i was told they didn't do squash in germany.

This beast suggests otherwise:

(next to my laptop for scale)


All for €1.20, I imagine 'Mr. Max' is left over from the old East Germany.

i doubt i'll get any snow days.

One of my Kollegen happily informed today that the last time the school was closed due to snow was in the harsh winter of 1979... I had better get used to the slippy walk to work.

the last few weeks.

Not much has happened really. Most of my lessons were cancelled for some reason or another, be it the kids having exams or work experience and the first two weeks back after the hols I was actually earning €66 an hour, not bad really. In the lessons I have actually been in I feel I have been used better than I was before the holidays, I have been taking small groups of kids aside and doing speaking practice with them, much better than sitting around doing nothing. Also I was entrusted to teach the year 7s the 'present perfect progressive', needless to say they are probably still none the wiser. Also in my Y13 class they were discussing the difference between science fiction and utopia/dystopia literature, I kept very quiet in that lesson.

I also held my first AG (after school club). I was told that I had to teach them poems and a song in 45 minutes to a good enough standard to perform at the open day next saturday. I was told 26 kids were coming. I was slightly stressed about it. Monday came around, I was in my classroom shitting myself about how the next three quarters of an hour would go, the bell rang for 2pm and I opened to door to.... 4 children. The other 22 clearly decided they had something better to do with their Monday afternoon. I was then told by one of the other teachers that we wouldn't be doing any performances at the open day.

Pressure off I proceeded to introduce the song to them (I wanna be like youuuuu, from the Jungle Book). I asked (out of politeness, everybody knows this song which is why I chose it) if they knew how the tune went. I was met with four blank stares. So, in the absence of a set of speakers (the height of technology I had at my disposal at this stage was an overhead projector), I decided to sing them the song. As I finished and looked up, two of them (Year 6s) were in silent fits of laughter and the other two (slightly more mature Y7s) were struggling to keep a straight face. How peinlich. I won't be singing again. The rest of the session passed without event and we even learned the song in time to do a poem as well. One of the girls cheered when I said we were moving on to a poem, either she is the German version of Matilda or was taking the piss. I'm hoping for the former.

On the not-in-school-front, I had a lovely brief sojourn back to Leeds for Rebecca Wallace's birthday and last weekend I went to Köln for the start of Karneval. Yes, when we have a minutes silence on 11/11. the Germans begin carneval, slightly worrying or quite funny? I'll leave that one up to you. Karneval proper seems to be in Feb/March but the first day was last thursday. However, we couldn't get to Köln on time for the parade and just arrived late and had a night out, how typically British. I have also been to Bochum and Essen for nights out in the last three weeks, both good nights. I have finally started to build up my consumption of Döner, something which was severely lacking in the first month or so here. Off topic but it just came to me, my refusal to buy a toaster (and my lack of oven) resulted in me returning to the phenomenon which is microwavable naan bread, It's still shit.

Also I have discovered an Irish pub which shows live football, not quite hitting the cultural heights which are possible here but still invaluable! The only downside is that it takes an hour and a half to get there, could do with a local to be honest.

The German effiency myth has once again reared its ugly head... why would you make a debit card without a security code?! How can you buy things on the internet under these circumstances?! They really aren't that efficient at all.

My performances at football with the teachers have reached the stage where they want to pick me first for their teams. What can I say? Eat your heart out Marc Albrighton.

Sorry this wasn't very well structured, but I haven't written for a while and just wrote things in the order I thought of them.

in other news...

...I just made my first boredom related trip to a bakery. Very impressive given there are so many here and the food always looks so tasty! In case you care I had a creamy custardy berliner which was in the shape of a tube rather than round.

please do your bit.

As you will know, I am in Germany thanks to the British Council Language Assistantship scheme. I have had a fantastic opportunity and am having a brilliant year. However, our lovely new coalition government have told the British Council not to open recruitment to the scheme for the students in the year below me. This is disastrous for so many students who, like me, just didn't want to study in a foreign uni or work in industry. This decision is a massive backwards step for language learning in England, something which already seems to be a dying art.

The scheme reportedly costs a mere £750,000 to administer (sod all in comparison to much other spending) and is so important. Please take ten minutes to write to your local MP and complain about this, it is such a silly cut to make. Even better, if you're in Hallam then mention to Clegg his background in Europe and languages etc.

http://www.writetothem.com/

Here is some info on the cut:

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=414186&c=1

That is all x