Saturday, May 26, 2007

It's my birthday and I'll laugh if I want to!

I brought forward my birthday by a day this year, partly to make it easier to celebrate and partly so I would get more presents off the students. Hahaha and it worked!

But first, I am back living in my house in Streatham now after ten days catsitting at my sister's. I had only been in my house for two weeks when I came back here and I am here again for the long weekend since it is my birthday and all.

The best thing about living in Streatham is the ability to go out for the night and not have to keep an eye on my watch. The most dangerous thing is pretty much the same. Me and Rachel went out for a Spanish- English language exchange on Tuesday night and I nearly had to get a night bus home... on a TUESDAY! Not sensible. So I was a bit tired on Wednesday.

On Thursday something strange appeared in Trafalgar Square... grass!

grass

Which gave a real festival atmosphere to the place though it was only due to be there for a couple of days. I had been doing a lot of extra hours that week so I was pretty tired on Thursday and missed my Spanish class for the first time in seven months... bad student!

Friday was my pseudo birthday. I had been pretty honest and told everyone that it was really on Saturday but they all seemed to be buying into the Friday thing. I might have mentioned it once or twice every day for the previous month or so. There has been a gratifyly large amount of people who have found it hard to believe that I was even in my thirties let alone as old as 33! So that is cool:)

We didn't do anything much in my morning class. We had ice cream at Leicester Square and then went and sat on the grass at Trafalgar Square. I had to head back because I was covering a class 12-3.

morning class

ts

At first no one arrived and then nine minutes before I would have been allowed to cancel the class two people turned up. A grand total of four made it to the class. Huff, not the most interesting class. Even my class only had fifty percent attendance... sunny Friday at the start of a long weekend made it hard to motivate students to come and study English.

Fortunately my afternoon class came up with the goods. Almost 100% percent attendance plus two homemade tiramisus, the benefit of having Italian students. One from Angelo

tiramisu

and one from Francesca

the other one

The class had clubbed together and bought some chocolates and a card too. And then they all sang me Happy Birthday in English and in their own languages- Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Turkish and Iranian. The Thai girl insisted that they never sing it in anything but English in her country but she might have just been being shy.

We took the obligatory class photo but someone appears to have been mucking around in the middle of it

buffoon

Hum.

We went to the pub at break time. There is a school policy that we can occassionally take the students to the pub if they all agree to go. I had hardly got the words out asking them before they were all propping up the bar in our local The White Horse or the school pub as my morning class call it.

I was ladden with presents, some of the cute and cuddly variety.. the teddy bear not Chris

chris

wh1

wh2

wh3

Unfortunately that seems to be where the photos end except for one last one at the end of the night. I had a blinding night, it is fair to say. Lots of people were there, teachers, students, my Spanish teacher and even a friend- not a teacher or a student, weirdly!

old students

These are four of my class from last summer. I don't know who the other girl is but I seem to remember insisting that she be in the photo.

I ended the night with a free rickshaw ride with a guy that I had met at the language exchange on Tuesday and a night bus home.

And now I have a windowsill full of birthday cards and presents and my new room feels more like home

new room

I slept for most of my actual birthday before coming back to my sister's and going out for dinner last night. The birthday text messages came thick and fast and I had a couple of phone calls too.

On Friday night in the pub my Colombian family called me from Bogota but panicked when their son hadn't arrived to translate. I thought that they were looking for him but he later told me that they had all been standing round the phone waiting to wish me Happy Birthday! How cute is that!!

Baby Alex arrived with his flatmates and people kept going up to him to ask him if he was Baby Alex. I guess that I must talk about him quite a lot! Ah, my little baby!

We had plans to go to the Southend Air Show this weekend but it is raining today so maybe we will just go to Lakeside instead.

Another year older, another wiser, two more countries' stamps added to my passport and a plane ticket to Barcelona ready to go at the end of June. Just another five weeks until there will be no more smoking in public places in the UK. 2007 has already been a blinder of year and I am sure that it will only get better!

Chao

2 Comments:

At Sun May 27, 12:28:00 AM PDT, Blogger Borrego said...

Nice Pictures

 
At Fri Jun 01, 05:17:00 PM PDT, Blogger Ian said...

Loved the pictures Helen and happy belated birthday!

Ian

 

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