Well, time is going by too quickly and I haven’t written for a while…
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| Bonfire night @Jim's (5th of November) |
Loads of things happened: On the 10th of November Chris turned 24, so we decorated the house with balloons and cookies. Micky and I used all our housewifely skills and baked a tasty cake, which we ate before going to watch a football match in a pub in Headingly [a very student part of Leeds, just about 15 minutes from our place].
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| Micky and I with our fab Swiss Role |
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| Happy Bday Chris! |
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| out on Saturday to celebrate Chris's bday |
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| The three girls of the Archeries _ Micky, Michi and Shannon |
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| Bday Kiss |
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| Chris and Álvaro pole dancing... |
Chris is really fond of almost every kind of sport – so as it was his bday there was no other option ;) Who would have thought: Me and watching football – and surprise, surprise this was not the only sport I watched the last weekend. Not only did I go to the screening of a boxing match, but I even watched Formula 1 – so who knows maybe in the end I’ll turn into a sports fanatic hahahaha. To be honest, it was all good fun and it helped me in the end to impress my students with my sport knowledge – good icebreaker for some guys!!!
On Saturday I visited Saltaire with some other assistants, a town just 10 minutes from Leeds, which was founded by Titus Salt, who constructed a city that caters for all needs: education, work, health service, …
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| Kathrin, Aude, me and Alex |
It’s a charming town and it hosts the David Hockney exhibition. Hockney was born in 1937 in Bradford and is a famous 20th century British artist, who was very influential for the Pop Art Movement. First and foremost, he is well known for his innovative photography. I’ll just add one of his pictures here because I really like it and it shows us in what different ways we perceive the same image/situation. And of course, here we go again, those who know a bit about my thesis already know that I always use the metaphor of the “bridge,” “the crossroads” or the “road” and well how could it be different a picture of a road.
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| Pearblossom Highway |
On the right hand side the image shows us what the driver (of English cars!) experiences. Here, the focus is much more on road signs than on the scenery, while the person sitting next to the driver enjoys the scenery and does not really perceive the street signs. Well it is the same with everything, even though we might travel the same route, it is never exactly the same, as we always perceive things very differently. And that’s the beauty of life…it’s so interesting to see how different people judge the same event in a completely other way. This is in particular fascinating if different cultures meet and clash. So I judge things entirely different then my English colleagues might do, but then again there are also so many similar ways of seeing things. But enough philosophizing…what’s new in Leeds…
This week was pretty tranquil, went to school had a couple of dinners and I went to the gym because I’ve finally got my new trainers – they are really cool and it makes me feel a 100% more sporty hahaha. It’s good fun, going to the gym…we’ll see how long I’ll be motivated, though.. On Thursday we went to Bradford to have a school dinner with a couple of teachers, which was really good fun and gave me the opportunity to talk to Vicky and other MFL teachers in a private surrounding. School is always rather “business like” and busy but going out for dinner with them was really great.
Winter is unfortunately hitting Britain, it is rather cold, really windy and rainy. But well I’m well equipped – at least in terms of a jacket and my beanie. Also bought some boots, they are not that good though, so I’ll have to continue looking for warm and most importantly water-prove footwear...and of course winter means also Christmas, which means lots of Kitsch and Christmas markets, which I love.
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| random xmas decoration in Haworth |
I am working more and more, two of my students asked for extra hours – so this means that I’m getting increasingly more to do, but I enjoy it. We were working on the Berlin Wall and the DDR, thus I had to read up quite a bit, as I did not know enough to teach it. It was really interesting though and I learned quite a lot, I am sure that it would be an interesting field to work on a bit more in depth. Some of my students amazed me with their knowledge, I’ve got some really bright kids, sometimes I feel I know less than they do ;) We were working a bit with Good Bye Lenin and did some presentations…
Step by step I feel increasingly part of the teacher group, they are all very friendly and open and I’ve even visited a special needs class, where I might pop by once in a while and help out a bit. It is really interesting and gives me the opportunity to see something different. The first time I went was amazing, they started looking up words in German and wanted to know different expressions, so that they could impress their teacher (who is German). So cute. The other day one of the kids met me on the corridor, and she got all excited and happy – which brought a big grin on my face.
On 17th I went to work in the Leeds Learning Center to participate in a project which is called the "Experience". It’s like a workshop where 11 to 13 years old kids come to practise either Spanish, French or German with native speakers. We took over the role of shopping assistants or group leaders and helped them to fulfill reading, listening activities and to buy hot chocolate and fake fruit/veg/bread, etc. on a market. Was an extremely interesting experience and fascinating how the kids get more and more used to using a foreign language. One boy of my pupils was quite unmotivated and said he can’t talk and he does not understand me. But in the end of the day he was all excited and happy and said how cool German was! I think this kind of project would also be good in Austria, unfortunately in Leeds they are going to cut it as there is not enough funding, and modern foreign languages are more and more unpopular. What a shame…
On Friday Arun played a prank on me – he bet that I could not swallow a spoon of cinnamon….but we Austrian’s can do it hahahaha I did it – even twice, well, dear Arun still prefers to pretend that I cheated – sneaky sneaky little Arun… After the cinnamon eating competition we were off to see the musical “The Beauty and the Beast” with Shannon, Olly, Ferret and Adam in the Grand – soooo exciting.
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| Shannon and I dressed up in our fancy dress ready to go to see Beauty and the Beast!!! |
Was a good night out. I really enjoyed it even though theater in Vienna is definitely something different. First of all, we are not allowed to take our coats into the auditorium and secondly, we would not eat crisps and drink during a performance…
And today (Saturday) we decided to visit the place where Mr. Rochester and dear Jane came into existence: Haworth – the Brontë family’s home that inspired dear Charlotte Brontë to come up with exciting English tales.
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| in Haworth |
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| Haworth trainstation seconds before magic happened ;) |
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| getting ready for Sunday Carvery...yummy roast |
It was an absolutely charming town. We walked around, saw some Carol singers, visited a Xmas market and had some delicious Roast. In the end we even caught a glimpse of a real steam train in one of the smallest and oldest railway stations in the country [at least they advertise it that way]. It was a magical journey back in time! What a good weekend!
Hear from you soon, have a fabulous week!
Ta luv!
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