Happy B-day to meeeee ....

It's funny how you get a thousand "happy B-days" on your Facebook one year and how you get none the following year, when you hide your birth date. :) A reality check how many people actually care about that and a wall clean of fake "I-wish-you-all-the-bests" at the same time. :)

I spent my B-day at some extra lectures and then I had to go home and revise for my exam next week. No time to party.

Luckily, there was an hour in between, when I got to celebrate with my friends, a pile of muffins and a cup of coffee. :)

Happy B-day to me! :)

Politically correct?

Today we were talking about political correctness in our sociolinguistics class. I have mixed thoughts about it:

First, the N-word. Do you know which one it is? I didn't think it was that obvious. At the end we were talking about coloured and African-American people. Which one is better? The first one sounds like white people have no colour. Well, at least I don't, but I would love to! :)

On the other hand people are of different colours. I don't want to support racism, let's clear that up, I'm strongly against that. But I don't see the point. Why wouldn't we embrace all these different races? What if you say your dog is a German shepherd, is that politically incorrect too? Should we just call all of them them "dogs"?

I love a quote from Two and a Half Men regarding that topic:

"Evelyn: Well, we can rule out ecstasy. I mean, that's a powerful aphrodisiac ... I've heard.
Jake: Nowadays you're supposed to say African-American disiac!"

The second thing we were talking about was the sexism. I know English has a lot of "-man" words. In our language we use different suffixes to fix that, English invented several "-woman" expressions and many neutral ones. But there was one that really bothered me: Obviously you can't even call a scarecrow a straw-man any more, nowadays it's called a straw-person!

Now, come on ... that's just stupid. :P We all know men are waaay scarier than women. ;)

A selection of my favourite love songs

I got a little bit mellow yesterday. I guess I could call it "spring effect."
I remembered all of the romantic songs I never get tired of. :)

My ABSOLUTE favourite.
If I EVER get married this is going to be my first dance song.

"I've been away to long and every day I missed you more.
You look like you did before, only prettier. Every day I love you more."

STARS: My favourite book

"You are the anchor that holds me.
And that is why we'll always make it.
How I know your face, all the ways you move, you come in,
I can read you You're my favourite book."

... and not so happy ones:

"This is the way that we love, like it's forever.
Then live the rest of our lives, but not together."

You all remember your first love, right? :)

"This love has dried up and stayed behind,
and if I stay I'll be a lie
then choke on words I'd always hide.
Excuse me first love, but we're through.
I need to taste a kiss from someone new.
Forgive me first love, but I'm too tired ..."

And the classic: Originally by Bee Gees, but I love this version because of its softness.

"Cause we're living in the world of fools breaking us down
when they all should let us be.
We belong to you and me."

Spread the love :)

My Calvary

Teaching practice finished on Friday. It was a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun. Teaching teenagers from 15 to 19 is sooo much fun! They have so much to say - interesting opinions but also a lot of stupid comments, of course. Anyway, interesting!

Now I'm back to school and back to work. I have some papers to finish and some exams to study and prepare for. The weather is so much nicer now, so I decided to go outside and use it well. Today I went to the Calvary hill.

There's a story behind it. When I finished secondary school I was very excited to go away to school. I thought it would be so much fun, meeting new people, going to parties, going to school every now and then ... :) And I promised myself I'd explore Maribor very well! One of the first musts was the Calvary hill hike.

Unfortunately things didn't turn out that way. I came to Maribor, I didn't know anyone and although I'm a very sociable person I found it very hard to make new friends. I started to dislike Maribor very much and every week was just a countdown - 4 days till I go home. Of course I didn't care much about exploring the town any more.

I decided to change that, since it's my last semester here, so I went to the Calvary hill today! There are 405 steps leading to the top of the hill. I soon started to understand why it's called Calvary. Jesus suffered when he was crucified there, but I suffered for my sins too, except mine were mostly shaped like sandwiches, muffins and pizzas.

The wiev from the top was rewarding. You can see the whole town, the Drava river, the Pohorje ski slopes (where Golden Fox competition takes place) and the agriculture school's estate - vineyards, orchards, fields ...

And back down:

So I made a little change today. And I'm not really alone here any more either. Last year I made some real friends and today we'll party like never before. :))

Teaching practice next week yay! :)

Next week I start my teaching practice - this time in secondary school. That means I will have to deal with crazy teenagers from age 15 to 19. Crazy, I tell you! :)

Imagine an average student and imagine me as a teacher: I'm 160 cm / 5.2 foot tall, I wear glasses and the most important thing of all - braces! I look like I'm 16! I'm sure someone will say: "Hey, you, what are you doing up there? The teacher is coming!" My first step to avoid that is getting some proper adult clothing and footwear. We'll see hot that goes. :)

Anyway, I have already finished writing my Slovene literature lesson plans. This year I'll be dealing with "the greatest Slovenian poet" - France Prešeren. One of his poems became our national anthem later, I have to cover that one too.

I started looking for some useful web pages for English as a foreign language. I have already added One Stop English and BBC Learning English to my bookmarks. I have to tell you, those Acronyms can be quite confusing. EFL, ELD, TEFL, whatever! The point is I'm a non-English person, who is trying to teach some non-English students English. Clear? :)

Their professor assigned me two topics: Migrations & immigrants and describing a town/city/place. That shouldn't be too hard, but the third thing I have to teach them is the famous reported speech, which is quite difficult for Slovene students because we have no back-shifting of the tenses in our language.

Now here's a question for you:
HOW DO YOU MAKE REPORTED SPEECH INTERESTING? :)

Students' life

When I went to university I applied for a students' dorm room. Many of my friends rather rented an apartment instead although it is much more expensive. They said they wouldn't be able to study and sleep enough, because there are so many parties and so much noise in the dorms. I thought I'll do just fine. After all I shared a room with my younger brother until I left for university. I could survive anything!

And I did survive all the way through three years of school. But this year ... This year is horrible. Although I moved from a double to a single room last year my student life is more stressful than ever. Other students from my floor are obviously manner-less party animals. Besides some of the weirdest habits I have ever seen (or heard, in my case), they keep yelling and playing their music way to loud and way too late in the evening. And they don't even think about closing the common room door. Even after someone comes and closes them twice, they don't get the hint. They have to let everyone know when they come home from a party. They usually do it loudly around 4 am.

I am THE grumpiest person today. I didn't get enough sleep. I have to ask our security guard for his phone number the next time I see him. I swe

ar to my love for a good night's sleep I'll call him the next time this happens.

IT'S ON! :P

The countdown

I started my last semester today, so I think the time is right to start the "Pre-thesis-school-obligations countdown." I made myself a list of everything I have to do, printed it out and now my task, besides studying, of course, is to cross these things off as fast as I can! It is waiting for me and my black marker on my dorm room door. :)

Our school system is a bit weird to foreigners. We choose when to take the exams ourselves (so that it is only our fault when we screw up managing our time) Including my teaching practice and assessment lessons there are 21 items on the list right now and I can only hope the time will be on my side.

My university education is slowly coming to an end and I am getting a bit nervous about it. So many things to do, what kind of a thesis do I want to write? am I going to get a job soon after I graduate? And considering the new law enforcement regarding students' work - am I going to be able to work enough to provide for myself after 31 December 2011?

Up till now I have managed to deal with (almost) everything that came across, let's say I'll survive this, too. One thing at a time. :)