First day teaching

Today was our first day teaching. We (Ann and I) started of with ICT. I was a bit nervous because although I’ve observed I had no real idea how they would react to the lesson. Eventually it all went well. A few small remarks but most of it was ok. The teacher even thought we were real ICT teachers.

Afterwards I had to teach History in a carousel together with Ann, Evi and Lindsay. That want smooth as well, timing a bit of a problem because you had to synchronise 4 individual teachers with 4 individual parts together. We have to still finish a small bit Thursday but Chris said it was no problem. The students themselves loved the approach because they said that they like working in smaller groups because it is easier to understand and ask help.

After that we went to Sainsbury (the local Carrefour) where we bought some stuffs to organise our TP. I was going mad without a proper folder to organise my paperwork in. The rest liked the idea and Lindsay kicked in gear to create a general TP folder of which she will keep the administration (as a part of her intentions to improve the skill of a teacher as organizer).
Afterwards we came home, said hello to our second (or third) mum and dad (Molly and Dave) who see us as their adopted family, ate and started working, As usual.

Tomorrow a very slow day for me because due to my adjusted timetable I will only have to teach one lesson (one of the 2 teachers is out and I have to work with her). A peaceful day where I can work.

Sleep tight

Timmy

Robin Hood and more work

After a very nice evening in the pub where we shared some really good stories, had a few laughs, played with our camaras a lot and a couple of drinks we went to bed quite late.

Friday was a really important day because we planned to go to Nottingham and Coventry in 1 day. We set out for Nottingham first. The home of Robin Hood.

We first stopped for petrol. Lindsay did her first tanking ever (yey Lindsay!). When we arrived in Nottingham we had to go trough the terrible ordeal of parking in a car park building (yey antenna!). We had to stop at our 2nd favourite tourist attraction, next to N°1 the toilet, the cashpoint. We just received word that our marks were in and that resulted into stress shopping (after some cultural activities)! I still had to wait for mine a while.

We went into Nottingham Castle and enjoyed the sights. I say some beautiful quotes on the floor right in front of the museum. I took some pictures of them to enjoy them later.

The museum was interesting although I would expect to learn a lot about Robin Hood and the story but there was another exhibition. I loved the shop where you had a few interesting post cards, a nice exhibition about the history of Nottingham Castle that was interactive and the gardens were beautiful.

Afterwards we went looking for the caves of Nottingham. We discovered that the caves weren't that high on our priority list but the tour Crime and Justice was. We went to the court house and got on the tour. I loved it so much, interactive and interesting. We started off with leaving the main hall with the sherrif where Evi, Natalia (after giving statement), Ann and I stood trail there. Evi was accused of witchcraft and fornication and I was accused of being Robin Hood. When we continued our tour to sit our sentence we met the jailor. He gave the girls quite a scare because he sat like a wax statue, then jumped up and shouted and Evi and Natalia, both scared sh*tless, ran away screaming. They were hoping something like this would not happen. The jailor was quite cute and threathened to his us with is whip. The girls and I did kind of like the idea, resulting in laughing, resulting in him repremanding us and making jokes about whiping us some more.

When we got on the rest of the tour which was lovely. After that we went on the long due stress shopping trip. I did not buy much but the rest of the girls loved it. When finally home we cooked for Molly, who loved our food, watched a movie, where everybody fell asleep, and went to bed.

Saturday was work work work. Nothing special there. We did however went to Borders as a reward. There I bought some books. I bought a part of a new series: Dream-hunter and the Twilight series. After a week of trying to convince everybody it was worth it they have now planned a second outing to Borders, hopefully with more money then.

Today is going to be a hard day working too so do not expect too much from me. Tomorrow is the first day teaching! Exiting.

What will Monday bring?

Be back, Monday evening at Timmyatleicester.blogspot.com!

Very relaxing days in and around Desford

It has been 2 very relaxing days now.We went to bed very late the day before because we had seen a movie (Me, Ann, Tanja and Natalia).

Yesterday some of us went to Leicester after waking up quite late. We decided to sleep in. In Leicester we decided to do some culture instead of shopping but after the Cathedral and the Guild House we went a bit shoe/book shopping too. We visited the local market which was huge and cheap.

It was a very interesting tour. Lindsay worked it out and Evi was our satnav for the day. We also visited a very interesting museum that worked on the theme Leicester throughout the history. There was a very nice stone sediment there and as a nice little tourist I decided to take a picture of it.

Afterwards we had a very extensive dinner with Paul and Pam. Molly is quite used to having a lot of visitors. It was very nice but we needed to do some work.

