Christmas Abroad

The holidays are officially over and now I'm just getting back into the swing of work. My Christmas holiday started off a little bumpy as I ended up in the hospital for the first weekend of the break. I am convinced now, after ending up in the hospital here and in Bolivia, while living there, that I must be cursed to experience the hospital systems of each new country I live in. I am also convinced that they have much heartier flu bugs over here in England than we do in Canada. Since I've been in England I think I was only actually healthy for the first week. Before the break I was feeling particularly unwell, and not having a GP here yet I went to the A&E (Accident and Emergency) at the hospital just up the street. The nurse I saw first said I had a fever, gave me some painkillers and sent me back out into the waiting room until a doctor was available. The doctor said I had a fever and he wanted to do some blood tests. At this point Leah was nice enough to come to the hospital to hang out with me whilst I was poked with needles. After several tests came back inconclusive, the doctor decided to call in the Infectious and Tropical diseases doctor, since I had recently moved from the infectious and tropical country of Canada. After being asked a bizillion questions and having more blood taken, I was admitted to the hospital for further observation until my fever went down. This all happened on the Friday that started off the break. Fast-forward to Sunday and I'm still in the hospital, and rather ticked off that no one had been able to tell me anything about my test results or when I would be getting out of there. I must say, though, that I was very grateful for Leah, Nicole, and Megan who visited me in my interesting little corner of the inpatient ward throughout the weekend. Finally on Sunday, I had a visit from a doctor who could actually tell me something about my test results. It turned out that all my tests came back fine and that I most likely had a virus. It also turned out that I should have been released as soon as those results came back, but through some communication error I had been kept much longer than needed. So I was finally released, but not before this doctor emphatically told me I needed to go home and rest... and quit my job as a primary teacher! And he was totally serious. "No one should have to work with children," I believe were his exact words. Apparently he wasn't fond of children and their germ spreading abilities.
So I was out of the hospital and just in time to get ready for my trip to Spain that Tuesday. All packed up and ready to go, Leah and I arrived in Spain after a slightly painful flight due to lack of ear-poppage. Once on the ground in sunny Alicante I realized just how accustomed I had become to the dreary skies of London. The sun was fabulous! After a short bus ride into town we set out to find out hotel, which we had booked online. It turned out to be much more of a hostel, with no heat, which proved interesting at night (pictures to come). But we had our own room that we could lock, and we spent most of our time outside. Alicante is right on the ocean, and I was surprised at how much I missed walking on the beach or watching boats out on the water. The climate definitely wasn't as warm as I'd expected. During the day it got up around 17 degrees, maybe a little warmer. But at night it felt a lot colder than the 10 or 12 degrees displayed on the sign board in town. We spent a lot of our time roaming the streets of Alicante, shopping and eating at restaurants. One day we went up to a castle on a hill overlooking the city. The castle had been there for centuries without ever being overtaken. It was impressive and the views were absolutely amazing. After five days in Alicante we headed back to London, which surprisingly was sporting a sunny sky as well when we arrived.
For New Years Eve I went out to a little pub near Little Venice with Leah and Alexandra. Upon arrival we found out there was a Rocky Horror Picture Show theme to the night, which we quickly realized only the staff had observed. We were there with a party of about 20 people, along with several other large parties, in a rather small pub. Suffice it to say there wasn't much room to be had in there by the time midnight came around. We toasted, we danced, and we rang in the new year in London.
2009, a brand new year filled will all sorts of possibilities here in London.



Walking on the beautiful beach in Alicante

One of the buildings at Castillo de Santa Barbara

View of the beach from the castle on top of the mountain

Enjoying churros in our cozy little hostel room

Our sleeping attire for the chilly nights in Alicante

Palm trees in one of the many squares in Alicante

Winter in London

Winter in London is proving to be much like Victoria... lots of rain, but no snow to be seen since our freak snow fall just after my arrival. Although it's not cold like other parts of the world, a good winter jacket is a definite must. I bought a nice wool jacket a couple weeks ago and have not regretted it for a moment.

