God Save Britain and the UK!!

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1052881/Who-killed-Britain-A-new-book-reveals-land-Queen-Elizabeth-II-ruled-longer-exists.html

So, we don’t live in the same Britain that her Majesty ruled over more than 50 years ago! I imagine a lot of Brits are gasping for air trying to swallow the fact that a national newspaper finally had the balls to publically declare (albeit not very British but nonetheless absolutely necessary in this case) what we could have told the Queen herself at about anytime between 27th June 2007 and the present day, or indeed many moments between May 1997 May 1998 and the present day. (Just to give some credit to the Labour government – they did after all make a huge one-off payment to the national debt and secure the Good Friday agreement, which of course must be respected, unlike the first achievement, where debt has risen to record levels under our rather “prudent” Piss-it-all-up-the-wall Prime Minister.)

Your Majesty, I am not one to be rude or impolite but please stop listening to all the bullshit (also known as “nonsense”) that your government feeds you about the perfect, harmonised Britain in which we live. (A Britain that just happens to require the world’s most dense network of CCTV cameras to live in and you still don’t feel safe – however save a space in your purse for your future ID card – it can save you!) I implore you Majesty to come back from la-la land with the other Royal Teletubbies; I implore you to wake up and smell the.............well, how do I tell you...............the Royal tea bag! (However, “Get ‘wit it” would be the more modern translation, and it’s amazing that the Microsoft Word spell checker didn’t even underline “wit’ it” as a grammatical nor a spelling error) Please Majesty, wake up from la-la land using those two sugar cubes in your small cup of tea and rule over us with some sense of purpose and direction; leave the rather innocent touchy-feely nature of your world and embrace us here in your Britain wholeheartedly, for we desperately need some kind of leadership that injects a sense of collective identity back into the British people – that is a polite way of saying national identity. We all know it is going “down the drain”, “to the wall”, “to pot”, “up the creek”, “AWOL”, “kaput”, “pear-shaped”, and “rather doo-lally”, etcetera, etcetera – don’t we?

The Daily Mail in its article of Wednesday 10th September was not afraid to spell out some rather uncomfortable home truths in its depiction of “what we all knew anyway, but were too afraid to say” tone of voice. (For the fear of offending some other undefined group of people - that must be respected - because they are defined as different by the very fact that they are undefined - and we are not as such.) Let’s applaud the newspaper for trying to publicise what must have difficult in the asphyxiating politically-correct environment in which it must print its ink and cause the felling of many more trees. However, this might be one example of when such an environmentally unfriendly activity could have been justified, not too dissimilar from another major piece of news from the same day regarding the Greenpeace activists that successfully were able to claim in the courts that their criminal damage to a coal-fired power plant was justified in that they were attempting to prevent the even-bigger damage caused to the planet by the Co2 emissions of the plant.

Hoorah!

So we have two examples in one day from the same newspaper not afraid to stick two fingers up to extreme political correctness for a change. Of course, the sceptic might say that all this publicity and temper-tantrum attitude will make little difference – point duly noted – but when we wake up one day and our sense of national identity that has made us feel so proud of who we are, secure, and with a sense of belonging to a group disappears, then I don’t want to hear anyone say that they weren’t told. However, always one to look on the bright side, I guess that the ultimate loss of the British identity (and thus the political union on which it was founded) will give the PC brigade a mission, sense of purpose, and a real big mammoth of an event to pour their pens over for years to come. They can waste money, time and paper all they want trying to figure out how it could have happened. (Oh I just realised; it did all of a sudden dawn on me - excuse me for not explaining the term “PC” – this equals “politically-correct” – I am genuinely sorry to any group that felt excluded by their lack of knowledge of abbreviations) Back to the point, I wonder if the PC brigade will recognise that for once in their artificially-created bio-bubble (fast running out of air because nothing can imitate Mother Earth nor the true art of breeding bullshit) that they didn’t actually consider the British people, because if they do their jobs well, they can save £500,000 of public funds and still discover that this is the true answer. Learn from the lesson of spending £10,000 to tell us that the best biscuit to dunk in our tea was a digestive, oh mighty pen-pushers! (No offence meant to the actual researchers who completed the investigation.)

