Its been about a week since I last wrote on the blog. And things move forward.
Ive not heard much about my approach to my employer about voluntary redundancy. I m waiting for HR to get back to me so I'm in limbo a bit about it. I should play it a bit cagey I suppose, but I'm such a blabber mouth I have told quite a few people. I need to shut up cos it could cost me a settlement if I don't get offered it.
I've been good and started doing my TEFL course, Ive done two of the online tests and passed those and have done my first written assignment which goes off to a tutor for assessment - yes a real human being looks at the work. I passed that also. I was a bit nervous, its been a while since I was a 'student' of any sort. It wasn't that hard, basically asking about teaching methods, I'm more nervous about when we get to the actual grammar bits of the course.
I have started on the grammar module and am learning (for the first time in my life) all about nouns and pronouns and verbs and tenses and stuff like that. It sounds pretty straight forward but I can hear myself tutoring undergraduate sociology students about their poor grammar and badly structured essays. Telling them that verbally 'we are all expert English users and that all one has to do is read the work out aloud to find out where they were going wrong'. Hmmmm. Actually having to learn the nuts and bolts for real is a bit scary to me - I feel a bit like I feel about mathematics, really never grasping the main principles.
Its also surprising how many people seem to know people who are working as English teachers or have worked as English teachers in China. I have, in the last week, been given two email addresses of people. One off my uncle who knows someone teaching in China, I have contacted them. There is also, via a guy I chat to when dog walking, a guy who lives in France, who has a Chinese wife, who works on a Chinese TV news programme and who I am told will be a good contact.
Not put the house on the market, but am going to start putting my goods and chattels on eBay, cos they all need to go, I'm not storing stuff. I'm not actually 'emotionally attached' to stuff so I don't mind it going. All I'll keep is my personal/historical stuff - snapshots (from the olden days before digital), papers stuff like that - all the rest can go.
I'm currently debating whether or not its worth buying a mattress. For reasons to complicated to go into my mattress is now being used by a paying lodger and I'm using my settee. The settee is quite comfortable actually and I'm sleeping quite well. But is it worth buying a mattress, most of them seem to be over £150 and that's only for a cheap one. I don't really want to contemplate buying or acquiring a secondhand one. I know we use hotel beds without a blink - but every night? I don't know.
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