Something from my class

I did this with my class today and thought that it would make a nice easy blog entry. And I believe this to be my first post from my new wireless laptop thingy- first blog from my bed:)


Desert Island Discs

Desert Island Discs is one of Radio 4's most popular and enduring programmes. Created by Roy Plomley in 1942, the format is simple: each week a guest is invited by Kirsty Young to choose the eight records they would take with them to a desert island.

Take On Me- Aha
I hadn’t really been interested in music until the day that I saw this video for the first time. I had been at the cinema with my friend, Kathryn, and after it finished we went back to her house. Her cool older brother asked if I wanted to see the new Aha video and, because I was pretending to be cool, I said yes. To be honest, it was good but I would have forgotten about it if my brother hadn’t talked about it the next day. I told him that I had seen it and he convinced me that we should pool our pocket money and buy the record. When I saw the photo of the singer on the record sleeve I fell in love instantly.

New England- Billy Bragg
Billy Bragg was the first political singer that I liked. His voice was so different from the pop music that I had been listening to and as I grew older I found myself more politicised. By the time I got to university I was hiding my embarrassing love for pop music and claiming to listen entirely to political music. This song isn’t political though.

One Way- The Levellers
I had liked Billy Bragg for some time but it was the Levellers that really had an effect on me. I was babysitting for some friends of my mother’s when this song came on the TV. The band was barefoot and leapt around the stage. The fiddle player was wearing a top hat and it was a crazy mess of energy. I loved it immediately but it took me a couple of weeks of research to discover who the band were. Just a few weeks later my brother drove me to London to see them play. I thought that I was going to die in the mosh pit but I survived and it was after seeing this band that I became a bit of a hippy.

Blister in the Sun- the Violent Femmes
A couple of years after graduating from university I found that I wasn’t really happy with life in London anymore. Almost overnight I made the decision to go to Australia. Two friends joined me and off we went. This song seemed to be playing wherever we went for the first few weeks in Sydney. To me this song is freedom- freedom from the rat race and freedom to enjoy my life as I want to.

Leaving on a Jet Plane- John Denver
I came back from Australia in December 1999 and I was keen not to fall back into the life that I had before. So I moved to Ireland. This seemed like the first truly crazy thing that I had done in my life. I‘d only got a hundred pounds so I knew that I had to get a job as soon as I got there. I gave myself two weeks to go over there, get a job and get paid. If I hadn’t managed those things in that time I would have to get the next bus back. On my second night in Dublin I met some Australian lads who invited me to the pub. This song played and we backpackers gathered in a circle, put our arms around each other’s shoulders and sang like it was the most important thing in the world. I ended up staying in Ireland for nearly two years. Since then I have been to many countries and said a lot of goodbyes and I always think of this song.

Air I Breathe- Rory Daly
Rory was one of my best friends in Korea. He is an Australian guy and a very talented musician. He wrote and performed many songs in our local bar, Bumpin. This was one of his own favourites. I had been in Korea for three years before I decided to come home. The week before I was due to leave the country my mum died. My friends really rallied round to help me. After a horrible day of tears and packing we went to the pub for our last drink together. Unable to think of anything to say, Rory played for me. I don’t know what I would have done without my friends with me. This song reminds me of good times and helps me to deal with the pain of the bad.

La Tortura- Shakira
Why do I like this song? Well, actually it was the first song that I understood in Spanish- not the first time, of course, in fact I spent quite a long time with a dictionary and the lyrics before I was able to listen to it and understand the words. I am not sure if I can still remember all of it but I feel a sense of satisfaction every time I hear it.

Born Slippy- Underworld
This song became a big hit as it was on the Trainspotting soundtrack. I liked it when it was first released but years later it was the ‘international clubbing song’ for me and my mate, Sam. We danced to it in Korea, Japan, Cambodia and Hong Kong. I had lost Sam in the nightclub on New Year’s Eve 2003 but when Carl Cox, the DJ, put this song on she suddenly came bursting out of the crowd and straight on top of me. I can’t hear this song without thinking of her and all the happy times we had together. She is back in Korea now but I am looking forward to her coming home- probably just after I have gone to Colombia!

Book: my diary- I have kept a diary since I was eight years old so it would be the best book to keep me company

Luxury: a Terry’s chocolate orange- do I have to explain why?

This is the kind of stuff that I do all the time with my students any wonder I love my job! In case you were wondering what this is about- it was to practice past tenses, past simple, past continuous, present perfect, past perfect and the third conditional:)

On Friday I took my morning class out for a walk and saw this



and later tried not to take this



too personally! Actually they were both taken during the break, believe it or not.

Life here is trundling along pretty well- we are just a few short weeks from Christmas and after that it is just a hop, skip and a jump to Colombia!

Still here