cross culture

so I was teaching yesterday afternoon. It was the first day after half term and the week before they'd had OFSTED so it was a much brighter atmosphere in school from the last time I was there. I had some new kids again who were reading different books to in the past. In one of my groups we were reading a book called the 'Stowaways'. I don't particularly like the book because it's hard to engage them in what's going on. The main character doesn't have a name because it's written in the first person and the two boys in it want to be sailors, not footballers like most of my boys! So I was trying to engage them with the interests and asked if anyone had been to the sea. One of the lads then went into this enthusiastic tale of how he was playing baseball at the beach once and the ball went in the sea. Sorry....baseball?!?! Since when has anyone in the UK played baseball?? We played rounders when we were at school, and in the summer term at uni in the parks, but although a similar game, we would never ever have referred to it as baseball, or known really about baseball. So I was sat there thinking...flippin tv, all this American rubbish our kids watch!!!

Then later in the afternoon I was working on some one to one reading with particular children. One of whom had just started the school that day. His literacy work was poor for a year 4 and he was far behind a lot of his classmates. I was reading a book with him and it was talking about heroes. The first hero was an American athlete who had won the 100 metER race, the 200 metER race and the 400 metER race. I appreciate that the book was about an American, and was probably from the States itself, but these children are struggling enough at nine years old to read simple words like 'when' and 'around'. When they actually get round to working on their literacy skills they see the word metre spelt 'wrongly' three times, they learn what it looks like and then the teacher marks it wrong when they write it and it knocks their confidence back even further forcing them to retreat into themselves and gain no confidence.
hmmm, have I ranted enough there? I know I'm a stickler from grammatical errors, and spellings is a little bug bear of mine, but if we're teaching our kids English, it makes sense to provide them with English books, at least until they're old enough to distinguish between the two spellings, doesn't it???

Wanted: Saint

I was feeling pretty fed up on Thursday. Lots happened Wednesday and my head just wanted to explode, or at least I wanted to go and punch something (or someone!) to let out all my frustrations. But instead I organised lunch with Theo and on the way there went to visit Bede. You can't feel angry at Bede. Who am I going to go visit next year when I'm out of Durham?? No one by any chance has any spare relics lying around they want to get rid of do they?

Heart Broken

This was the only picture I could find of me crying...and I wasn't even crying, I was drunk! But anyway, I'm distraught. I got my exam timetable this week and it was fine. Exams on the 15th and 16th May, and the 29th and 31st. Quite well spread out really. First week and last week of the exam period. I also thought, the Eurovision is always around the 22nd ish, so nearest Saturday to that is the 19th May. With a timetable like that I could actually go to Finland. I could have a weekend off and go and see the show I've always wanted to see live since I was little. Looked up the information online, and the Eurovision's on the 12th!!!!?????? Since when is the Eurovision so early in the month?!?! that's just ridiculous. I went home on the 14th last year and missed it by a week. It's just not fair. There's isn't a cat in hells chance of making it now. That glimmer of hope lost for another year.... :-(

General update

So why haven't I been updating my blog. Well I didn't have the energy to for about a week. But other than that things have actually been really busy. Exam dates and graduation dates have been posted on the internet this week and the space is there for publication of exam results which is scary! Doesn't seem two minutes since I was checking everyone's results out last year. Work is going as fast as ever. Too much to do in too little time. Teaching is fine and seems to come round on a Monday all too soon each week. I had a job interview at home last week and keep thinking about needing to apply for more. It was my brother's 21st last week so the family were up in Durham to celebrate. And as usual college doesn't stop! We had a Las Vegas night in college one night. This last week has been Duck Week with events on every night. On Valentines Day we had an Anti-Valentines party in H House with a secret valentines. Like secret Santa, we all chose a name out of a pile and bought that person a present. On the night we exchanged gifts, watched 'Little Miss Sunshine', which if you ask me isn't as brilliant as everyone's making it out to be. It's a good film, but I don't think it's particularly amazing, and we drank lot's of wine and ate chocolates and sweets. The weekend before Valentine's Day we had a big cocktail party at H House with the same culprits for Jo's birthday. I left home early to get back for this and it was great fun :-) We all go dressed up, and bought in more alcohol than we could drink between us in a month! Many a cocktail were mixed, many a song sung to and danced, and we all forgot about our stress for one night. On Thursday we had a 'Valentines Charity Dinner Dance' as part of Duck Week, which also happened to be Clare's 21st (who organises formals). So there were jazz bands and the like for that, along with valentines hits of last rolo's and wooden roses for sale to be presented for people throughout the meal. Tonight we had presidential elections in our JCR meeting (how are we that far into term?!) On Wednesday it's the Duck Star in Your Eyes Final, which Aidan's have won the last two years so I'll have to be there supporting Becky and co. And Saturday is Aidan's day, which I've never made before because except for last year when I was in Helsinki watching the Winter Olympics, I've been on retreat at Lindisfarne with CathSoc before. And the doctors told me not to stress and relax?! I barely have time to breathe these days...

