Month: April 2018

Language teaching - Life :)

Winding up

April 30, 2018 plutomanby 0 Comments

Last week was lighter than usual. My biggest job, which took several painstaking hours, was creating a test for the people at the lolly-stick company: something that covered a good chunk of the course and had listening, reading, writing and speaking components and could be completed in 90 minutes and was fair and gave them a good chance of passing despite the ridiculously high pass mark of 75% which I had to enforce. In practice, this meant marking the subjective parts of the paper (speaking and writing) generously: saying or writing anything vaguely on-topic would have given them at least 8 out of 15 for each part. My students got 89%, 81% and 77%; had any of them fallen just short of 75% I’m sure I could have eked out an extra mark or two somewhere. They’re all lovely people, as far as I can tell, and I really wanted them all to pass. (This must be an issue that school teachers face all the time.) On Thursday our 40-session course came to an end, but they all seemed keen to do another course with me. There’s one snag however: the company I work for isn’t paying me nearly enough. To begin with I was happy to do it for the experience, in spite of the rubbish pay, but I’m past that stage now. I’ve asked for a 60% pay increase and will see what happens.

More of my students (mostly in their twenties or early thirties) want lessons in business English. I’m happy to oblige, but it isn’t my favourite discipline. I left that world behind ages ago. One nice thing about business English is that it’s fairly “by the book”: I can just dip into a textbook, including the one I used for the lolly-stick people. Occasionally somebody wants words and phrases specifically related to their line of business (such as construction or car parts) and that’s actually way more interesting.

I had quite a funny lesson last Monday (for me; not so much for my student). It was a balmy evening and she wanted to sit outside on the bank of the Bega. Great. We were sitting near a bar and she offered to buy me a beer. Fantastic. While she was away a small grey snake, perhaps nine inches long, appeared on the bank. It was almost camouflaged by the stone. I pointed the snake out to her when she returned, and she just about freaked out. When she recovered we moved down the bank a little way, to an area that was hopefully snakeless. But lo and behold, a larger black snake, nearly two feet long, swam towards the bank. That was it. Seeing that second snake was a truly traumatic experience for her. We moved away from the Bega altogether, and after about half an hour she was in a fit state to read the article from the Sun that I’d prepared. Where does that intense, deep-seated fear of snakes, rats, spiders and other creepy-crawlies come from?

Yesterday the temperature must have been pushing 30, but there was a pleasant breeze. I didn’t have any lessons. I rode my bike down to the frog pond, not that far, and just sat there for a while. It was very peaceful. The centre of town was heaving with people all weekend, with long snaking (!) queues for the Mr Whippy-style ice cream. The Timfloralis flower festival was in full swing, and because Tuesday (1st May) is a public holiday, many people are making a four-day weekend of it.

Books - Films

Just a normal day

April 23, 2018 plutomanby 0 Comments

Friday was my 38th birthday, but in my head I’ve been 38 since the start of the year, maybe because it’s 2018, hence 20+18. That handy little rule will work, of course, until 2099. My “big” day was an entirely normal work day.

Last week was a busy one – as usual, I finished work every weekday (including my birthday) at 9:30 pm. One of the students I saw on Wednesday, and who started with me last June, texted me to say she’ll no longer be coming. She said it was for “personal reasons”, but I’m guessing it’s because I told her (finally) on Wednesday to stop interrupting me, even if she didn’t expressly say that was the reason. To be honest I’m fine with that.

I haven’t joined a tennis club yet (I’m still unsure of how to do so) and at the end of last week I sometimes stayed in bed beyond seven, but I didn’t do too badly with my goals. I’m certainly eating less.

After this morning’s lesson (with a guy who, as it happens, is one day younger than me) I had a Skype conversation with the bloke I carpooled with in Wellington. He seemed pretty good.

I’ve just finished Prisoners of Geography, a book about how geopolitics between nations is shaped and constrained by the geography of the countries involved. It’s not as dry as it sounds. I’m just about to see Red Sparrow at the cinema in Iulius Mall.

It’s warm for the time of year. Today it’s been 26 degrees and not a cloud in the sky.

Life :) - The UK

UK trip – Part 2 (and some goals)

April 17, 2018 plutomanby 0 Comments

As much as I’m enjoying the warm weather, my flat is approaching sauna territory, so I’m currently shirtless.

On Thursday I made my monthly trip to the out-of-hours doctor and the next day I picked up my drugs from the pharmacy, including (of course) the antidepressants. Going to the pharmacy here is always fun, because you get to see the tremendous array of over-the-counter medicines available. You can get the wonderfully-named Spazz, which comes in a yellow and black box, or better still, Codamin. Who knows what Codamin does, but judging by the box alone, I know I want some.