Teaching has fairly steady this week. I had three days of work, but I took Friday off sick as I lost my voice at the end of teaching on Thursday. I had a lovely class of year fives on Wednesday outside of central London. They were really nice and well behaved. I have to say, though, I'm often amazed at some student's lack of knowledge about Canada. Each morning when I introduce myself I say that I'm from Canada and tell them how long it took me to get to London on an airplane and answer any questions they have about me or where I'm from. Well, in this year 5 class (so, 10 year olds), after lunch the kids were working nicely on some writing when suddenly one boy puts up his hand. I figure he has a question about the work so I go over to help him. When I get to his table he puts his hand up to his ear (mimicking a phone) and looks puzzled as he asks, "Miss, so did they call you in Canada this morning and tell you you had to come all the way to London to teach us?" I honestly could not think of anything intelligent to say to that, so I just laughed. The TA started laughing, looked at her watch and said, "Well, you'd better getting going now, Miss, if you want to be home for dinner!" Same kid, about twenty minutes later asks, "Miss, if we're good would you read us a story in 'Canadian'?" After a brief explanation that 'Canadian' is not a language, and that we speak English in Canada just like in England, he then asks, "Well then Miss, could you read us a story with your accent on?" My response: "Sure, I guess I can turn my accent 'on' for you guys... but only if you're really good for the rest of the afternoon." Suffice it to say, we had story time and I read Robert Munsch... with my accent on.

Photo Update

Here are some pictures from the last few weeks. Enjoy!

Gordon Ramsay book signing at Selfridges on Oxford Street:

My long walk around London:

A few weeks ago I went out walking to take some pictures around London. Five hours later I had seen Hyde Park, Wellington Arch, Buckingham Palace, Green Park, Picadilly Circus, and Covent Garden Market. Here are just a few of the pictures:

I just happened across the Royal Salute in Hyde Park for Prince Charles' 60th birthday.

Queen Elizabeth's Gate at Hyde Park

Crazy tame squirrels in Hyde Park eating out of people's hands. They were also climbing up people's pant legs but I didn't get pictures of those ones.

Wellington Arch

Buckingham Palace

Queen Victoria monument at Buckingham Palace

Lamp post in Green Park

A Week of Work is a Wonderful Thing!

For the first time since I’ve been here I had a full week of work this week. Four schools in five days! It sounds daunting when put in those terms, but I actually enjoyed being in a different school just about every day. There is something to be said about consistency and stability, but there is also something to be said about variety and spontaneity. It is really interesting at this point to see the ways that different schools are run, and to get new ideas and strategies for classroom management from watching other teachers and TAs during the week. I can’t say that I feel like I’ve done a whole lot of “teaching” so far though. As a supply teacher, most of my energy goes into class management. Man, if you think kids in Canada take advantage of on-call teachers, you ain’t seen nothing until you’ve been in a London classroom. I haven’t had any horror story days quite yet, but I have definitely had classes take over to varying degrees. Sure, kids are kids no matter where you go, but students here in London, even in Reception (Kindergarten) and Year 1, have an overdeveloped understanding of their rights in the classroom. Teachers do not get any automatic respect as an authority figure, as they often do even in some of the rougher schools in Canada. You have to earn these kids' respect, and that is fairly hard to do when you only are with them for one day.
All that being said, I had a good week and I’m really glad that work is finally picking up and am hoping for another full week coming up.

First Week of Teaching

My first experience of teaching in London went surprisingly well. I was posted to a school in Northern London for three half-days to start off the first week back from the mid-term school break. I was in a Year 2 (Grade 2) class at a Jewish primary school. My first morning there was like something out of a dream or a movie. I was introduced to the class by the Head Teacher (Principal) and the whole class (all 13 of them!) replied in unison, “Good morning, Miss Stock”. There was an assembly for the first hour on Monday morning, which I didn’t have to attend, so I didn’t actually start teaching until around 10am. The class I had were very well behaved. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule, and we did have a few characters who liked to test the boundaries with a supply teacher (Teacher On-call). While I was teaching, I couldn’t get over how cute the kids here are with their British accents. And despite the fact that we were all speaking English, we had a few humorous miscommunications while I was teaching. First off, one of the other Canadian teachers living in Warwickshire House is named Leah and is always complaining that people pronounce her name wrong. On my second day at the Jewish primary school, one of the handwriting words for the day happened to be Leah. While we were going over the handwriting words, I said with my Canadian accent that the final word was Leah (Lee-ah) and suddenly there were little hands flying in the air. One of the children looked at me very puzzled and said, “Miss, don’t you mean Lay-ah?” To this I replied, “In Canada we pronounce this name ‘Lee-ah’”. One of the girls frantically put up her hand and quickly informed me that I was incorrect; “It’s Lay-ah, Miss. That’s my sister’s name, and her name is Lay-ah!” Obviously I couldn’t argue with this evidence, so I conceded that it was indeed Lay-ah. Thinking that the moment had passed, and having gotten most of the students on track with their handwriting practice, I noticed that one of the boys was sitting and staring at me quizzically. I asked him if he needed any help with his work. He replied, “Miss, could you say that again in Canadian?” Needless to say, this is not something I have encountered whilst teaching in Canada.
Another miscommunication I encountered was to do with bathroom breaks. As in every Canadian primary classroom, students will ask frequently to use the washroom. On my first day teaching I had a student ask, “Miss, can I go to the toilet? I’m bursting!” Without thinking, I replied, “Yes, you may go to the bathroom,” to which I got a puzzled look from the student. He then said, “But Miss, I don’t need to have a bath, I just need to use the toilet!” In London, most buildings have separate rooms for each part of the average Canadian bathroom. A bathroom here is a room with a bathtub. A toilet here is a room with toilets and a sink. And a shower is a room with showers.
Overall, my first days of teaching in London went really well. The only downside to this particular school was that I had to travel thirteen stops on the tube (the underground), which took about 45 minutes each way and cost £7 round trip.
As promised, I will share a little about this interesting building that I live in. Technically there are two buildings that makeup the accommodations provided to us here; Bonham Carter House and Warwickshire House. Two of the newly arrived Classroom teachers live in Bonham Carter and the other four of us live in Warwickshire. One of the tricky things is that Warwickshire only connects to Bonham Carter on even numbered floors. So finding making your way from Warwickshire floor one to Bonham Carter floor one is not as simple as you’d think it should be; involving trips upstairs and down and all around. Further, the room numbers are duplicated in each building, so at first it was sometimes difficult to tell if you were looking at Warwickshire Room 218 or Bonham Carter Room 218. Oh, and not all of the staircases go to each of the floors. Leah and I had an adventure a little while ago, taking a new staircase. We got thoroughly lost and ended up coming out onto Gower Street four addresses down from our front door! We live at 52 Gower and we came out the front door of 58 Gower without ever having left the building! Bizarre! I also inadvertently found the laundry room in the dungeons of our building by taking a staircase that I thought would take me to Leah’s room on the first floor of Warwickshire! I think we’re getting more used to the building now, though, I haven’t gotten lost lately!
Here are some pictures of what I’ve seen lately:

