Rumours abound that someone got stabbed down the little road outside the annexe last night. Given I was teaching there all last night and never heard a thing, no shouts, no police, I highly doubt it but hey, rumour is a wonderful thing...

I played the Yes/No game with I2 and it went down a storm. (Collect a paperclip!) Yay me for good ideas!

* posted by nat 8:37 PM

I arrived at the supermarket just after the soya milk delivery... I'm getting a nose for these things! Anyway, the fridge is now stacked up with soya milk and soya dessert. Yum.

It is raining, and for some reason they've chosen this week to do maintenence on the roads filling in all the potholes. What an idiotic time of year. This means the worst potholes aren't getting filled in, of course, as they're full of water. Legionow is a bit of a slalom course right now, as they fill in the hole and then just stick one traffic cone on top of it, and they don't seem to pay much attention to sticking to one side of the road, it's a free for all. And of course there are the aquaplaning pools at the side of the road - must make a drive down Legionow more exciting than ever! Or maybe there is just going to be a rally competition, who knows? Big holes in the middle of the road seem to get a concrete barrier. I expect they are employing a little man to go round righting all the traffic cones every hour, as the buses seem to ignore them totally.

Off for coffee now; teacher's meeting and seminar. Lovely.

* posted by nat 9:56 AM

Wednesday, February 27, 2002

**deep breath** Ok. Blogger is eating my posts again.

Quote of the week:
Me: Anybody know what a creche is?
Radek: A car accident.

PFCE4 were awake today! And misbehaving, though it made the lesson a whole lot more fun. We did colorgenics (it was in the book!) so I've sent them all off to colorgenics for homework. Then we ended up talking about online tests... quite a few of them seem to know the Spark. Hmm.

However:

I taste a bit like Almonds. Mmm, the taste of almonds - anathema to many with nut allergies, and a bad sign for many more, as my taste is not unlike that of cyanide. Am I good or am I poison? A risky thing to guess about. What Flavour Are You?

* posted by nat 9:55 PM

Born in 1963, You are possibly the original colossal death robot, being one of the patriarchs of the current crop, and definitely an advocate of old-skool enemy-bashing. Why use a clumsy particle weapon when you can create supernovas just by flexing your arms? Your one minor weakness is that you are entirely dominated by some kid with a remote contol - still, don't let it get you down. You can sink a nuclear submarine with jazz music.

Wage death and destruction on the Web with the following fine emblem of power:


Which Colossal Death Robot Are You?


Also, how cool is this? Knit your own ITVdigital monkey!

* posted by nat 1:33 PM

Spike Milligan deaded. (but presumably the program and the death were not recorded, in this instance.) Snivel.

The electricity is back! And it's pay day on Friday! And I made the most amazing breakfast this morning: rice, sultanas, cinnamon, in half water half apple juice: bring to boil and simmer gently. Do not bolt too quickly. Yum, yum, yum. It said brown rice in the recipe but I haven't found any brown rice and it worked pretty well anyway.

Note to self: STOP flirting with your ex-boyfriend. It will do you no good whatsoever.
Note back to self: Well sod that, it's fun.

* posted by nat 1:06 PM

Tuesday, February 26, 2002

Minor excitement this morning. I'm just getting my washing out of the machine when I hear bumping and banging by the front door. I figure they're checking the electricity meter. A few seconds later the electricity goes off. Hmm. Five minutes later there's a knock on the door and it's the girl from no. 6, upstairs, introducing herself and then informing me that apparently no-one's paid the bill so we've been cut off. I resist the urge to ask her to have sex more quietly at the weekends, mostly because I am having visions of floods in the kitchen, and so I phone Gosia. "Oh God!" she says. A few minutes later she calls back to tell me that no-one's paid the bill, would I empty the mailbox and the electricity will be switched back on at 2pm. I don't know quite how these all fit together, but I suppose it keeps two more men employed going round switching electricity off in the morning and on again in the afternoon...

Also, this has to be how my computer works.

* posted by nat 11:31 AM

Monday, February 25, 2002

I was right, the letter is still in my bag. Argh! In other news, chevre and lingonberry jam make a great sandwich filling. Tomorrow I'm going to try making one of the rice-and-fruit things I found on this website which seems to have some fabulous recipes. Millions of recipes. I like collecting recipes, I just don't seem to be so good at actually getting round to cooking them.

I'm going to try uploading some more stuff, it's a bit pointless having everything coded up and sitting around just on my computer. We'll see how this connection is! At least it doesn't involve much typing, being all tanked up on Ibuprofen seems to have convinced me I can type normally... and now being less tanked up I'm in pain (thus hurriedly tanked up again...)

