Musings of a language teacher

We are at the beginning of a new five week course and our class is a little different. Three people have gone in new directions and we have two new students. It's a small group, but already very cohesive and everyone works well together.
We are starting a project, creating a wiki. It's a kind of website. I think it's going to be interesting. The students have chosen Adelaide as the general topic so it will be useful for other classes to get information from. Cool!

Yesterday, our class went out for lunch. We didn't go to Morialta as it was cold and windy. Lots of changes. Lin and Se-Won have finished their English course, and so has Fatima. Wong is going to PEP. It's always a bit sad when people leave, especially as we have been quite a close group. But everyone has their own journey, so we have to say our goodbyes and hope to stay in touch.

On a lighter note, I ate Korean food for lunch. BiBimBap. It was very tasty, but hard to describe. Lots of things like meat and different vegetables sitting on a bed of rice, plus a fried egg yolk. When you get it, you mix it all together with kimchi and hot sauce. I had the hot dish which is good on a cold day. Then, today I read a recipe for this dish in the weekend magazine that comes with the newspaper. Curious! I should try to make it at home.

I think everyone in the class must be busy with essays and oral presentations as only Kiwi has written a new post. However, four people have looked at the Morialta site and are keen to go there. I hope the weather will be ok. It's hot today but I think Friday might only be about 19 degrees.
I have been busy working on my online course too. I'm trying to be very disciplined and work hard for two or three hours and then stop. Otherwise I spend ages at the computer but don't achieve very much.

If you click on the title "Morialta", it will take you to the Morialta Park web site. Cool, eh? You can have a look at the pictures and read about it. It's a really big park on the edge of the city so it's easy to get to by bus. However, it's not a park like the Botanic Gardens. It's very natural and has waterfalls and a lot of hills. See what you think. We could also go to the Botanic Gardens for our picnic or somewhere else that you would like.

I just finished reading a great book called 'Rabbit Proof Fence". It has been made into a movie but I haven't seen that.
It's the true story of 3 young Aboriginal girls who were taken from their families and sent to live in a kind of orphanage, down near Perth. The girls escaped and walked back to their families. I can't remember how long the journey was, but around 2, 000 km. It took them about 9 weeks and all the time they had to avoid the police and people who were searching from them.
It's an amazing story as the girls were aged about 10, 12 and 13.
It's 130 pages long so you could borrow it from your local library and read it if you are interested.

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

I think yesterday was the coldest day we have had this year! What crazy weather. 26 degrees last week and then 15 deg this week. At least we had some rain. I'm worried that we are going to have a very dry summer and nothing will grow in the garden, and worst still, on the farms.

Last night T and I went to the opera to see Madama Butterfly. The music is lovely but the story is a bit silly.
Act 1: Butterfly, a young Japanese girl, marries Pinkerton, an American sailor. At the time, he thinks she is gorgeous but that in the future he will marry an American girl.
Act 2: Three years have passed and Pinkerton has been away from Butterfly for all this time. She waits faithfully and patiently for him. A rich Japanese man is in love with her and wants to marry her but she refuses him. Then we see Butterfly has a young son, whose father is Pinkerton.
She sees Pinkerton's ship is sailing into the harbour and waits all night with her son and her maid, Suzuki, for Pinkerton to return to her. He doesn't come and in the morning she goes to sleep. Then Pinkerton arrives, but he has his American wife with him! Suzuki tells him that Butterfly has been waiting faithfully for 3 years and he realised he has done wrong and that he is a heartless man. He offers to bring up their son with his new wife!!! Then he leaves as he can't bear to see Butterfly.
Butterfly comes out and Suzuki has to tell her the truth. In the final scene Butterfly stabs herself with a knife because she would rather die than live without Pinkerton.

What do you think of that?

I wrote a new posting this afternoon but it has disappeared into the archives. Why is this so?

Wow, the week goes so fast. Tomorrow I have to do IELTS examining. It's interesting but hard to do on a Saturday. It's good for me to do it though as a lot of my students are going to take the IELTS exam.
On Saturday night T and I are going to the opera. That's exciting. I haven't been to the opera for a few years. It's Madama Butterfly.
On Sunday I should do some work on my course. I have several assignments that I need to work on. There goes my weekend.
Andy said it would be a good idea to go to a restaurant. What do other people think?