Thursday was going to be a working day. We all got up very late, 11 o'clock, and had a huge dinner (Props to Natalia!!!!). Some of us wanted to go to Leicester town but I decided to stay and work. First I went to the post office where I bought a very nice but cheap DVD. Afterwards it was work, work, work, ...

As a result my observations, my learning objectives and a small piece of my endwork is finished.It is possible that we end up in the pub tonight but we'll have to see.

Singing off

Little Timmy (Big bro of Little Dan)

Vedi, Vici, Visa

I came, I saw, I shopped.

A nice little thing I saw in one of the gift shops at Warwick Castle. As you can probably guess by now we went to Warwick. The most famous attraction at Warwick is its castle complete with real life demonstrations and wax statues. It was a very nice day, a lot of walking which is good for our calories.

I could tell you all about it but a picture says more than a 1000 words.

Do you know what river this is? No, I don't. It is the river Avon.

Hi everybody, hi docter Nick (little joke)

Well yesterday (Sunday) was not our most active day of the week. The 7th day was meant for resting and that we did. We did have a visit from Sophie, a Belgian who stayed when she came to Leicester via KdG, and had loads of fun. She also told us that we went to the wrong neighbourhood. Too explain a little: the day before Tanja, Ann and I were really active wanted to dance and we easily convinced Natalia, Evi and Lindsay to come with us. So we decided to go dancing. We went to the Revolution that was in the Paki neighbourhood and it was a very special cultural experience. Hence the little tip from Sophie.

The rest of the day we did nothing. We had a big dinner with loads of calories. I've decided I love warm applecake with custard (vloeibare warme pudding voor onze Belgen). Anne, Claire, Little Dan, James, Scott, Molly and Dave were there and our group as well. Dan performed a little magic trick which was quite nice but it backfired if he had no audience (or nobody to help the bal disappear). I really like little Dan. I will try and upload the video of the trick later (might be on facebook though).

Today, Monday, we decided to go to Stratford, the birthplace of William Shakespeare, and have a cultural day. It was quite nice. I loved the Elisabethan feel of the town. We did visit his grave, his birthhouse (kind of) and a spooky house on the main street. At the spooky house I had loads of laughs with Natalia, who needed MY manly support, and Ann. We also had a small Harry Potter moment where you could be sorted by the sorting hat himself. Apparently I am Slytherin which doesn't surprise me if you know my favourite person in the card game is Draco Malfoy.

We went past Borders, a really big book shop, on our way. I hope to see it somewhere although I have decided to buy only 5 books because both my luggage as my budget won't be able to handle anymore.

In the evening we had Sophie and her parents over for dinner. That was really really fun. We had loads of fun and off course Molly's dinner is absolutly scrumptious. I have decided to stop eating because all the trousers I brought from Belgium (all 3 of them) are to small for me. I barely gained weight and still I've become sort of Shamu already. Just terrible!

Tomorrow we are going to go to Warwick Castle. I am really exited to go and am curious about the experience. I do want to add now that I miss everybody terribly (thanks to your messages via Facebook I know!) and I love my parents and brothers/sisters for their support (both emotionally as financially) and my 2 best friends, Kristel and Farah, who both miss me a lot and I can say the same.

If any of you feel like dropping in even for one day, do so! Leicester is an experience you will never forget!

I'm going to start another book now. I finished one yesterday. Today's flavor is written by S. Kenyon. I can advise G. Showalter to any of you in a romantic mood.

Kisses

Timmy

A new me.

Today was a very exiting day. I woke up with Molly and Dave in the kitchen. They are really nice people. We had a chat with them, a bit of breakfast and then we left for Leicester city. There we split up in groups to go shopping, I went alone because I wanted to visit the pokemon league in Leicester.

First I bought a book off course, then I stopped by in the Phoenix Game Store. There the organizer, Steve, gave me a big welcome and also gave me a Lucario Prerelease Staff card to help out a fellow collegue. I took this gesture as a welcome gift and I promised to come back next week or the week after.

After this I went looking for a hairdresser. I found one where I met this really interesting man. He lured me in and he washed my hair and afterwards his boss cut my hair. The boy was really interesting and we talked a long time (I was in there for almost 2 hours). I thought he was about my age until he blurted out that he was 15 (there is something with that age). Bad luck there but I do have a new haircut. All the girls thought I would not do it and they were very surprised to see me.

Afterwards we went to an all you can eat Chinese restaurant and filled ourselves up with some lovely chunks of food. We drove back home with the idea to go out clubbing which we are still in the proces of deciding what to do.