* posted by nat 10:11 PM

I am going to do some work in a minute. Really I am. I only came out here because I was trying to get a more interesting article on London for the PFCEs, who had an evil reading-from-the-book to do last lesson. So I've found one, now I'm making up comprehension questions, then I've got to extrapolate the vocab and hey presto, we'll be off and away with a lesson! (I shall stick it round the walls and make them get up and walk so they don't fall asleep. So there.) And I still have 4 hours to sort the rest of the lesson out. Second conditional revision and then, I think, we'll play word formation, because both my groups seem to like that, and I have a nifty little board game I stole from Dave's Countdown. PFCE lessons have got so much better since I started stealing most of the material from Countdown and Rising Star (which I keep calling Red Star because, well, it's red.) So why the heck do I have to carry on using the evil and useless Think Ahead? Grr!

In other news, Carla and I are trying to adapt a Cutting Edge activity to the computer room, and I have a whole load of Elementary stories to mark. It's amazing how I can give the PFCEs a week to write something and I still only get half the papers in (usually on a 150 word homework). I give my (admittedly super-keen, but all working adults) Elementary class a writing homework on Wednesday and the whole class gives it in on Friday! I love my Elementary group! Every teacher needs an EL2.

I have just remembered I forgot to post all the letters I wrote this weekend (inbetween skating, reading, sleeping, other things...) This means they'll be stuck in my bag for weeks now. That's what usually happens.

* posted by nat 2:30 PM

Everyone beware!

I Am A: Chaotic Good Half-Elf Ranger Druid


Alignment:
Chaotic Good characters are independent types with a strong belief in the value of goodness. They have little use for governments and other forces of order, and will generally do their own things, without heed to such groups.


Race:
Half-Elves are a cross between a human and an elf. They are smaller, like their elven ancestors, but have a much shorter lifespan. They are sometimes looked down upon as half-breeds, but this is rare. They have both the curious drive of humans and the patience of elves.


Primary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.


Secondary Class:
Druids are a special variety of Cleric who serves the Earth, and can call upon the power in the earth to accomplish their goals. They tend to be somewhat fanatical about defending natural settings.


Find out What D&D Character Are You?, courtesy ofNeppyMan (e-mail)

* posted by nat 1:42 PM

Sunday, February 24, 2002

The Super-Duper Wonderful Very Secret LOtR diaries have got their own place, woo! Plus there's merchandise. Rah, rah, rah. I'm just waiting till they get the black t-shirts going and then "Aloof, Unavailable Elf Princess" is going right on my credit card. Go me! (And maybe several of the others, as I usually only shop on line when drunk/down/feeling rich!)

And I finally finished reading Draco Veritas Part 6. I've been doing my best not to rush it. Yum yum yum.(Taking naps in between paragraphs and stuff, watching the ice-hockey, plus the gala exhibition 3 times.)

I am going to go to sleep now, I'm just back from a night of Mexican food and feeling really rather ill. Because I ate far, far too much, especially considering I haven't eaten since Thursday night. (Not counting emergency chocolate soya milk (1 carton) and about 20 Iboprofen (which I don't think are calorific)). However all good work undone by spinach burritos and guacamole. Oh well!

* posted by nat 1:22 AM

Friday, February 22, 2002

Method of teaching when feeling crap: Give group general knowledge quiz. Then get them to write their own in groups. Then get them to quiz each other. Teacher sits in corner looking peaky, corrects pronuncation and very little else, except when parents turn up and drag you out of class to ask when their child was away and how many homeworks they haven't done. Sigh. All I have to say to that is:

I did that myself, I did. I'm going to go and die now.

* posted by nat 8:58 PM

Which Buffy Girl Are You? Find out @ She's Crafty

* posted by nat 2:38 PM

I'm not exactly sure why I'm in work, after spending half an hour crying on the sofa this morning (before I figured I should stop being a martyr and swallowed a load of painkillers instead) and the rest of the morning not feeling exactly comfortable. I think I've got a temperature too, but I'm ignoring it in the hope it will go away. Anyway, I've planned my lessons and I'm sure I can get through them without too much trouble, then I can die at the weekend.

There's a notice on the door to the teacher's room that says "Gold for Great Britain Scotland! Can't think who that might have been...

* posted by nat 1:23 PM

Thursday, February 21, 2002

Red: 5/100 Blue: 19/100 White: 16/100 Yellow: 5/100

Take the Color Code Test
by Dano

* posted by nat 1:41 PM

* posted by nat 1:18 PM

I am now officially a temporary resident of Poland, and I have a scruffy piece of A4 paper to prove it. Oh yes! And it cost 300zl, but I can stay here until Summer 2003...

