I don't think I've been on-line since Monday las week, that feels like a long time. Rather silly really considering I sent an urgent e-mail regarding return flights on that occasion.
It's been a long week.
On Monday afternoon I went to the beach in Saly with Fran & Jacqui. It was great to get away from the school for a while and the sea was lovely where we went; very calm and almost warm but still refreshing. Having missed tea in the dining room I cooked for myself when I got back which I enjoyed very much having not done it for while now.
There have been several ongoing themes this week. First there's Neil Young. Chris got 'Heart of Gold' the DVD from Amazon last week and I borrowed it on Monday. I watched the main disc that day and the special features disc today and have had the songs in my head a lot throughout the week (he's in my headphones right now). It's made me miss my guitar a lot.
I have a mental list of things to bring with me should I return next year, the first three are my acoustic guitar, my bass guitar and my 2.1 speaker system. Clothes are a luxury I can do without if need be.
The second theme has been DIRT. DIRT stands for Dance International Revival Troop, it's a fictional group formed by myself and other staff members for 'skit night' later in the term. We'll be performing an internationally flavoured medley of dances including morris dancing, line dancing, ballet, riverdance and of course YMCA and 'Superman' by Black Lace.
Reherasals are going well but we've a lot to do in a short time.
Thirdly, I've been teaching myself braille. Tomorrow night's weekend activity is called 'You Guess!', it's a kind of version of the TV gameshow 'You Bet' which is apparently very big in Germany (Betten Das). I entered a bet that I could teach myself braille and correctly read a collection of six letter words chosen by the organisers. It all started one evening when myself and two others were bored and had a braille labelled pill box to hand and decided to try and learn the letters on it. I was able to do it much more easily than the others so I thought I'd try the whole alphabet. I spent all siesta today thumbing flashcards I'd made and I now know the whole alphabet by heart. I just need something in braille to read now.
It's Friday today and it's nice to have a free evening at the end of the teaching week although I would have liked to have been out tonight as a group have gone to a restaurant in Thies to celebrate Lesley's birthday but I had to work in the dorm. That's just a fact of life here. That kind of socialising is difficult between dorm staff and teaching staff as dorm staff are working during all the teachers' time off.
I made four swords today after school. David and Chan-Hwi asked me to help them make some and tomorrow I'll make shields. I'm a little worried that someone'll get hurt by my craftsmanship though (if you can call it that). One's already broken...
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