A Burglar in the Garden

Yesterday evening was an interesting evening.

On Saturday morning Amber, Kenzie and I had headed to an early morning market about 30 minutes south of us. Among our purchases we had several plants; some parsley, some mint, some tomatoes and a chilli plant that had been given to us despite protests that we’d never eat the chillies. We hoped to put them in our garden or some pots (We hadn’t really thought beyond ‘We want a herb garden, let’s buy some herbs’) and didn’t realise until we got home that we had neither pots or tools with which to garden. There was a brief escapade with one of our kitchen utensils by Amber, but the soil turned out to be too hard. So we put them in the fridge and left it for a day.

Fast-forward to Sunday afternoon. We’ve just left a cafe we’ve sat in for a few hours, more for the internet than the drinks, and Amber and Kenzie are planning to catch a songtaow to an evening service while I’m heading home with the noble intention of lesson planning, writing emails, doing my washing and other such mundane week-end trivia.

Get home, hop in shower, hop out, put on clean clothes, throw nasty-dirty-smelly clothes in the wash, bring all my work downstairs and then...

Perhaps I’ll put the sprinkler on. I bet the grass could use some water. 

The Konz Sisters

We’re sitting in Sojo’s, drawing, writing and messing about on the internet. ‘We’ is me, Brittany and my two new roommates.

Okay, okay, I’ll back up a bit.

We’ve been looking for a house for these two new roommates and me for a few months in anticipation of their coming. The final choice was made last week, the lease signed on Wednesday and they arrived and we moved in on Friday. ‘They’ are Amber and Mackenzie, two sisters from Nebraska who are working at the school for the next six months; they’re going to be doing a lot of graphic design stuff which largely floats over my head when they discuss it.

Our house, photo courtesy of Amber

Student Stories

So here’s a little video I did some filming for last month, and which we got to see just yesterday. It’s already doing the rounds on facebook and other places but I thought I’d share it here too. It’s called ‘Student Stories’, which I think pretty much describes the contents.

Watch it, share it, get involved.

Word-Warriors and The Usual for Lunch.

I’ve got two bits for you today. The first is a tid-bit on one of my students, and the second a snap-shot of the everyday. I asked my father for advice on what he thought people wanted to read back home and these ideas are from those suggestions. I’m going to try to do something similar once a month; one thing about a student, one thing about the everyday.

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Word-Warriors.

One of my children has a habit of picking up things I never meant to teach her, words and phrases I never deliberately endeavoured to have the students learn. She’ll say them at odd moments, not all the time, and I find myself constantly surprised by it. “What are you doing?” she’ll say, a phrase I think I’ve only ever used as a quick jolt for when they’re being silly or naughty. Their attention will come back to me with a guilty giggle or smile, and mine turns to her pleasantly shocked yet again. I don’t think I’m ever doing anything particularly interesting when she asks, but she still seems to delight in ambushing me with this unexpected English phrase.

Lions and Tigers and Warm Woollen Mittens.

It has been an awful long while since I wrote anything for you, for a variety of reasons which I mostly forget; probably because they were along the lines of ‘Don’t really feel like it at the moment – too busy – do it later’.  That and there is a problem with the internet at our house which may-or-may-not simply be something to do with us not paying the bill. And we have been busy. Honest. I’m about to write all about just so you can see.

Well, I’m about to write about one bit. If I wrote about all of it you might not finish before tomorrow. You know what I’m like; I start writing something that took five minutes in reality and should consume no more than a paragraph, and somewhere along the line it turns into a page or three and in reading devourers a few hours. So. Baby steps.

This is what I started writing on December 14^th, and never quite finished until now.

You’re all probably thinking of turkeys and roasts and eating Christmas cookies/cakes/it-contains-sugar-things people have made, pulling out the woolly hats and gloves, worrying about frost and hoping for snow. I’m having a ridiculously sweet coco ron (Hot coco) in a small 20p cup, deciding I want sticky rice and chicken with as much sweet chilli sauce as I can handle instead of a Subway and lamenting anytime the weather dips below 20˚.