To close my moaning session, I address you again your Majesty by saying that I absolutely, without the shadow of a doubt; without feeling the guilt of my most non-PC act to date, look forward to seeing you on your arrival from la-la land. The kettle is on and the biscuits are waiting. Have a safe trip on the Royal plane!

Your most faithful subject but pissed off citizen of the state you are supposed to uphold and represent. (God Save the Queen!)

(Just to tell readers for the record, only two errors were highlighted by Microsoft Word in this text – the first was “Teletubbies” and the second was the “lally” in “doo-lally.” Not bad at all I’d say.)

(Final final point: Sarcasm is a most British craft, so I must apologise for any offence caused to any group of people - and yes this includes those who feel offended but don’t quite know to which group of offended people they belong yet. Please address any comments on a postcard to the usual address. Goodbye for now.)

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New Semester - August 2008

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Things have certainly been hectic here since the semester started on Monday 4th August. As I write I am midway through the third week and have covered an enormous amount of material with my students, including an introduction, their final project, the two world wars and the cold war.

I have had a wonderful amount of energy and enthusiasm lately despite the demands of work, and with the final project of my students now online, where they have to produce a small video analysis of two articles from a selected international publication each week, it is amazingly convenient to track their work. To do that I have designed and now maintain a central page – http://www.netvibes.com/johnread

This allows me to present deadlines through a countdown, send messages and make a to-do list, as well as maintain RSS feeds to students’ youtube channels, and a direct link to the NEW class blog at http://escenariosregionales2008.blogspot.com

Finally, students conduct weekly participation and an extension of class activities on their own class “wiki” – addressed as http://escenarios1.wetpaint.com (change the number to 2, 3, 4, or 51 for the other groups) The wikis can all be designed by the students in each group and it was my intention that they completely control how the wikis develop. I am able to track participation through the netvibes page or the wiki itself, where an RSS feed tells me who did what when, and provides direct links.

Welcome to Web 2.0!

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What great weather! And video of "us"...

Before I go on to mention the beautiful weather in Hermosillo right now, I want to draw your attention to this small YouTube clip; I think it's excellent, designed to make you really reflect on "Us" - collectively. Very nice.

Now, the weather. I had wanted to write last week, hopefully I will be able to put up some photos soon, but the weather is marvellous! We are well and truly into the raining season here in Hermosillo; the small sandstorms have given way to bucketloads of rain that hit you suddenly at 3pm in the afternoon, diffusing the intense heat that builds throughout the day. However as nice as the refreshing moment is, the intense downpour leaves the streets completely flooded, and depending upon the sheer quantity of water, it is difficult to walk back home when the water can come up to your knees. And all of this with 35 degrees in the background.

The resulting thunderstorms offer more beauty, with nature at its best as well as most dangerous. The sky lights up as far as the eye can see, with massive sheets of lightning that all condense to release a thunderbolt here, another one there, but rest assured, all seem as though they are right in front of your eyes. It is a magnificent experience for somebody who loves storms, and I shall enjoy the next month immensely.

If anyone in their travels has some photos of great storms it would be cool to see them!

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Ireland says No - wonderful news! Sad day for EU and UK

Let me make clear first of all that I remain, on the whole, pro-European, (although that really depends on the actions now taken by the other EU governments to force this treaty through in the wake of a No vote to the Lisbon Treaty by Ireland) but the people of Ireland have spoken and rejected this Treaty. I must say that I agree completely with the decision. If the EU is to truly have a purpose it must be close to the people of Europe. Sadly, it is not. From the corruption that forced the resignation of the entire Commission in 1999 to the sheer arrogance of re-packaging the Constitution and forcing it through 26 of the 27 EU countries without a referendum, the EU simply needs to understand the concept of ACCOUNTABILITY. For this we have the Irish people to thank. They really looked at this issue, said "Hold on, we don't understand it at all" and voted No. How right they were, especially when the Irish Commissioner in the EU admitted that he hadn't even read the document himself. How right they were, even when the new Premier Brian Cowen hadn't read it either.

Take a look at this brilliant summary

First point: It is more than sickening to think that the whole "Yes" campaign stated the dire consequences if the Treaty was rejected, but without having read the document it wasn't able to state what these were.

