Title: Back to Bloggin

All access to my blogspot site is now completely cut off complements to the paranoid Ethiopian government, so, with thanks to facebook-wise friend Ben, I'm going to attempt to use facebook to blog from now and my rather talented and very beautiful friend Gemma has kindly said she would scoop up my dribble and pour it over to this blog site so you don't have to join up with facebook. If you are part of facebook you can find me there using my full Sunday name, and if you are reading this on facebook you can get the rest at www.youngcrone.blogspot.com
Obliviously I have had loads of problems with internet access, but hopefully this new system and run smoothly. I have missed bogging; it really cuts down on answering the same questions by email. It also forces me to form my thoughts of where I am and what I'm doing into coherent sentences… well sometimes.

The first quarter at school has finished with a flurry of paperwork, grading and exams. For a few weeks I was just like that teacher that you remember from high school who always looked like she was just about to have a nervous breakdown. But then my mother sent me a book with the New Zealand English curriculum, having some sort of idea of what I'm going to teach tomorrow and next week and next month. It has made a huge difference having some sort of direction and I'm not so stressed.

I also got one kid called Haleluyah suspended for a week, and as much as I missed constantly shouting "HALELUYA!" in class it meant for an entire week I actually taught the kids something. He's back now, but doesn't seem to mess with me so much. I have another straight F student who spends more time in the office than in class. I don't know what I'm going to do about him.

I haven't felt time the best teacher, I'm never on top of it all, and between the boring-as-shit lesson planning and the utterly mundane grading it's not the most exciting job in the world. But I did with an award for 'best teacher' (which was a surprise) and another award for 'best decorated classroom' which was not such a surprise given the other teachers were going for prison-cell-minimalism in their rooms.

I have a landline phone, it's not working at the moment (and no running water for five days now too), but if you want to give it a go it's +251114192959. I'm not worried about publishing my home phone number on the web given that if you are willing to call Ethiopia you must actually know me, and this website is blocked in Ethiopia which will cut out the 'hello' 'hello' 'hello' 'yes' 'hello' calls that happen.