February 5, 2011

  • Mean, keen application machine!

    Apparently February arrived while I wasn't looking? Gosh, today's the 6th (just - it's 1am - what am I doing up?), which means tomorrow is the 7th, and we all know what that means winky

    The answer to the "what am I doing up?" question is that this week I have been doing most of my work at this time of night. I think perhaps a slack period in my timetable (compared to some of the reallllllly busy periods we've had, this week has been quite quiet for me with lots of students and groups having just finished) has meant I'm not really tired enough in the evening, so instead of sleeping I've been getting things done. It's report writing week for the teens which I have been slightly obsessing over. Thankfully they are finished now and I can get on with middle-of-the-night grammar sessions instead. That's both "Grammar for ELT teachers" and "Grammatica avanzata della lingua italiana". Oh I DO lead an exciting life don't I! Sad. 

    Anyway, the order of tonight isn't grammar but applications. Yes, since my last post, I have made some of those decisions I was talking about. 

    1. I think my first choice will be to return to the UK this summer. It'll be really good to get some experience working with multilingual groups, and more experience of teaching teenagers in a different setting. I'm already excited about the prospect and really hope I get one of these jobs! I've only applied for two so far but I have suddenly found several that I'm really keen on so I'm churning out applications. Tailoring them all to the specific requirements is so time consuming!
    They're all in different locations (some near home/family, some totally random). Any of them will be good. Some of them have the problem of starting very early in July. My contract here goes until the end of June and I don't particularly want to rush immediately into the next job. Might have to though...
    I am quite disappointed that most of them will prevent me from going to Taizé around the time I wanted to (first week of August), but I expect I'll be able to go the first week of September instead. Might not get to use my brand new Christmas/birthday present tent though! :(

    2.Very excitingly, I have had my mind put to rest about next year. As I said last time, I wasn't expecting to know about this for ages, but when I was checking with my boss that he was happy to give me a reference for these summer jobs, he also said (without me asking, obviously) that there would "definitely be a place" for me there next year if I wanted to come back. YAY! I was literally jumping up and down when I got that email! So so happy - I'm over the moon to know I can stay here, it's really put my mind at rest. I've been saying for ages that I just wanted to spend at least 2 consecutive years in the same place, and I'm really glad that I will now be able to do so! Just the big decision of where to live/whether to bring my car or get a car (which are slightly tied together as if I want somewhere to park, I'd have to move to somewhere which has parking space available as the school car is in the school flat's garage!).  Anyway, plenty of time to worry about that later...

    I should probably go to sleep now. Last night I was out playing darts until quite late! Yup... darts. It was BRILLIANT fun! We had choir rehearsal and then afterwards I went with Francesco, Roberto and Daniela to this bar outside of Udine where they have loads of pub games. Beer + darts - brilliant! So glad I'm getting to spend more time doing social things with those guys these days. happy (see, it's not ALL about grammar winky )

    Oh and this afternoon was spent failing to make a cake. I'm quite exhausted after all my failed culinary efforts. Don't ask for details because I don't want to talk about it!!! 
    Buona notte!