38 days until holidays!

I have some ideas now and then about what to post here but I think I turned into a pre-exam maniac now. I can only tell you things about Slovene literature in 20th century (which is not very interesting).

I'm glad I got a single room this autumn so that I don't have my roommate watching movies while I'm studying all day long.

When I was finishing high school I was excited about moving into the student dorms, meeting new people and have a great roommate. Well ... it didn't happen. Me and my roommate didn't have much in common so we barely spoke to each other. And when she moved out there was this other girl who was wartching soap operas ALL DAY LONG.

Could be worse, huh? Then I moved out into my lovely single room.

Did you live at the campus when you were a student? Did you ever live at a boarding school? How were your roommates? :)

Poppy

The Wedding

I haven't been to a wedding for a veeeery long time. The last wedding I attended was my uncle's wedding when I was 7. This one was different because my cousin was the one who was getting married, it has already been one of us! :) And I really liked it. She's a beautiful girl and she was also a beautiful bride. All the family was together and celebrating their love.

This wedding made me think how I want my wedding and if I want to get married at all. One thing I figured out during the day was that I couldn't get married because I would be emotional the whole month before the wedding and I would cry 24 hours on my wedding day like something horrible was happening to me. I almost burst in tears watching them exchanging rings and stuff, how could I possibly survive my own wedding? :)

The funny thing that happened on Saturday was my age question. The bride's aunt asked me if me and my (10 years younger) sister would be tossing some rose petals on the floor when the happy couple came from the church. After the ceremony she came to me apologizing. She said she really thought I was 15 or something like that. Well, girl ... I'm 22! The critical point was when the waiter served me the menu for children. I mean. I know I look younger but that young? The rest of the night I was carrying my student ID with me because noone could believe my age.

I also met my cousin, the bride's brother after 10 years or so. He changed from a quiet shy boy to a party animal freshman and we definitely clicked! :D We made a deal to meet more often and go partying together. Therefore this is the photo of the night:

It was a good party which is understandable. We had a good reason to celebrate. It was nice to see all the family again and meet the groom's family and their very cool friends. There was no awkwardness, we got along pretty well.

Do you like going to a wedding or do you hate meeting that old annoying aunt who always pinches your cheek? :)

I wish all the best to the happy couple! And of course to their little baby who's coming in November. :)

Poppy

Embrace the braces!

Yes! It is funny. I am a 22 year old girl and I have braces. But that's ok, I see a lot of people that are older than me and have braces so that's probably not a big deal. I try to make it funny, like in this photo.

Don't be scared, it's just a joke. It was taken with my mobile phone so it's not a very good one. I took it and sent it to my boyfriend, when I got braces on my lower teeth about a week ago. Imagine a 31 year old guy with a girlfriend that wears braces. Haha.

Even one of the kids I taught on my teaching practice said: "She's just like us!" Yeah, girl. Just 10 years older. :)

I don't worry about it too much, but my friend's sister is devastated. She is 15 and is getting braces soon and she feels like that's going to ruin her life. I don't like braces because they cause me mouth sores and my big passion, eating, is a bit more difficult now. But on the other hand, I look younger and I can even choose colorful elastics or the blue ones, to match with my eye color, yay! :) And of course, my goal is to smile like Julia Roberts in a year or two. ;)

Did you have to wear braces? How did you feel about it? :)

Poppy

Liverpool

I went to Liverpool for a weekend away and I didn't regret it. Liverpool has a lot of stories to offer. Where should I begin?

Albert's dock is a huuuge port. Or at least it was. The buildings were turned into museums. Tate gallery, Ship building museum with Titanic and Lusitania ... One of the most impressive museums is probably the International slavery museum. Since Liverpool had a very important port at that time, that was the place where most of the black slaves from africa were imported to. I will never get this slavery thing. Where did they get an idea like this? What if someone enslaved them? That probably wouldn't be so nice any more. One of the most important things in this museum to me, was the contemporary slavery and their campaign to stop it. Prostitution, trafficking, you name it. It's there.

The next thing are, of course, The Beatles! Do you love them? Or at least like tem? I do. :) They come from Liverpool and that's also where their museum, The Beatles Story is. You can walk through their story, listen to their great music all the time and get to know them better. They still keep their spirit around by running the cavern club where you can listen to live music every night. And drink beer and sing, of course. I realized some of their lyrics are really amazing.