And it's still snowing. And windy. I am so glad I don't have to do any travelling!

* posted by nat 1:17 PM

I will not cry at comics. Oh no no no no no.

This cheered me up though. Yum!


Tall, dark, and RUGGEDLY handsome!

* posted by nat 11:35 AM

Wednesday, February 20, 2002

Forgot to mention that Alex Coomber won the bronze in the ladies' suicide skeleton, woo woo! And the GB curling team are in the finals. I don't get curling. Not even Eurosport desperately trying to advertise it and calling it "chess on ice" is going to help! But hey, medals are nice!

* posted by nat 11:12 PM

So I've just finished a marathon e-mailing session, which took a seriously long time as I was trying to watch the men's cross country relay which was vaguely exciting just because you can actually *see* where everyone is in relation to each other...

And the weather is grey and horrible (hobbirle?), though it does keep snowing which lessens the gloom somewhat. Grumble.

Anyway, the whole colorgenics thing. This was what I got:

Presently, you are trying to break away from a situation that is causing you considerable worry and concern. Things are getting on top of you and you are feeling depressed almost to breaking point.Obviously there must be a way out - but at this time the solution seems to be escaping you. You want to "get away from it all" and as a consequence you appear to be sullen, introverted and refuse to get involved in any discussion or arguments which could aggravate the situation. Accept the fact that "as you feel - so your body will respond"... and so therefore "pretend" to the world about you that everything is going beautifully and if you act as if "all is going well" everything will, whether you believe it or not, will work out as you would like it to.

You are finding the present situation extremely demanding and you're having difficulty coping with the situation. A great deal of strain is involved and you would really like everyone and everything to leave you alone for a while, just so that you can put everything into perspective. [Except of course the whole point is that I think this year is so much better exactly because I am around people. Except I can't tell really unless I'm all on my own. Which I won't be. So this is a bit silly really.]

You are exhausted, over stressed and you refuse to give in. You are trying to minimise the tension by being physically active.It would seem that you are experiencing problems with an existing relationship and try as you might, you find it impossible to alter the situation because there is no co-operation. There is an urgent need for proper understanding which may only be accomplished by communication .. At this time you feel that there is no "give and take" on either side. This is resulting in constant depression. You are irritable and it could be said by your nearest and dearest that "you are hard to live with". You feel the urgent need to get away from it all - even it's only for a little while. You may be finding it difficult now to make firm decisions ... you are restless and generally uptight.
[This is the only paragraph that doesn't really fit. Well it does a little. But I'm hardly exhausted! I'm worryingly bouncy!]

Be it through unfulfilled emotional requirements, be it mental or physical, whatever the circumstances, you are experiencing considerable stress. To your credit you are attempting to escape from this by endeavouring to create a semblance of peace and serenity by refusing to allow yourself to be involved. You have the strength to "pull through" and all indications are that you will....perhaps sooner than you even believed possible.

Stupid bunch of colours. What do they know anyway?

* posted by nat 10:48 PM

Yup, Drobiazko and Vanagas weren't impressed, there's a surprise.

It is snowing again! And colorgenics says I'm not happy at all, I'm just pretending! Huff.

* posted by nat 12:04 PM

Tuesday, February 19, 2002

The school inspector (who's been here these past two days) said to me in my interview he thought my lessons were "well organised and had a good sense of direction." This has to be a veiled insult. I just can't work it quite out! Anyway, he came and observed PFCE4 who were reasonably normal, bless them, and Monday night we all went out to 'U Soltysa' courtesy of the school. That's a Polish restaurant so I was eating... you guessed it... pierogi with cabbage and mushrooms and without the bacon bits. And plenty of beer. Delicious, though. Then today we had a thing about the IH setup followed by a buffet lunch! With nice veggie food for me and Big Paul! Rah! Stuffed mushrooms... it was really nice, and lots of salads too. I think we shall have to move for a buffet, oh, every day or something? Or course with not eating chocolate I am suddenly eating rather a lot of bananas, but I'm sure they're much better for me. Potassium you know.

I had an e-mail from Sabine today. Woo, woo! Yet another person who I can finally keep in contact with without having to worry so much about where I'm moving to next...

Ok, rant time, ice-dance wise. How come someone who falls over when skating in a straight line can get on the podium?! Can anyone see it? Of course then Bourne and Kraatz went and blew it at the end of their routine, too - by all rights Drobiazko and Vanagas should have been in third... sigh... and as much as I love Anissina and Peizerat, I honestly think the Russians outskated them in both the Original and the Free.... grumble. Skating. Oh well. I must go and check Teletext to see if there is anything to watch tomorrow, if not I can go into town and do stuff instead. Rah! Stuff! *check* Oh, it is. Stuff on hold!