Houses of Parliament and Big Ben

Westminster Abbey
For all the Harry Potter fans: Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross rail station

Canadian Girls Rock!

So I know I've spoken briefly about my fellow Canadian teachers here in Bonham Carter House and Warwickshire House, but I would just like to say how thankful I am to have these ladies here with me. Making the transition to a foreign country is a daunting task to say the least, and even when jetlag begins to fade away, there are many moments when my brain asks me "Arlene, what the *bleep* are you doing?" But these wonderful Canadian girls seem to have a way of keeping me sane. I think a huge part of it is just realizing that I'm not alone in every feeling and every struggle of the transition to London life. Even though I've only know some of these ladies for a week now, I feel like I have known them forever. It's great to have other people to go explore the city with, or explore our own building, as the case may be (there will be stories to come about this crazy building that we live in!). Just about every night this week we have cooked our dinners together and watched a movie in someone's room. Tonight four of us were watching a movie and talking and I ended up laughing until I cried and it felt so good. It is so great to have people around who understand how you're feeling when you suddenly have a moment of homesickness.
I am so grateful to have this built-in support system already and I'm excited to get out and start teaching and meet even more great people!

The First week

My first week in London has been a whirlwind. I think I’ve experienced every emotion possible. I was definitely overwhelmed when I first arrived here; the taxi ride from the airport was an experience in itself (driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road and all!) I was fortunate enough to run into one of the other teachers from UVic who is living in the same building as me when I first arrived. That whole first day is a bit of a blur, but I can say that I was so happy to have found a familiar face amongst all the newness here. In general, I think I’m most thankful for the other Canadian teachers I’ve met here so far. It really is nice to find out that we’re all going through the same ups and downs with the big transition to London life.
Now I know this all makes it sound like my experience so far has been just a big overwhelming mess. Don’t get me wrong, life in London is great! There is so much to see and do here, I think I will be busy exploring forever! So far I’ve seen Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Hyde Park, Tower Bridge, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, been on the London Eye, and taken a day trip to Stonehenge and Bath. And there’s still a ton to see!
This week is the midterm break for the schools in London, so I haven’t started working yet. It has been nice to have this time to explore and settle into my flat. I am excited to get into the classroom, and I have three days of work lined up already for next week.
Speaking of my flat, I’m definitely making myself feel more at home here. I’ve finally got all my stuff unpacked and I’ve bought bedding and put up pictures. The room itself is a lot larger than I expected, with a bed, two chairs, a desk, two built in dressers and wardrobes, a sink, two cupboards, and room to spare. Sharing washrooms and showers hasn’t proven to be much of an inconvenience as I don’t often see anyone else on my floor. They claim that this building is always close to or at capacity, but you wouldn’t guess it by walking around. The only constant sign of life around my room is the renovation of the kitchen across the hall which starts noisily around 8am every weekday.

Here are some pictures of my flat. Enjoy!

At this point I am really starting to enjoy my time in London, and I’m hoping that continues as I start teaching next week!