My life isn’t exactly terrible right now, but my time in the UK made me realise it could still be better. Here’s what I’m going to do:

1. Use the internet less. Way less. Of course sometimes I really do need it – it’s kind of important for my job – but not having it in the UK made me realise what a time-waster it can be. (My internet is currently down for some unknown reason, so I’m tapping this out in Word.)

2. Get up at seven, at the latest, every weekday (sometimes I have lessons which force me to get up earlier than that).

3. Lose some weight. Last month I stepped on a set of scales for the first time since I moved here. I pretty much dismissed the reading out of hand. I mean, the first digit was an eight! That couldn’t be right. Obviously. But then I tried to get into two pairs of trousers I’d left at my parents’ flat. I wriggled my way into one of them, just, but I had no chance with the other. Mainly I need to eat smaller lunches, as much as I love the salami and cheese and eggs I’ve become accustomed to, and far less bread in general.

4. Wear (and in some cases buy) clothes that I want to wear. Not what I think I should wear. Shit, I’m my own boss now. I’m the only person doing what I’m doing in this whole city. I can do what I like (and if I do, I’ll feel better for it).

5. Join a tennis club. For social reasons. Outside work, I’m not meeting enough people.

I was going to write about the rest of my UK trip, but not a lot happened. I did a fair bit of reading (by my standards), met up with my friends who came to Romania last autumn, bought a suit in Marks & Spencer’s in Cambridge for my brother’s wedding, watched Masters golf and snippets of the Commonwealth Games on TV (watching sport is a bit of a rarity for me these days), and got wet. Other than the day I spent in London, the weather ranged from iffy to atrocious. I found a new appreciation for St Ives – if you ignore the northern two-thirds of it where most of the people live, it’s very pleasant and at times bustling town that I was blasé about when I lived there. On my last day I got my brother’s old racing bike pumped up and took it for a pleasant ride around Houghton and the Hemingfords. It was locked away in a shed with a yellow “Danger of Death” sign on the door. He assured me it was safe and the sign was a deterrent only, but I admit I did get a second opinion from somebody else who lived in the complex.

Flying back from Luton was horrible. Flying from major airports is such a rigmarole now, and there are simply too many people in too little space for too long. This time we faced a 90-minute delay because our plane was late arriving from Tel Aviv. Probably 95% of the passengers were Romanian and when I got chatting with a family in their native language, I thought, you know what, I’m not doing too badly here. So that was something. But it was a low-stakes situation, and I need more of them. The in-the-air bit was fine, and as for arriving to the sounds and smells of Timișoara, well that bit was bloody fantastic. Even if it was after two o’clock in the morning. This place felt like home.

International travel - The UK

UK trip – Part 1

April 13, 2018 plutomanby 0 Comments

I’m back in Timișoara after a few days in the UK, and I’m happy to be here. The city is green all of a sudden, and temperatures have rocketed into the mid-20s.

Just before I left for the UK I made a trip to the Easter market. I bought some colourful wooden eggs and hand-painted fridge magnets showing the name of my home town, for my aunt’s benefit in particular. I also bought a plate of hot mămăligă with sausages and cheese. I asked for 300 grams but got (and paid for) a lot more, and had nothing but my bare hands to eat it with. With my bus to the airport imminent, this was a challenge.

My experience at Timișoara airport was quite stressful. I hadn’t printed my boarding pass, despite doing the online check-in business, because I couldn’t figure out how. The only way I could avoid a €42 charge was to bring up the boarding pass on my phone somehow. I got there in the end, after farting around with the WizzAir app. I thought I’d been careful to ensure I had no liquids over 100 ml, but that damn bottle of pumpkin seed oil, five times the limit, totally slipped my mind. When I told them it was oil they dropped it into a hole which I thought would lead to oblivion, but in fact it was some kind of scanner. My precious oil was given the all-clear. (At the UK airport I’m sure it would have gone straight in the bin.)

After an uneventful three-hour flight, I touched down in wet, miserable Luton. My plan had been to take a taxi the few miles to Hitchin and then catch a train to Cambridge. Getting a taxi wasn’t as simple as hopping in: I had to enter a black and yellow cabin or shed, and order from there. “Could you tell me the postcode?” I hadn’t a clue. They looked it up on their system. “That’ll be thirty-three pounds and…” What? They said the traffic was so bad that my ride would take an estimated 51 minutes. I could just about have walked it in that time. Instead I bought a National Express bus ticket from an extremely helpful woman, after attempting to buy one from an overly fussy machine that wouldn’t take my £20 notes because they weren’t smooth enough.

