Bogota Week Twelve

I had to leave really early the next day, because the psycho ex had rang her and was coming over. Felt like one of those real fast film style exits lol. I got into school and found out I had passed assignment 4. Not sure why they don't number them in order. We had another long day of observations and then I had to prepare another 20 minute lesson. After teaching for an hour, these lessons seemed somewhat pointless. I sorted the problems out with Iranis and had just begun them with Gloria. It did not look like I was going to Tayrona with Lina.

Nope I was wrong. She changed her mind. Colombians have a real problem making definitive decisions or making plans. They change them on a whim. The English on the contrary will attend something they have agreed to even if they are about to drop dead. I suppose its one of the best qualities from my country. Tuesday we all taught a small 20 minute lesson, so it was my last disjointed one. I prepared a class on stereotypes between men and women for the next day. The elementary class did not like their new tutors. They wanted to have us back. The intermediate group was also responding top us and did not want to switch back. I believe the elementary students said that Rebecca was the only good teacher from the others and lots of them had told me that they were not going to go back to their classes.

I woke up very sick with a bowel infection of worms. Nasty. I was really struggling and looking green apparently. I taught my lesson and got my best marks yet. Almost an above standard. I would stay up at that level for the remainder of the course except for the last lesson. My instructions cost me on this one. Dammit. It would be something small from now on it, but I started to get confident in my ability as a teacher, even if the nerves were getting steadily worse with every lesson. Lina came over that night and I cooked dinner. She was allergic to spicy stuff so I did a sweet spaghetti bolognaise with Teriyaki and Soy. Came out really good. She ended up tidying my room while I worked on assignment two in the morning.

After Lina tidied my room and I had studied some more, we set off for college. My bowels were getting progressively worse. I took Rebecca and Meagan's advice and went to buy some medication they recommended. It seemed to do the job. We watched the classes. Paola's went really bad that day but she avoided a below standard and that was the closest our group got to one. We observed classes that afternoon and the schedule was taking its toll. So many days were from 6am until 11pm, but at least I was keeping my weekends free. I finished assignment 2 and then prepared my class. I was going to adapt Washington Irving's Legend of Sleep Hollow and get them to write ghost stories, while Ekhaterina was going to a listening on Nightmare Before Christmas' 'This is Halloween.' With Anita as well, we were really starting to deliver high quality lessons and themed as well. Each person backing the other one up. I booked the flights for the coast and we would have to go via Cartagena. She had an ex there and a lot of friends so no problems for somewhere to stay. It does feel like sacrilege adapting Washington Irving with my own pen, but then maybe one day I will make it as a writer as well.

I got up early and finished off my version of the story. I taught a very good lesson. Saved myself time at the beginning and used that to elicit story structure. I should not really have done that as time was tight. It meant my lesson overran, but it was a really good lesson. Tom was finally impressed for the last lesson of mine her observed. Timing cost me though. Cost all of us that day really. Yovanna won the competition for the writing. I went to Lina's house after class and met a lot of her friends. She was going out for a halloween party. I needed a rest first. I could not wake up though and after going home I slept all night long. She rang me at 3am to say she was drunk and the party was great. At this point I was totally destroyed and we only chatted for a bit.

Halloween. Went into the British Council to do assignment 3. Did assignment 1B in ten minutes while I thought of a topic and I had then finished all of the assignments. Just two classes to go and I had in mind to do a debate and stage it over two lessons. Should solve my timing issue and allow me to use one class to tee up the other one. We got mashed 3-0 by Arsenal and conceded two goals in 17 seconds. That was depressing. We may be on the slide again. Need to get some good results in the next few weeks. I have almost caught my tail here and we only played twice more before now. There were some superb costumes around Centro Commercial Andino. One kid was dressed up as Optimus Prime in a ridiculously eleborate costume. They take this festival seriously here and some of the families spend way too much money. My cock is bigger than yours competitions with their kids. Little sad really, but spectacular nonetheless. Liverpool lost to a beach ball. Awesome. I went to meet Alice and her friends in a bar. Katzo had a truly cool turtles costume and then David came and joined us. I wanted to go to Vinacure as it would have been awesome that night, but nobody wanted to pay 50,000 pesos to get in. We went to a gay bar called La Oficina. Great music. David being a blonde gringo was attracting more attention than he was comfortable with his. His Washington State small town did not prepare him the same way that London had prepped me and Alice. Afterwards we went to Changos but the queue was too long. We were drinking in some shit salsa bar when Lina rang me and invited me to a party at some fat American's house. He worked for the US embassy, but apparently spoke no Spanish. Very odd. Lina reckoned he was a perro. It was odd having a very old American dude and lots of young Colombians. There was really good food and some truly impressive costumes. The three of us had not bothered. There was even a guy and a girl who were just in body paint and nothing else. Had a good time there and then Lina left for her flat. Alice, David and I decided to go and join my coursemate Anita. We met three random Colombians in the street, but they opted not to join us. Got to Anita's and she was there with her friend Alice, Paola and Rachel. Everyone was a little steamed. It was around 4am or 5am. We ended up having discussions about which students we would sleep with. They told me I could not pick Lina, so I said Camila. Paola chose Eric (a fat student), because he was quiet and James (an old business man) due to his dress sense. Rachel was surprised and then Anita was saying ah yeah Mr James is quite smart. Rachel by this point was 'what the fuck' and everyone was laughing. We would spend the last week and a half fucking about in class quite a lot and that night was always in my mind whenever we were teaching. I left and got breakfast with Alice before heading back to the flat around 8am. The others had called Benjamin and they ended up partying all through the next day.

November 1st. 4 MONTHS TO GO. Then I actually have to work. Ridiculous eh. After 19 months of not working, you don't really feel like it. Man City drew. Good for us. I ate in Khalifa (the Arabic place) and missed Praveen as we always ate there. I went all the way to Portal 80 to join Angelica for the cinema. We missed the first performance so we went back to her place and got some hot chocolate. Her and David are really nice people. Shame they never got together. She did have a really good time with a French dude though and I am pleased for her. We went and watched Inglorious Bastards. Quite funny, but not amazing. The German guy is just awesome. I got a taxi back. I had planned to go to Alice's for some films, but it was too late and I racked up 239 on the taxi metre. A new PB and 20,000 pesos. Nice.