Second point: The arrogance of the Yes campaign is breathtaking. Betting shops (Paddy Power) paying out early, the whole Irish elite political machine against the No vote, biased media coverage (I'm not so sure of this claim in Ireland itself, but the British press has HARDLY covered the issue over the past few days) and to top it all off, the erosion of more civil liberties in the UK itself yesterday with the extension of the time that someone can spend in detention to 42 days. Why do I connect the two issues? Because this seems to have been the week that the elites were going for it - to swipe away a lot of fundamental freedoms all at the same time - to get it over and done with. I would even like to go as far as to say that the detention vote in the Commons was probably planned to coincide with this referendum in Ireland to take away attention. How cynical some of you might say I have become - however, with the ever-increasing intrusion of the state in our lives; of political correctness and local Councils using terror laws against innocent people, I believe that cynical is not the word - lifting the wool would be the term.

Third point: Corruption. I would be the first to defend the UK in terms of corruption. Regardless of a deep subconscious awareness of the corruption of any government, I have always defended rigorously to my students the general anti-corruption stance in the UK. The way in which we are a "fair" people, and the way in which the police serve the people, being two examples. I feel I seriously have to keep my mouth shut now because I cannot transparently justify such assertions. We are becoming a police state; these "terror" laws prove that - ID cards prove it - the political correctness of the police proves it - and linked to all of this, the Lisbon Treaty enshrines the transfer of an unacceptable amount of British sovereignty to Brussels. I really feel that we have learned, at a government level, some of the tricks of the trade of corruption, and that some of those tricks come directly from the EU.

The EU is becoming less accountable, more corrupt by the day, and ARROGANT.

a) Holding off on a raft of proposals such as tax harmonisation until after the Irish vote.
b) The EU insisting the continuation of ratification procedures despite the Irish rejection.
c) Rumours that the EU will get the Lisbon changes into EU law anyway by playing with their own rules.


This is all incredibly sad for me to see. Sad for somebody who was so passionately pro-European. Sad to see so much corruption and lack of democracy. Sad to see decisions taken by people that I don't even know. The EU could have been so much greater if it hadn't taken this path.

A welcome sad day for the EU, a disaster for British democracy, and a great day to say thank you Ireland for your courage and common sense. The Irish people looked at the reality and made the right decision. Like the British, they wanted to be part of the EU for its economic benefits. If there were to be political integration, it had to be something that came more naturally, instead of forced upon the populations of 26 out of 27 countries without a vote - Ireland wasn't going to forget why it joined the EU, and for a long time to come, the Irish two finger-salute to the EU will be remembered, as will the shame that now arrives as I believe the elites will try to push the treaty through anyway. The good thing is that this time, they can't attempt to push it through privately. All is out in the open.

I would like to finish by saying that I think it's time to take a holiday - to Ireland.


Thank you.



I will attach some links below, if you feel like me you will see the huge biased-ness for the Yes campaign and the current opinions of the British and Irish press.


1) This is probably the article that sums it all up - the arrogance and the wrong attitude, and the exact reasons why the Irish have rejected this. EU leaders plotting to get around the rejection in defiance of their own rules. The arrogance and lack of trust that this makes me feel is enough to make me vote out this Labour government, for it is the only democratic protest that I have. I hope many choose to follow, for what UK would there be left if we integrate so deeply into a club that operates in these ways?

2) EU referendum: What part of 'No' don't you understand?

3) EU referendum: Ireland's debt to the EU

4) We're fighting the EU treaty in the courts

5) Well done, Stuart Wheeler

6) This article makes me sick, especially when it talks about "Bridging mechanism" to isolate Ireland to still get the Treaty through - the rules are the damn rules guys, you can't change them now.

Jana's Wedding!!

Time to blog Jana's wedding! Jana finaaaalllllyyyyy got married to her long time boyfriend Leon on Saturday 24th May and I was honoured to have been invited. I had a really good time, enjoyed the differences in the ceremony to a "typical wedding" (the wedding was spectacularly located on the beach) and I further enjoyed all of the festivities afterwards - the company was great, (thank you to Galicia and Chayito, especially for waiting for Dong and I an extra 30 minutes at the end as we indulged ourselves a little too much in tecate and whisky!) the food was great and the dancing was fantastic. It was also very nice to see Paul again come over to visit from Canada, and I intend someday to realise my ambition to know Canada, and take his invitation to Montreal.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable night where I was really able to finally let my hair down after this long semester. Congratulations to Jana and Leon, may you be very happy together and enjoy every day of your lives! :)

John

ALL OTHER EVENTS.......................

