully brought me when she came over. There is no central heating of course so after it gets dark I want to have a hot shower and get under the covers ASAP! The change of weather as reminded me how much most people I know (myself included) just don’t want to go out at night during the long winters in London as it’s so freezing outside. You just want to stay at home and be all cozy and snuggly! Take Saturday for example, we went for drinks with friends because an old friend of the Mr. was in town so of course everyone wanted meet up for a catch up drink. Now, when you go for drinks here you usually go to some bar round the corner and sit outside. I hate these places to be honest, with their harsh lighting and lame music but I deal with it most times as sometimes we just have to go with the flow, right? But the food can be nice in some of these places so at least that’s something good about them! So we went to this bar for drinks and you can imagine how I was feeling… and no, it wasn’t hot! I couldn’t wait to leave the place. I just don’t get how people can spend all night outside drinking ice cold beer in this weather, It’s just madness to me!

Anyway, another update of the subject is I’ve acquired another group at work as the group’s teacher randomly left for some reason my colleagues and I are all curious about of course. It’s another kids group, they’re kind of hyper… buuut nothing compared to the hyper group I had last semester (thank God!). I was also offered a teen group to which my response was ‘Yeaah.. NO thanks!’ after substituting for the school on the first lesson after my colleague had left. The group was mental; the students prefer shouting instead of talking and a girl was trying out a colleague’s skateboard in the classroom. (obviously I told her off if you’re wondering.) Those are just a couple of examples for you to get my point. And it’s not even like the classrooms are big! They’re small and the desks are arranged in a U shape so I just don’t get why students feel they need to shout to communicate with a fellow student who is literally 6 feet away! Obviously we know kids have no respect whatsoever for NO ONE these days, even when I was at school it was utter madness but the ones who were disruptive were the idiotic yobbo types. Nowadays it’s just EVERYONE with a few exceptions.

So that’s my quick update, I’ll be back in a few days with an update that’s a tad more exciting! At least it is exciting for me! Hehe so until then peace and lurv to you all! x

Roll on December!!

Sooo, it’s only the beginning of the new semester and I want December to be here like now!! ‘Why?’ You may ask, well this semester I have a particular group of kids who are absolutely NUTS. Seriously, the hour that I spend with them has got to be the loudest hour I experience throughout the whole week! NOTHING works to calm them down!

• Relaxing music does not work.
• Any music from the course book you play has them shouting along (no, not singing along).
• If you let them dance to the song some of them like to throw themselves on the floor and start spinning around.
• Calming games such as Chinese Whispers do not work!
• I’ve even tried to use an annoying sound as blackmail (to get them to be quite or else I’ll play the sound) but they just ‘noise’ along to the sound!!

I’m trying to put together some kind of team competition thing that encourages the children to want to demonstrate desirable behaviour. Last lesson one of the students said to me ‘Ahh tia (tia = aunty in Portuguese), it must be so nice when you get home after this class!’ LOL

I got to speak with the group’s previous teacher to ask her for tips and she told me of the trauma the group brought her which I had heard about from other colleagues before my lessons started with this group. On the first day of lessons I was chatting in the teachers’ room with a colleague who was telling me about how much the group’s previous teacher had suffered and I was looking out the window at the children shouting and running around the place knowing that was the group and thinking ‘oooo lucky meee.. NOT’

So in my chat with the previous teacher she basically told me the only way she managed to get through the lesson was teaching that lesson’s unit and having the children copy stuff so there would be no moment that they would have to wait for her to give out instructions. Quite understandable seeing as there is not one second of peace where you can even explain to them what they have to do!! Whenever they have to do an activity I eventually have to go round the class to explain to each student individually what they have to do. The lady at the tuck shop told me how she and the security guy sometimes saw the previous teacher crying after class!! Poor thing! Don’t think I can see myself crying at any point but maybe going mad??? So this semester other than planning my lessons I have to be researching techniques, activities… anything to calm down hyper active kids! Lord give me strength. I’m just hoping none of the coordinators observe any of these lessons!! My recent sitting in was NOT fun. I’ll leave that for another post, should be fun eh??!!