What about football? Do you watch football? I know I have some American readers here and you know what? We are playing in the same group at the world cup. Algeria, Slovenia, England and America. Who do you think will win these matches? :) I'm not convinced by Slovene football but I saw that you can be a football fan if there is some good football to watch. English people are very faithful and supportive fans of their teams. We visited Liverpool football club's stadium and listened to its stories. There is a sad story about the hillsborough disaster. The club commemorated the deaths od 96 faithful fans with this mosaic:

What did I miss? Oh yeah, I know... Fish & chips and the beer!

And most important of all, the town was really nice, the people were ver friendly and even the weather wasn't very English. Wanna visit Liverpool? I definitely recommend it. :)

Poppy

Teaching practice report no. 2

The second week of my teaching practice was English week. Since I'm a double major student I teach two subjects: Slovene language and English language.

Teaching English is more fun because you can prepare absolutely anythin as long as it is related to the topic you're teaching. I didn't complicate much, I just prepared A LOOOOOT of photos. Learners, especially young ones, love interesting photos. Like this one, for teaching Present continuous tense:

What is Fluffy doing at the moment? He is watching TV. :)

What is he watching? "He is watching Animal planet!"

I was learning all the time, my other, mentor, a teacher of English was very helpful to me, she pointed out my weaknesses and praised my strengths. She especially liked my worksheets and Power Point presentations, that definitely drew children's attention.

I also get along with other teachers well. I would like to just stay there and chat and drink coffee forever. :D I like the school, I like the kids I like more or less everything. They said I should wait a bit and see the real picture, but still ... :)

Tomorrow's saturday but due to the wind day this school has to make up for the lost day. We are joining the national event "Let's clean Slovenia in one day". We'll be cleaning the rubbish around the town and trying to clean all the plastic bags that got stuck in the trees because of the wind. My mentor said I could stay at home because there will be no English or Slovene language related activities but I thought I could chat some more ... I just have to find my gloves ... :)

Poppy

Teaching practice report no. 1

Ah! I thought I would have so much to tell you I would write every day! I do have a lot to tell you but I really have NO time to write. :)

The first week of my teaching practice went well. My mentor is an easy going person so she didn't complicate and just let me do what I needed to do. I learned quite a lot in a week:

- A wrist watch is a must. I'm going to buy one today because I don't have it. I never wear any jewelry but when you teach you just have to know how much time you have left.

- Teaching = 50% of actual teaching + 50% of paper work. At least now it is, when I'm stil unexperienced and I HATE it. :)

- Children are smarter than you think. :)
- Keep it simple.
- You have to look good. Not supermodel but nicely dressed and tidy. Children notice.
- Use their humour in your own profit. Avoiding it is impossible. :)

However, I taught 3 lessons last week. The first one was so-so. My Power Point presentation wasn't very cooperative and sabotaged me. :) There wasn't enough time ... but we did it anyway. My second one went ok but still not perfect. I was a bit unfocused and children probably noticed that. And they were too hardworking so we didn't manage to finish everything. Again. :) The third one was the first normal lesson I taught. I wasn't so nervous any more and I managed to put everything into 45 minutes.

Children are funny. :) I know many of them because they are my neighbours or my friends' younger siblings or archery club members or whatever. I guess they liked me too, since some of them asked me if I could be their teacher next year, because their teacher is going to have a baby in September. I would be happy to be their teacher, but I still have to finish my education.

My friends find it funny. I told them I probably wouldn't like teaching and I'm not even that good with children but surprisingly I quite like it now. It's my birthday today and one of my friends got me a teacher-ish present: a packet of blackboard chalks! :) I'll save it for my first real teaching job. ;)

Poppy

Liverpooool!

Yesterday I was spending my last day at uni before teaching practice break. My boyfriend was annoying me on the Gtalk while I was intending to study for today's term test. (lol) He said we should go somewhere during the break. But where should we go?

Let's look for the cheapest Ryanair tickets and then just go there. Sardegna? Could be ... but hostels are a bit expensive .... Birmingham? Hmm.. what's there to see? Well.. not much ... Liverpool? Hmm.. interesting idea! 2 return plane tickets for 98 €, a very nice hostel for 18€ per day ... that's really nice for a student-ish budget!

And so it happened. From boring rainy afternoon to exciting trip-planning. We'll go see the Beatles museum! And maybe Liverpool FC stadium. Or take a train to Manchester! Niiice. :)

I'm an English language major and I haven't been to an English speaking country yet. This is only a 4-day trip but you have to start somewhere, right? :) I'll send you a postcard. ;)

(You really can't find anything else when you Google "Liverpool" :)) )

Poppy