Las Vegas Night

Cocktail Party in H House

Martyn's Birthday at Chiquitos

Friends

As I've been so useless at posting anything recently I feel a post is necessary to acknowledge my friends. I don't know what it is about February but there's always something dramatic going on in my life! Last year I had a lot going on and was pretty fed up. Then at the beginning of February especially, Mis was being absolutely amazing and we were really developing the friendship I cherish so much today. He dragged me out to Birdie where we met James,who has since put up with more than his fair share of my rant and stress! Birdie was also the first night out Eni had back in Helsinki since her return from before Christmas and one of the first times our whole tutor group went out together drinking sociably. From there on in I met so many incredible people who have become good friends :-) A year later I find myself returning to Durham after a headache put me in and out of hospital. My fears of last year of not meeting many people this year were pretty much gone in September, but the number of people who text, emailed, phoned, sent cards, presents, asked how I was was just phenomenal. I really do feel like one of the luckiest people in the world at the moment with the best friends I could ever hope for. :-) :-) :-)

Random Thoughts: Mortality

I've been thinking a lot recently about mortality. Don't know why. Maybe it's because the daughter in law of the man two beds down from me in hospital didn't bother ringing his five sons to inform them he was dying because it was 2am. Or that in the second ward they moved me to, one of the other patients, a 91year old lady, was shouting out all night 'If you're there God, please help me', or the look of fear in my dad's eyes as I repeated my symptoms to doctor after doctor alongside the glances they all gave each other, or my issues on LAD that have been plaguing me since May and affecting my faith big time, or maybe it's just the fact I've seen more episodes of Six Feet Under in the last 9 days than is actually healthy, but either way, I've been thinking about it a lot!
When I was young I was terrified of death, and thinking of a conversation with James on a walk last April, and seeing the Six Feet Under series I've been thinking about what a difference it makes having 'Open Casket' Funerals. About the way our culture shuts death away and doesn't acknowledge it properly. And I was thinking that maybe if we went back to the days when bodies were kept in the home until the funeral we wouldn't be so afraid or unwilling to discuss the topic. If something is seen as natural it's more easily accepted.
Then one episode I was watching the restorist in the program show pictures of his best work and then said that they were cremated and 'what a waste', and I thought, because obviously it's much less of a waste burying them underground?! And then I got to thinking about all the money that we put into embalming and restoring dead bodies only to let them decompose. Why do we spend so much money? I mean don't get me wrong, when we played Smoker's Wild as kids we always wanted to be the undertaker because they got all the money, and I appreciate it's a profession that needs to make a living. But is there really a need to spend money on making up dead bodies rather than using it for something productive.
But they do say that funeral's are for the living rather than the dead- which brings me back to the open casket thing. Although I think some faiths would say the funerals do actually have something to do with the soul of the deceased and are important. But can't your soul be restored without your body being? And that just leads me back to my whole issue on bodily resurrection and the after life. I'm going round and round in circles and something tells me I'm never going to come to an answer anyway because it's the one thing we can't avoid but know nothing about.

Globalising Conditions

I sat down at the table the first day I got home at Christmas and my fifteen year old brother turned round and said 'so, Maria, is there a theological explanation for global warming because I've been thinking....'. Then last week one of my mum's friends came round to see me when i got out of hospital and the conversation got onto global warming. (when I say conversation- I lay and listened really!) They were saying how when they learnt about it at school it wasn't real, they never really believed it was going to be something of their generation's concern. Then the other day I noticed this link and passed it onto a friend who's dissertation is about climate change. Today I was walking from the bar back to my room to grab a jumper because it was so cold in the bar, and outside it was t-shirt weather. The sun was shining, the sky was blue and it felt more like May than February. It could just be a warm day, it could be coincidence that we've had one of the warmest winters in years, that we've only had 2 days of snow in Durham (and elsewhere in the country) this year. But it just got me thinking, and this is from someone who try's to avoid thinking about such things!, about my mum's conversation and what it means about the future...

apologies, apologies, always apologies

ok, i know I'm useless...no new posts in weeks. I'll get onto that this weekend, just along with no new posts there's been a limited amount of work done so I need to get on top of that first. I'm amused that I just came across this advertisement in my research 'Devil. Order now and get free delivery'. How thoughtful of him :-) Like I say- I've got work to do!!!!