Friday - Week VI

What a beautiful sunny, sort of warmish day. Just perfect to lift the spirits even if we still have in the back of our minds that at any moment the rain will come. It does help the over all mood of the town to walk past shops and and see festive holiday decorations.

I stopped off at the school this morning to get some work done on the one assignment I'd missed a few points on. It was so nice to be back working in the school and I had the pleasure of seeing Julie, our morning teacher and we caught up things. It's amazing how in only one week so much can go on that we have lots to share. And I was enjoying listening to her teach in the room next to mine. There was lots of laughter just like there was in our class and that is always a more pleasurable way to learn. One of my Argentine students from my first two teacher practice sessions, Nuria, is now taking Julie's class so it was great to see her as well. She and her husband, Diago just got back from Spain where it was warm and sunny the whole time. Yes, I am now totally obsessed with weather even if it's not directly effecting me.

While I was working in classroom number 5 Fiona brought me one of their students, Artur, from Brazil who needed help editing a cover sheet for a graphic design position he was submitting for. So, I took about an hour to help him and if I do say so myself it came out great. My fingers are crossed for him that he at least gets an interview and even better the job. He's clearly very talented and his web page is artursg.deviantart.com. It's more along the lines of popular/comic book style art work and the first picture on his web page is a CD cover for a band in Brazil.

Clearly I wasn't going to get much work done on my assignment today and that's fine because Patrick, the Director of the school said he there is no rush to get it back to him. All my other assignments were accepted and I passed and also several of the other students have to correct things so there is some time before he needs to send them all to the Irish Education Board for our final approval. We'll all hopefully have our certificates by the middle of December.

I ran off to meet my Spanish students at the Spanish Arch Pub. We had another three hour session and it went really well. We had a lot of laughs as well as got a lot of work done. Vanessa's boyfriend joined us for an hour or so. Marc is very sweet and adorable and not quite at the level his girlfriend is at but he's been getting lots of practice speaking English at work. He holds a sign in the center of town for a burger restaurant encouraging people to go there. He said he doesn't mind standing outside all day because he gets 5 or 6 hours of practice speaking English with all the passerby's and gets paid for it so it's great. I love being around such positive, enthusiastic young people.

I headed to the Budding Cafe to help Ellen a bit with her decorating efforts. By the time I got there Jean Marie had already been there for several hours and happily had helped Ellen finish it all. We all went out to dinner at a lovely restaurant in Barna right on the sea.

I was exhausted by the time I got home though. I actually think I may have found out what it takes for me to be talked out.