Rather than write a post about each event separately, I am throwing them all together in one. Writing chronologically, after the pool party and final exams we went directly into the "alumno de calidad" event on the afternoon of Wednesday 14th May. This event honours the highest achieveing students across a range of categories.

Elizabeth Laredo Castro, congratulated in her distinction as a high quality student by her tutor Rozenn.

Mauricio comes to the stage to collect his award.

Then, that same evening was the official "ambigu" (this is a word to describe a formal meeting with light food and refreshments served afterwards) with parents. It was a pleasant evening that involved various speeches from the Director of the Campus, and two selected students from the graduating year. It was a chance to celebrate student achievements before the official day of graduation, which is more of a formal event where their diploma is received rather than a time to contemplate and reflect. No pictures from the ambigu I'm afraid.

The official graduation photo came the following morning, Thursday 15th May. I don't have a copy of this electronically but below are some informal photos that I took with students.

Girls-only photo, and I will write their names for the benefit of my future memory - Left to Right (Top) - Darinka Beltran, Jessica Torres Haro, Alejandra Garcia Durazo, Galia Reyes Bernal, Maria Laura, Carolina Felix Robles, (and at the bottom) Georgina Navarro Rojas and Daniela Felix Ramonet.

Boys-only photo, and I will write their names for the benefit of my future memory - Left to Right - Carlos Guerrero, (Warrior) Alejandro, Mario, Carlos Efren, (Carlos II) Oscar Toledo and Narciso.

The "political" couple Ana Madrid del Rio and Diego Ballasteros.

The offical graduation came next, Friday 16th May. I was sitting up on stage behind the Directors of the School anf invited guests, to proudly watch all of my students receive their diplomas one by one. I also had the honour to watch some ex-students from the University also graduate and receive their degrees, as well as 3 of my students in the University from this semester who were finishing.

Graduation Photo with Juan Pedro Cota, Fernando Biebrich and Narciso Romero Pineda.

Next, and finally, was the official student-organised party, held at the Casino building in Hermosillo. I went along with another John from LA who teaches English here, and stayed until the end. It was a good party although I didn't realise that I would be so encouraged to dance and participate by the students! All in all a really nice night and a fitting way to congratulate them on the next stage of this journey called life.....



John

End of the Semester Events 2 - Final Exams

Final exams, ah don't they hate them! With good reason too, for I don't make them easy. However I decided this time to have mercy and apply exams that were relatively easy in their requirements, with the exception of an analysis section at the end.

Grading the exams were easy, the real problem this semester were the essays that I set - must remind myself not to ask for 140-odd essays and expect to have them graded in a week - what a nightmare!

End of the Semester Events 1

Finally I can begin to note the various events at the end of the semester. I will begin with the pool party on the last day of classes. This was a nice event that took place before the students' final exams, and it is also a traditional event - not only for both students and teachers to relax in a more informal atmosphere, but also for the students to realise the tradition of throwing the teachers into the pool! This is of course the form in which revenge comes for all of those semesters where teachers were screaming at students to be quiet!

It was all in all a nice affair; I resisted getting thrown in until quite late, because I didn't arrive until 3.45pm because of an English class in university. One of the French teachers here also contributed to the conspiracy to find me and throw me in the pool by alerting a group of male students to my impending presence in the sports building next to the pool - hmmm thanks for that! I will remember for quite a while a group of 10 guys waiting outside one of the sports offices for me to exit. I finally resigned myself to my fate and allowed them to carry me down to the pool and throw me in, all in full public display. To top off a nice afternoon, I didn't waste any time getting out of the pool to indulge myself in the pizza of which there must have been about 50 or more! I also had the good fortune to take a pizza home that fed me for 2 more days.

This was event number 1 to celebrate the end of the semester.