For the people who think: "He went to Leicester and did not enjoy the sights?" think again. I did! It is a lovely town and pictures will be added to the photobucketthing soon.

See you all

Timmy

Ooooh, so that's how it works.

Today was a day filled with wonder and marvel. Because it is an unlucky day, being Friday the 13th, Evi decided to take all the bad luck and hit everything she possibly could. Poor girl. The day started out with planning followed by a meeting with Viv. She explained to us that the members of staff were a bit disappointed in our appearance due to the fact that we were not that active and that we only wanted to teach lessons (so take over their teaching) instead of co-teaching or helping them with other tasks. When we heard this we were (completely) shocked. We thought we had to only teach (like we do in Belgium) but this time in pairs. We were caught off gaurd by this and after our very informative talk with Viv we jolted into action.

As a result of our sudden burst of motivation, inspiration, ... my timetable (that contained 7 hours before our talk) now contains 17 hours that I will be teaching or co-teaching. I have signed up for the following subjects: French, English (where I will eventually teach about Dutch Literature), Psychology, History, PSCHE, Business, ICT and PE (= LO). Martyn, the PE teacher, is a real nice fella who we all like. We had a chat for ours and he is the biggest fan of Natalia, who only needed one short conversation to convince him, and we will all be teaching 1 or 2 PE lessons.

All my subjects and subject teachers look like angels, especially Victoria, who teaches English and Literature, just because her love for books.

For the rest of the day we relaxed, had some fajitas (hope I spell it right) made by Evi and I screwed around getting photobucket linked with the blogspot. That did not work with the built in function especially made for photobucket so I had to do something else. I hope the technology wont fail on me now.

Tomorrow is shopping day, maybe a bit of pokemon and hair cutting day too. We will see.

Signing off

Timmy

Hello ladies, ... Ow! I'm sorry.

Sorry I haven't updated my blog for the last 2 days. Yesterday was a bit special. A very strange day. Groby is a nice school but some lessons you just want to intervene in because of the noisy pupils or the tad boring lessons.

Today was a more interesting day because we had some nice subjects and we could finally decide what to teach. I will teach French (oh yes believe it but I will be drilled on my accent), History (no doubt about that), business, psychology and ICT. There will probably be some other subjects too but about these I am sure. The reason why I have so many subjects is that we have to teach at least 12 hours and a lot of the teachers only want to give us 2 maximum 3 hours. The bad thing is the shedules do tend to overlap each other.

We went to the pub today just to see how it was like. We all had a cider which was nice but it is not something I will repeat over and over again due to its special taste. When we were there we had a chat with Anna and a friend of hers. Also another friendly lad greeted us (Evi, Tanja, Lindsay and me) with hello ladies. I turned my head and he automatically responded with a very polited but embarrased "I'm sorry". It was quite funny but I don't want this happening to me all the time, even when I am not looking for it this happens to me so the hair has to go!

Tomorrow will be our last day observing, finally getting a final teaching shedule and our topics what we have to teach. We (or at least I am) are all a bit tired, in need of rest. So for the rest we are going to order take out and just rest I think.

I love you all.

Timmy

PS: It would be nice if you came online on msn or something so I could have a chat. XOXO

Shocking, Shopping, Sleeping

Today was an early day for me. We ate and tried to leave on time but that backfired a bit. The time shedule has been adjusted so that everybody wakes up in time and eats in time. But as a result of our little mistake we were a few minutes late in Groby Community College.

I had to start my morning with registration, which is basically taking up the attendance and having a chat with the tutor group. It was really nice. My tutor that I have to follow (Chriss Hannaford) is a real nice dude. He has some sort of thinking challenge, which is some iron bars formed in such a way that you need to puzzle them out, and if you complete the challenge you get accepted in the group. I did succeed in a minumum of time concidering my sleepy head.

Next was another day of observing. After a fairly nice English lesson we (Evi and I) had to observe Dance which was really impressive. One dancer, ballet trainnee, Phiona was absolutely the most flexible person I have ever seen.

A while later I witnessed the world most shocking History lesson and a very surprising Science lesson. After those lessons we could go home but we had to 'search and rescue' Lindsay and Ann from Miss Evans who is really communicative (she's nice but we were just a tad impatient I guess).

We went home first and then straight to a mall (what did you expect!). I was so happy we found a starbucks!

I bought some small stuffs, a present for a dear friend of mine and saw the most gorgeos coat of my life. I tried it and it fit me like a charm. The bad thing was the coat is 70 pounds. I do get a 20% discount till Friday thanks to a coupon but I am in terrible doubt whether to buy it or not. I put in on lay-away just in case. You can post a little comment about it, advice would help.