* posted by nat 8:58 PM

Friday, February 15, 2002

Hmm. Had an interesting morning. Lots of fun and fab skating, rudely interrumpted by a knock at the door (which I ignored) then a ring on the bell (meaning 'We know you're in there') heralding the arrival of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Managed to scare them off in about 5 minutes. All was blessedly peaceful until Yagudin won his gold (rah, rah, rah!) and then I had a phone call from some woman from some bank who seemed to want something. Or to sell me something. It took a while to convince her that not only did I not care, I didn't really understand either.

I ate a whole packet of garlic bake rolls. Are they healthy? No idea... In other consumption today: one strawberry soya milkshake, one banana, half a bottle of water, four pieces of toast that had been egg-mayonnaised (one egg), two glasses of fruit juice. Hmm. Does not look very healthy.

And the frying pan, which went and vanished from the flat somehow on either Monday or Tuesday, is still missing. I still think the cockroaches carried it off. It's the only explanation. "In other words," said Robert, "You want a new frying pan." I don't think he believes us...

* posted by nat 9:53 PM

Thursday, February 14, 2002

Take the What Color Dragon Should You Ride? Quiz

Made By: myway and teza


So there it is. Lenka is me. Scared yet? The rest of them went Green Blue Gold Bronze. And browns are cool! But then again, so are blues... I'm still happy.

* posted by nat 9:59 PM

So I get a Valentine from my ex-boyfriend. And it wasn't exactly a serious one, but still... Help! School today was full of morose teenagers, poor things! Rachael has filked "Something Stupid" into a fantastic heard-wrong-song exercise with lots of food words in - And then I go and boil it all by saying something stupid like 'I love food'. Whereas I'm playing make-your-own-Valentine quotation, with various quotes about love with blanks in at judicious points. Scores so far for "Love is a grave... for freedom." (instead of mental disease - you have to love Plato.) and "Love is the triumph of insanity over sanity." (instead of imagination/intelligence). Anyway, I'm happy to see that there's a decent non-romantic bunch of students that I have - wel, some were romantic, and thus instantly forgettable quotes. The rest of them, last night, were at home watching Malysz come second. The commentator on Eurosport, which had it on later, was intensely over-excited. As far as I can work out the rest of the country is fairly disgusted he didn't get two golds. (Never mind Poland hasn't won any medals for 30 years...)

Day 2 sans chocolate was evil, especially when at the teacher's meeting this morning there were lots of little chocolate and marzipan hearts there with the coffee. Argh! Conversation went thusly:
Big Paul: Have one of these.
Me: I can't, it's chocolate.
BP: Oh of course, you're religious.
Me: What's religion got to do with chocolate? (flummoxed.) This is a diet here!
BP: A diet?! Now?! What do you want to go and do that for?
Me: Haven't got round to it this year yet...

I've also decided that chocolate soya milk doesn't count... but it is to be used for emergencies only. Have not had one of them yet!

The sun has been spotted twice in as many days! Is this a record?

* posted by nat 9:38 PM

Tuesday, February 12, 2002

Have found where I hid my wages! Hurrah! Am rich! Except not very, as Kamila has decided to peddle me the Oriflame catalogue so I am trying to resist ordering the whole contents. Dratted students. Whoever is the next to mention Adam Malysz is going to get a lesson based around Eddie the Eagle Edwards, I swear it! Speaking of the Winter Olympics, there was a discussion today when I got back about "Fine, two-man, there's a driver and a brake guy, but what about the four man bobsled."

"Yeah," I said, "that's my role in life... I'm the second person in the four man team... I lean for corners."

And the worrying thing is, I'm sure there's a quiz in that... "If I were a Winter Olympics athlete, I would be..." Must see if anyone else has written it yet...

And in other news, Mark and evil-smoker-girl are no longer an item. Yesyesyesyesyes!!! And happy Chinese New Year to you too.

But no pancakes. In a last-ditch binge before Lent comes along, provoked by the reading from the scales (69kg. Ouch! Ouch! There will be massive starvation dieting, long walks by the river, wrapping self in clingfilm, massive starvation dieting, etc. etc. etc.) I have decided to stop the chocolate. I think this is about 50% of what I eat anyway. And plain chocolate is so much more expensive. So. No more chocolate, soya chocolate mousse, nor even liquorice allsorts. I could stop the beer, but that might be too painful. On the other hand, when there's Zubrowka, maybe not... I think I should also try less eating at 10pm at night. It's so not good for me.