End of the semester, so much happening.....more to come

Well I haven´t written for a while precisely because so much has been going on!! In a nutshell, final exams, the swimming pool party, a meeting with parents to celebrate the impending graduation, the graduation photos, the actual ceremony, the student party afterwards, and Jana´s wedding. I will comment on all of these ASAP and post some pictures too. Also I´m due to visit the UK in a couple of weeks and I look forward to it!

Scotland, Scotland.........

This article was written a year ago. I read it today with some interest, because of the title, which only intensified when I read the following part: "There needs to be consideration of when or if the nuclear option is deployed, a referendum on the Union to call Salmond's bluff. He wants to hold such a vote in 2010 as a plebiscite on what he presumes will then be Tory rule by Cameron. Instigated by Unionists much earlier than that, a year from now perhaps, it could shoot the wily Nationalist fox." The article was published on 6th May 2007, and here we are a year later, with the events of this week in Scotland with the Labour leader challenging the SNP to "bring it on." [A vote on a Scottish referendum of independence] Seems like an eerie prediction that came true on the part of this writer. But it still leaves me wondering how we got into this awful mess of devolution leading further and further towards the breakup of the UK.

Read the article here on suggestions to save the Union, written more or less exactly a year ago!

HM current government, what a waste of time you are!

Well, this is Brown all over, saying that he won't change his mind and then he lacks the courage to stand by his convictions. Also, it is terribly demonstrative of Labour policies - you start with a big policy, (e.g. scrapping the 10p tax rate) then you tweak little parts of it to appease certain groups, then you come back and say you will scrap tax rises because of the high cost of living, (showing that they weren't essential to government income in the first place, hence maybe not needed and also showing how Brown is trying to sucker us into a vote for him at the Election) and you end up with a policy picked apart that we'll just have to come back to and completely overhaul in a few years time. (i.e. immediately after the next Election) That my friends is certainly not what I would call consistency.

Brown to abolish tax rises?


Second article:

Gordon Brown faces a "stalking horse" challenge

Well, this would be the icing on the cake! (if there was a "stalking horse" to challenge Brown) Eventually I'll get round to posting on my blog a long list of things I disagree with about this man, or rather, what he represents at the present time. However, for those people who say "Get him out, he's unelected!" Although technically true, it's also true that our rules state that the leader of the party that has has the majority in Parliament is also Prime Minister. So when the Labour Party voted Brown in as leader, he did nothing unconstitutional to automatically assume the role of Prime Minister too.

A long weekend, grading, grading, but time for the beach too........

I am currently in the middle of enjoying a four-day long weekend, with Thursday 1st May and Friday 2nd being holidays (for those of us fortunate enough) in Mexico. In the true style of solidarity (a concept alien to the English I believe) the 01st May is a day reserved for the recognition of workers - this year with Labour Day falling on a Thursday, we have the Friday as a "puente" - or bridge.

I have a lot of work to do currently grading essays which form the final project for my cohort of 144 students about to graduate, but I didn't let that stop me from going to the beach in the afternoon on Thursday, and how wonderful it was to get back to Kino. It has been a while since I last went and appreciated the beautiful shore and the way the sun sets behind the small hills at the end of the beach, projecting a deep purple into the sky that sets perfectly with the waves as they begin to come in further. I will post a picture up ASAP of Kino - a beach that I fell in love with in 2005; one that binds me to this place and finally a place I will miss very deeply if and when I decide to return to the UK.

A Tory victory..........fantastic!

Well, finally we have the full results of the local Council elections of 2008, where all councils in Wales had elections as well as a very many of them in England, and the Tories have been successful in putting Labour into third place. I must say that I haven't openly expressed my political persuasion for a good ten years, but I am very pleased at the result. Having recently joined the Tory party (and not because I am on a bandwagon or because they are the perfect party, but because I agree with some crucial policy approaches, such as NO to ID cards for the UK) this is fantastic news, capped off with the result in London and Ken Livingstone finally losing his mayoralty.

I did not perceive Ken as a bad person, but after eight years in office I felt a presidential-style approach to his reign at the heart of local government in London, and I felt that he was becoming arrogant, and rather like the Labour Party as a whole, just not listening.