On our way home we got stuck by some idiot who somehow created an accident. Luckely we were far away from it and had nothing to do with it. The challenge was turning the car on the left side of the road when it is your second time you are driving the car.

Finally we got home, ate a bit, I took a bath and off course using the built in jacuzzi feature and afterwards we chilled a bit. I will try and mail everyone tomorrow but today I am just going to sleep. We are all really tired.

Love you all

Timmy

Serene chaos comme Vermeulen

After having slept only 4 hours and me oversleeping and missing the shower stop (my own damn fault) we left for Groby. One small detail. I packed 2 pants. 1 was too small for me, the other one's zipper broke off. I have no pants left anymore now!

The GPS refused to kick in action, afterwards sending us on a tour around Desford then it sent us to Groby. The result was that we were half an hour late. The introduction was quite OK. I had to observe with Evi. We were a bit shocked because this is not the typical English school. The pupils call the teachers here with their front name, they do not have to wear uniforms, the school layout is not practical, teacher-pupil relations are really fluent, ... I like the school though. I could imagine moving here (hopefully in this house because it is really beautiful) and teach.

Afterwards we used the foul GPS to go to Sainbury to tank and shop. I needed new pants. I bought 2 new pants for 19 pounds. They even included matching belts. Afterwards Evi cooked a very nice dinner which I cleaned up and we had some akward conversation about girls and gay stuff (what else did you expect).

We are now going to rest a bit, watch a movie, type out the observations will be for tomorrow. Maybe we will wake up with the Tai-chi-do-it-yourself-video. I found some liftingweights so I might work on my figure, who knows.

One thing I was surprised about when reading the forum of the French organised play is that at the Belle-France (2 pokemon Tournaments) Matthieu Sirel won and not one of our Belgian players. But hey anything is possible.

Signing off now.

Love all.

The great cliffs of Dover, not so great.

Today was D-day (departure day).

We had loads of fun on our way. We ended up at the wrong ferry (Norfolk) because we bravely followed the Car Ferry signs. That was not what we were supposed to do because we ended up in Dunkerke instead of Calais. So we had to drive for another 25 km.

After finally reaching the ferry we had to wait for more than an hour (better early than late). We had to go to a series of check-ups. They even stopped us for a personal check-up because they could not identify us. The always thought "OMG 6 chicks in a van.". I found that really offensive. I'm only half a chick you know. On the ferry our darling little Tanja made an ouchie (culture wise, movie underneath but listen carefully the sound isn't that great due to the wind!). Although the ride was windy and the ship was a bit well rocking it was nice to have done the ferry once in my life.

As you can see our cameras have been working non stop. Even now we are still taking pictures/making moves (nice bribery, ...).

Exiting from the ferry and driving on the left was a challenge too especially when it was time for roundabouts. When it was Natalia's turn to drive everybody became sick (more due to the burger king than the driving but is still up for discussion). We sang along Disney Songs and those kept our drivers awake.

When we arrived in Desford it was snowing. Next to that Anna, Claire, James and little Dan greeted us to their mum's house. They were really nice. They made us food, helped us unpack, cared for our every need. They are angels in the true sence of the word. Afterwards we had some really good lasagna and discovered our rooms. I have this beautiful single bedroom thrice the size of my own room. A huge table to play pokemon on (if anyone wants too) and a 2 person bed for me alone. After dinner we unpacked, discovered that Natalia is really accident prone (almost knocking down a painting), the accent here is a bit difficult to follow and that the house is really really huge and cosy. I want to life in this place later. (Pictures will follow later.)

I look forward to school tomorrow although it will be a tricky ride to the school with all the snow.

I do have to say I miss everyone at home, I hope my friends and best friends are having fun without me and that my darlings have won the Belle-France in Lille. (@Kristel: tnx for the text).
Signing off now because we planned a nice little evening tea/coffee.

Love Timmy

Final days

We are really going. It dawned upon me Sunday that I was really going. I am exited but nervous at the same time. So many friends and family that I will have to leave behind. I am already saying goodbye to a lot of my friends and I'm not even gone yet.

We have a 'free' week to rest a bit after the exams but everybody has claimed a bit of my time and together with the organisation of the trip, the pokemon league and the funny e-mails I get from Intrafin (the distributor of the pokemon game in Belgium) I have my hands tied and full with work.

It is only 5 days before I leave and I have no real idea what to expect. I heard a lot of stories but doing it yourself is so much more intens.

I will have to see. Now I'm off to go to my TP meeting for my 2nd school (back here in Belgium).

Love you all and I will miss you!