I arrived at my parents’ flat in St Ives just before ten in the evening and went almost straight to bed because I’d be meeting my university friend in London in a matter of hours. The next morning I got amazing customer service once more, this time from the bloke at the ticket desk at Cambridge railway station. (After 18 months in Romania, all British customer service suddenly seems bloody awesome.) By not catching the next available train I saved £16. My friend and I met at the British Museum, where we spent some time chatting while browsing the Chinese section and the exhibition of coins and medals. The British Museum is a remarkable trove and it costs absolutely nothing to visit. From the museum we meandered over to a nearby pub, where I found out my friend had been vegetarian for eight years. I had my first fish and chips since 2016 and it was wonderful. From there we made our way to Regent’s Park via a board game shop. He seemed impressed that I knew the difference between Ameritrash and Euro games. We chatted some more in Regent’s Park, grabbed something to eat (a Thai green curry in my case) and then it was time to go home. We were extremely lucky with the weather, but my “run” of blue skies was to end after just one day.

Life :)

Collapse

April 3, 2018 plutomanby 0 Comments

Yesterday I paid my rent and expenses (a mixture of euros and lei; yes it’s crazy) at my landlady’s work, near the Timișoreana beer factory. My charge for gas and electricity was higher than usual even though my power usage was completely normal. I paid up anyway. My landlady burst into tears as she has on about the last six occasions I’ve visited her. It seems to be something to do with her husband, who she described yesterday as a vegetable. On leaving her office, I saw a man of about sixty collapse in the street. I tried helping him to his feet, and soon got some assistance. I could smell the alcohol on him. A lady from a nearby office brought out a chair. I called the ambulance and handed my phone to another woman. While we waited for the ambulance (it took about five minutes to arrive) the man was sick on the ground, and the rich plummy aroma of palincă filled the air. The paramedics found the situation mildly amusing; they’d clearly seen it all before.

My Romanian seems to have stagnated. On the odd occasions I get to chat in a relaxed situation in Romanian, I manage fine, but those occasions are very odd indeed. Weekly, perhaps even fortnightly. And that’s the problem. I could really do with some formal lessons too, but they’re hard to come by.

Tomorrow I’m off to the UK. It’ll be my first taste of Wizz Air. I expect to arrive in St Ives around 9pm. I’ll have an early start the next morning as I’ll be meeting my university friend in London. We’ll probably meet outside the British Museum, but after that we have no real plans.

Language teaching - Life :)

On my bike

April 2, 2018 plutomanby 0 Comments

I gave my bike its first proper run today, and yes, it does work! I rode to the end of the Timișoara cycle track, which morphed into the 37 km Timișoara-to-Serbia route that was opened three years ago. It was lovely cycling along the Bega, and I felt great afterwards, so biking is something I’ll want to do a lot more of. This time I turned back just two kilometres up the Serbia track, but next time who knows?

On Monday I had a session with Timea, not at home but at Scârț Loc Lejer, a hippie hangout (yes, we have them here) that I’d read about in 2015 but had never dared go to before. Its walls are covered in all kinds of Communist-era memorabilia. When the weather is nice you can sit outside on a bench or in a hammock. The guy who runs the place has his fingers in two other pies: a theatre company called Auăleu which tours the country, and the Museum of Communism. So hopefully I’ll go back there.

Tuesday’s lesson with Timea’s anagram-mate Matei was hardly my finest hour (or two) as a teacher. He said he was going on holiday in Dublin with his parents, on the same day that I go to the UK. I asked him what he’d be doing and seeing there. He had no idea. I had my laptop with me, so I played him a Youtube video of the top ten Dublin attractions, or tried to. “This video is boring me! Turn it off!” You ungrateful little shit, I said. I immediately regretted that, of course, even if it was accurate. It’s not exactly becoming of a teacher, is it? Matei is a nice kid really, and quite sensitive. The problem is that his parents are wealthy by Romanian standards, and he’s an only child, so he gets everything handed to him on a plate. That includes extra English and German lessons (and French too, perhaps) that he might not actually want. This was my 63rd lesson with him.

Earlier on Tuesday I had my hair cut. A lot. Er…just the back and sides…but before I knew where I was, zzzzz, and it was too late. When we spoke on FaceTime, Mum said I looked more Romanian. Mum and Dad were about to head to Dunedin to see Ed Sheeran. It’s not their thing at all but there were some spare tickets going.

I spoke to my aunt this morning. She seemed pretty lucid (she doesn’t always). She said I should create a blog about Timișoara, or as she calls it, Tiramisu. I don’t think she knows about this one.

Three games of Scrabble this weekend, and three wins. My rating has nudged over 1200 for the first time. But if I’m serious about improving further, I’ll have to actually learn words, something I’m not keen on doing.

Some teaching stats: I had 371 hours of lessons in the first quarter of 2018, with a cancellation rate of 16%.