It seems like everything is happening all at once. Last week I updated with a lot of stuff that's going on recently. This week was just as full of major events.

I ordered my new computer. I'd been putting it off because of indecision but finally was unable to download one too many programs due to my computer not having Intel Inside (tm) and so I bit the bullet. Then, while I was ordering stuff, I got a new mp3 player since my old one has self-converted into a small black brick. I also need new jeans and underwear and then I have to start being a bit more frugal with my money because...

Surprise! My contract won't be renewed. Okay, so there was absolutely no surprise whatsoever on my part. I was rather sad, though; I've got to like most of my students, my schedule this year is good, my co-teacher is great, the books are better, and I have more opportunities to feed the kids stuff like phonics and writing practice and creative speaking, all of which they badly need. It could have been a really good year. However, GEPIK is GEPIK, and my position is really not necessary, and so it was cut.

Paul's leaving on Friday. I haven't seen him. He disappeared offline a couple of days ago and we haven't really talked since then, so I guess I won't see him. I am going to be sad on Friday.

A guy I knew in Thailand died this week. He was a friend of Ken's and I only met him a few times, but he always seemed like a pretty good guy. He used to take his wife's dog out for walks, which had a lot of comedic value as the dog was anything but a manly accessory. I guess I should know more about him than that he was Canadian, married, and had a silly dog.

So much for the good and the bad. I leave you with a couple of cute kid stories...

We did one of the aforementioned creative speaking practices in grade six today, all about introducing yourself, and one boy introduced himself as follows: "Hello. My name is Kim Jong Il. I'm from North Korea." Most kids, of course, chose South Korea, though a few went for the USA or Australia and a significant number chose Japan, to my very great surprise.

The first lesson in the grade six book is all about different countries, and the associated song features kids in traditional clothing. This was... interesting. According to our book, traditional American clothing is a cowboy outfit, traditional Canadian clothing is a top hat and bowtie, and traditional English clothing is that of a Buckingham Palace guard. Oh, and England is synonymous with the UK - a fact that I doubt the Scottish, Welsh and Irish teachers are too pleased with.

The other sentence pattern from this week's lesson was about finding rooms on different floors, e.g., "Where is your classroom?" "It's on the third floor." One of the dialogues featured a child with his mother asking a department store employee where the toy section was and the employee then directing them to the second floor. My co-teacher and I agreed that this was completely unrealistic. I thought one would never have that conversation in English because our department stores in America rarely have more than one very big floor, and she thought it was unrealistic because she has a young son and she says he never, ever needs to ask the whereabouts of the toy section; through some kind of kid's intuition, he just knows where it is.