Imaginary Gardens

* From "Westminster Abbey" by John Betjeman, found here.

I was made to memorize this poem in 10th grade along with others. Still remember them and am trying to increase repertoire of memorized poems. (TMuch easier when poem is put to song. Thanks Loreena McK.)

Quick recap since last entry:

Finished TESl course, did exam. Think went weell; will pick up exam and coursework later this week.

Friday went to Katarina's place in King City. Due to mix-up of metro exits, spent one hour under overpass staring at pigeons feed their fledglings until we worked out that she was at the other, identical, overpass.

( Read more... )

Confession: Have read last paragraph of HPotter. And flipped through last chapter. Have huge spoiler up my sleeve. Am armed and dangerous :)
(I can just see it now, me threatening little kids and grown-ups a like as they hops about, fingers in their ears and humming the Oscar Myer Weaner song, then screamming shrilly on a mountain-top "Knowledge is power!". Except most of them have already finished the book by now. Bugger.)

Yesterday as I was trying to recover from reading 4 chapters on pedagogy in one (long) sitting, I watched Jurassic park: The Lost World (oh, Ian, you thing you) and some horrifying montage of interviews re: Bush, where they talked about how B-man is basically a reborn christian and some conspiracy / lying bits too. I like my governments to be divided from religion (like, no, you *don't* quote scripture before a parliamentary meeting and you sure as hell don't tell your officers "that there is the devil* y'all see in the sky").

* It was a plane.

So imagine my delight when I see a commercial for a new series that's coming in September. (Of course, I then realized that I wouldn't be in the North America or have cable in Eurpoe and thus wouldn't actually get to watch these. There are other ways, of course...) The commecial was for a series called "Bones" and it's got this woman who's an expert on bones, some long-dead people and a young guy in a suit. Guess who's in the suit.

( Seriously. Guess. Then read other cool stuff. )

Picture me walking home from the metro in the sweltering heat of what must have been high 30's with humidity factoring in some more. I'm crossing the street at a green light. There's two people on the other side not crossing, and I get a twinge of doubt because maybe there's some traincar-rail ettiquette I'm not familiar with. I'm very tired, dazed and my bag weighs a ton, so I'm not at my quickest. One of the people, a man, says something to me quickly, in a nice polite tone. Me, wondering what the hell he just said, say "Sorry?" Y'know what he said? "I'd love to get into that skirt." As soon as my little brain computes, I just keep on walking. I hear him say something else, but what, I was too dead to care.

WTF. That's all I can say. I've only ever had something like that happen to me once, and it was more along the lines of "hey, you're pretty" than skirt-talker here.

Three blocks later I realized what I could have said. Not, "Yes, it's pretty isn't it?" or "I like the skirt too", but "it wouldn't suit you." Of course, probably not the wittiest comeback, but hey, I'm melting here and still tired.

That counters the nice experience I had this morning with a cute man asking me at a stoplight whether I spoke French, then whether I knew of any nearby hotel. no, it's ok. he had a suitcase and an excuse of just having arrived. Sure he's a lousy planner at traveling, but he wasn't trying to pick me up.
I think...

Have 5 chaps to read by Monday, a grammar lesson plan to write and prepare to teach to the reast of the class, a presentation (about the Silent Method, I think) on Tuesday with an info handout (so, like my Abnormal Psych presentations basically).

Am watching Lost tonight because a) can't really work, b) why not?

Tomorrow I'm observing in the pm so I have the morning off. I'm going to the body flow class with Lia (although the weekend class with Natalie was very fun) 9'30-10'30, which gives me plenty time to change at the gym, shimmy off to class and even read some or something.

I'd write this all in my diary too but think will die now. Think LJ has a thingy where you can download all your entries...

That's what the teacher sent me! 21 bleeding pages of *all* the adjective clauses and phrases and god knows what else was in there. It was a bleeding lecture! Literally!

Needless to say it was utterly useless and instead I took out a 1976 grammar book, which although also useless was less painfull to read.

Today woke up at 8 and started immediately to draw Frank, lilah's and other people's houses, as well as a map of Little Town. It has 2 of each: bank, store, restaurant, bar and house. The stores sell shoes and hats. Which implies that everyone is an uneducated drunk exhibitionist who wears nothing but stilletos and a big purple hat.

So although ahveno work for the TESL tomorrow, am still ubernervous about it to the point that jaw muscles must be well-exercised by now. This certainly is cruel and unusual punishment inflicted by self.

Watched Madagascar, but distracted for a bit. amusing, but not amazing.

I want a penguin. If I remembered the name fo teh head penguin, that's what I'd call by mood penguin.

Tomorrow basically no class but am observing one in the morning. Friday no structured class but must work on lesson plan for peer review and teaching on Monday and actual teaching (with Tara) on Tuesday. Mom's leaving tomorrow but I'll get to see her thanks to the no-class thingy.

Must go read stuff now on phonemes and language acquisition. Ugh.

But must share Darth Mali's take on what the next HPotter should contain. Warning: contains zombies, sith apprentices and lots of slashy goodness.

I just got an email from Bristol, saying how they were really sorry and distressed and it was a really terrible thing etc. but alas, they didn't want me within 5 feet of their univeristy. While being rejected isn't cool in any case, I wasn't planning on going there anyway because it's a) a 2-year program and b) focused on British organisms. But still.

After this I'm going to surf around, maybe even on the ever-useless CAPS page, to figure out how to make a decent resume for my TESL course. It's slightly depressing that after 4 years of undergraduate, my hopes of employment rest on my taking yet another course on how to teach English. Have I just totally wasted 4 years here? With the acceptance letter, universities should also give a warning letter, on red paper, saying something like: "This degree will have no benefits in the employment industry. We just want your money and youthful energy, and will suck you dry of both." Am not bitter.

I also want to learn how to make links on this journal, so I can point to better blogs than these, and my most favorite webpages. And now that I remember, there's two message boards I have to check up on. Not that the new BtVS Season 8 ep will be up yet, but there may be some new interesting comments. Have I mentioned I love the internet? And the fans and fics you can find through it?

Ok, I'll do my research and then fiddle around with this some more.

PS: I can't believe I'm going to spend my summer in courses and relearning German. [insert wail of terror/exhaustion here]