Will now have to go on mad binge and finish up Allsorts. And chocolate mousse. Goody!

* posted by nat 10:29 PM

Monday, February 11, 2002

This test made me take it. It did it did it did!

* posted by nat 2:24 PM

Agh. Monday. For some reason I managed to sleep on the train on the way home, and then could not get to sleep once back in my own little bed. Makes sense. I woke up this morning, decided not to rush things, looked at my watch (which said about 11:30) and started reading. I looked at it again, it said 12. I looked at it again, it said 12. I looked at it again...

So my watch has stopped. Just what I needed!

The first thing we did in school today was figure out how long until the Easter Holidays start. Rob has asked me if I want to come in and help with the FCE/CAE mocks at the weekend... it's double time apparently, so. Will pay the phone bill. I just hope I don't have to do anything exciting, like orals. Please, no orals!

Gah. I had better go and try and plan this lesson again. I think I've forgotten how... On the other hand it could just be Think Ahead. What am I talking about? Of *course* it's Think Ahead. It wants to be the epitome of evility, but it's just too crap.

* posted by nat 2:12 PM

Sunday, February 10, 2002

Still in the net cafe and cannot believe what I am hearing.. a heavy metal/rock version of Brecht's Cannon Song... I can't figure out the language for the life of me though. That's just... well, actually, it's not at all wrong.

My PKP ticket glows in the ultra-violet... and I ahve just realised I'm going to have to pay the net cafe bill with a 100zl note. Oh I will be popular... ont he other hand, this is Warszawa, maybe they're used to large notes up here in the big city...

Ooooh! People on the MC Chat server. Oooh!

* posted by nat 9:42 PM

So the plane went straight up and then straight down again at very severe angles and left me feeling very ill, the man two seats in front of me spent the last half an hour of the flight curled up in the crash landing position which was perhaps a bit OTT And now I am in Warszawa Centralna, waiting for a train, waiting for a train... gosh, it's dull. The web is a dull page on a Sunday evening. and even duller when you've been offline for two weeks, really. The less you have, the less you want it. Maybe.

Anyway, I'm still in a snit about the whole Mark thing. (Mark the American, not Mark the Choir). Firstly, there's the moving thing - which is fine, but he could at least give me his phone number. Secondly and more importantly, there's the this-girl thing. Gah! I mean, she even smokes. What's with that? (I mean him putting up with something like that?) Anyway, I am now wondering if I should be telling Mark about what happened with Micke (purely on the grounds of annoying him in return, I mean, I'm sure that's the only reason he told me, right?), and even indeed if it should be pointed out to Micke that I was all screwed-up-have-to-get-one-back-on-the-ex-howl-sob - although come to think of it, I think I did actually point most of that out in person. Hm. And for my next trick of utterly superb idiocy... well, I have to make it back to Torun first.

On the other, hand, they might both read this and then I'd be spared the effort! Hoorah! Aren't blogs wonderful?

Ouagh, I have to go to work tomorrow. Why? Why? Why?! And how come the address of my website has changed? Obviosuly it's time I checked my mail...

* posted by nat 8:57 PM

Thursday, February 07, 2002

And here's a quick resume, because it's all in the offline diary anyway and I'm not typing it all up twice!

Copenhagen - Wonderful, wonderful, very wet, proof you can enjoy yourself in the soaking rain with absolutely no money. Fantastic modern art show the best bit.

Lund - seriously cosy, nice place to wander around, Malm� down the road bigger, more metropolitan, just as fun. Lovely to see Mark again and do very ex-pat things like go for beer and mutter about being British. Whee!

G�teborg - better weather, good shopping, but it all felt a little bit 2D. Micke was slightly scary at points but turned out to be nice - I was just too whacked upon first meeting him, having had to cope with a train that stopped halfway and loaded us all onto buses, but it did mean I got off at Varberg and saw the fortress there right by the sea which is utterly stupendous. But back to G�teborg... wierd town. Though fab shop selling muffins and fabber cafe selling huge meringues. Joy!

Stockholm - ooooh, the Old Town is lovely. Plus Nea and Johan took the day off work yesterday (for me? Gosh!) and we went to see the Vasa, which was terrific.

Uppsala - I've been floating round it today, getting to know it, and liking it more and more. Also Gamla Uppsala, with the old burial mounds, is quite an electric place. Especailly wandering round them all on my own in the silence and the wind. I liked it. A lot. And Nea and Johan have a sauna. Also really rather nice! And silly cats who go sliding on the rugs in the hallways. Aaaah.

* posted by nat 8:52 PM