I wish Boris Johnson the best in office, I sincerely hope that he does not make the same mistakes as the Tory party did in the 1990s, the days of sleaze must never return, and nor must the arrogance as it currently exists within the Labour Party - the arrogance that imposed tuition fees of £3000 per year; the arrogance that refused a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and thus breaking a manifesto promise. I further sincerely hope that the crazy and extreme politically correct ideology that infests Labour can now be readjusted and we can just have some simple common sense without the fear of racism, xenophobia, homophobia and who we might offend influencing everything that is said and done. At the heart of the matter is the fact that we are still a country of free speech and we need to stop the fear to express ourselves, which seems to me to be a uniquely English trait from my perspective. Now it is ridiculous. Let's not be afraid but let's be prepared to defend what we say, and then we might think twice before saying it. It is my desire to see a touch of down-to-earth politics beginning at City Hall; this means getting on with the job at hand and cutting arrogance and fear out of the ability to get results. Good luck to Johnson.

End of Classes and Graduation

So again we come to the time of year where the most senior students graduate and move on to university. The time couldn't have come fast enough, although as always it does seem like a long time coming when you are waiting for it! I found myself with four classes on this final day, and as I teach the entire graduating year group, it was four simple classes of saying goodbye and good luck and posing for a group photo for our memories. That was after of course demanding essays from each and every one of them, which I'm sure that they have been working very hard on. The run up to the official graduation ceremony now begins tomorrow, with a party by the swimming pool in the afternoon (the school has its own pool and seeing as we are already hitting forty degrees it feels very much like the summer I can assure you!) where the tradition of throwing all the teachers into the pool will be observed. This is followed in 2 weeks time by a ceremony to award the highest academic achievers before the graduation affair the following day, May 16th. Crammed in between now and then is a raft of grading essay papers, preparing and administering final examinations, and then tying up loose odds and ends - always busy that's for sure.......

Congratulations to all graduating students!

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Partial Exams and St. George's Day

A quick post before sleeping to update myself and the world on events. Eyed up with work at the moment as I am grading third partial exams, but the weather is getting hotter and the days of clear skies are set to be here for a while to come.

I wanted to write a small message today especially because it was St. George's Day - here we are again, England's national day, and were it not for a few newspaper articles that mention it, I think it would be hardly noticed. The articles I have read however I have found myself largely agreeing with. The shame to celebrate one's nationality because of the fear of being called a racist, or politically incorrect, whilst other member countries of the UK do so with pride, thus personifying England as the one "who asked for this," really struck me. I took these kinds of views from the newspapers as a bit "Little England" but I was further surprised to find myself agreeing slightly with them. I would be the last to call myself a Little Englander, but it has occurred to me today that this shame that we feel to celebrate being English, as we also now do British, is ridiculous.

Something does indeed have to change. This is about identity. And I have sensed for a long time the gradual loss of identity in the UK and the loss of cohesion between its peoples. What I believe is that any people should not feel ashamed to express how they identify themselves - or, should not be ridiculed for doing so, especially if it is about a national identity. After all, the nation state is the dominant form of government of the world, and England has become the land that has gone from a state of voluntary patriotism to downright loss of knowing what holds us together.

We talk about values but then we cannot express them in an environment of zealous political correctness. We are right to celebrate all of the saints days of the UK, but come on it is better to have no St. George's Day at all I think than to carry on this situation. I think that people for years haven't known what it means to be English simply because our identity became since 1707, that of Great Britain and thus British. With the Union ever increasingly under threat since the days of devolution, this is the source of the English identity problem. Let's either find a way to define Englishness and celebrate St George. Or leave the whole day altogether in history, and reassert our correct place and identity in the Union.

Either way, let's not be ashamed to express something of what we are because of political correctness. That is the greatest danger to us all. I feel that we are British and one nation, but should the future hold a separation for the Union, we must allow it, for as Scotland freely decided to join the Union it must freely be allowed to leave. Wales must also be respected should it make the same choice, and Northern Ireland should it change its mind about remaining in the Union.

This is of course the worse-case scenario, for I am today above all British and proud of the Union and the one country we have achieved together. But the English must be prepared to either commit itself to the Union without fear, or should the Union break, be ready to stand on its own two feet once more.

Partial Exams, Partial Exams

Today is that busy time of the month again where students are busy sitting their partial exams. It normally means that 1 week of each month is utterly stressful for them, and as teachers, it means that once a month we have to collate all of our work together that we have been teaching in our classes and examine the themes and topics to measure students' progress and understanding over each mini period.

I have always felt that the partial exam system is something that I hadn't got completely used to. However saying that, I feel pretty 50/50 about the whole thing. I partially agree with it, because it means that throughout a course a student is constantly reflecting on the topics presented in class, and we can track their progress and learning more closely, however the sheer frequency of the exams and the koock-on effects that it creates in terms of work (and especially grading when you have 144 students!) somewhat makes me feel that although they are useful, perhaps the frequency should be less, i.e once during the semester, with more weight on the final exam at the end.

I think the core problem behind this however is that because students don't take notes, to weigh the final exam to some extent could adversely affect the picture of progress and understanding and ability that us teachers will receive.

Moving on, I am writing this blog at 1pm as I sit in the auditorium giving an exam to my Group 3 class of Escanarios Regionales del Mundo class. There are some colourful characters in this group, and it has always been a group that has challenged me both professionally and to some personal limits too, with incessent talking and minor misbehaviour. As I write now there are whispers in the room and they have to be told constantly to stop it. I accept that I am somewhat linient on them however what I am trying to do here in prepa is shape them for what they can expect later on.

To mention some of the "chamacos" (a word they might not like to be called) first of all I have Oscar. I won't say his surname to give him some privacy. Today he is trying to be like a "Mark Renton wannabe" after seeing Trainspotting and I think he is somewhat admiring the whole culture that it depicted. He has always been a student that through his humour and distinct personality has always managed to bring a smile to my face, despite his natural aversion to authority.

Alan sits in the top left corner. He is academically gifted but doesn't always use his talents. Then the famous Bieri, the one who seems to have a fondness for touching boys as well as girls! Then I have the more polite students, always offering to bring me water, and the girls who like to laugh a lot and talk a lot but otherwise are rather shy. Amongst all of these colourful characters, whom after all I have a fondness for after teaching them for one year, are probably the two most academically-gifted students in the entire year group. Consistently high marks, politeness and a dedication to study makes them stand out and a pleasure to teach. I only feel for them that sometimes I am not able to push them as much as I would like to; as much as they deserve.

That concludes my small amount of comments about this group. I am extremely happy to finish the day of classes after this, as I find myself incredibly tired and run down with this sinusitis and cold. I look forward to sleeping early tonight!!

Thanks for reading!!

Debates, Debates!

Today was an interesting day. Students are in the middle of conducting mini-debates on the topic of "International Institutions are both necessary and effective in promoting dialogue and cooperation between nations." Although we started last week this is the first time I am including something about my classes in my blog. I wanted to take a moment to reflect on some really important things - those being: (a) The formality of students' clothing is wonderful - these guys and girls know when it is time to be formal and they have the whole outfit to go with it! (Even if Narciso didn't wear socks and must have suffered with the leather rubbing against his feet) (b) They find it hard to give their arguments and express themselves because they are still by and large relying on the expression of facts instead of what those facts try to communicate, which can only be understood or inferred through an analysis. (c) The final part of the debates which we have been conducting in Spanish have generally worked very well and tells me that (b) is not as big a problem as I thought, I love this part even if I don't understand it all! Some really good points have been coming across and they are much more articulate that one could think......I see real progress this semester in all of my students :)
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The Beginning of Something New - Opening Message

May I begin by saying hello and a warm welcome to all of my readers. I have never written a blog before, nor have I been very interested to do so, but it has become apparent to me rather suddenly that it might serve a useful purpose and that is to have a kind-of miniature log of the things I am doing and how life is progressing little by little. A blog can be the place where I can record rather random thoughts, but also those of contemporary issues. A place where I can access my opinions at any time and chart any changes. A place where I can reach out to the wider world. Underlying all of this and what I mean by "things I am doing" is just to record the small things I do on a regular basis. Seeing as I am currently living abroad my main idea is to log my experiences here, whether they be large or just a small nuance - something amazingly shocking, wonderfully amazing, or just something that highlights to me the culture difference between where I am and in the United Kingdom. Finally, this blog serves as a personal reflection of how I see the UK and Europe in general - they say that you see many things about your own culture, lifestyle and interpret events differently when you are "outside the box." I will put that idea to the test.

Thanks for reading my opening message.