The first week back to school was fun and it was good to be back in the class. We did 2 trips out of school again, with Ross. Not spying on people this time, but one day when we had a lesson with a ‘food’ theme, we did a competition in Sainsbury’s, the couple who could find all the items on the shopping list Ross gave us, won the competition and would get a ‘prize’. The items on the list were typical British products, like Marmite, Horlicks, mushy peas, rice pudding, custard etc. I teamed up with a German guy, and we won the competition, basically because he was very fast.
The next day we went out of class again, today’s theme revolved around anatomy and we went to the Royal Academy of Surgeons, and its Hunterian Museum, which was a scientific freak show of disfigured skeletons, fetuses in jars and weird diseases. But it was interesting, and that’s what it’s all about.
On the weekend, me and Linda went to the BBC Radio6 protest, because as you might have heard, they’re going to stop BBC Radio 6. I’m not going to pretend I’m a frequent radio listener, let alone Radio 6, but it’s still a shame on behalf of music. We stood in the rain for 2 hours, and chanted and sung when we were supposed to, even though we couldn’t hear half of the things the protest conductors said, and we were distracted by the unnerving statue above the doors of the Broadcasting House:
Come on, you have to agree this looks like an act of gruesome pedophilic rape…
When the protest was finished, we left the place with a feeling of unity in the community and decided our hard work and devotion was to be rewarded with chocolate goodness at the Chocolate Festival at the Southbank Centre. When I read the words Chocolate Festival, I instantly think of a lot of free chocolate, and chocolate rivers and statues and sculptures. Let’s say I’d have visions of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory; this was not the case however, it was like 10 stands of chocolatiers selling their overpriced chocolate stuff, not even giving away things for free(Yes, I am Dutch indeed). Then again, being Dutchies, we couldn’t resist the sight of pancakes, and we also tried luscious marshmallows and strawberries covered in chocolate sauce, which was like eating a bit of heaven.
Last week, on Wednesday, my teacher suddenly mentioned that the day after would be his last day in Kaplan. Everyone was quite shocked by this, including me. To be honest, after the shock I was quite upset, because Ross is one of the best teachers I’ve ever had in my life, and I don’t think anyone in the school is as competent for a Higher Advanced/Proficiency class as he was. He didn’t just teach English, he also made the lessons into… a sort of sociological debate and we often did little acting things as well. He just made it challenging, because he questioned your arguments, he had strict time limits on the writings & improvising plays and he moved very fast and smoothly through the lesson material. With him gone, it feels like there’s not much left in the school for me, with him it at least felt like I would always have a bit of a challenge and I really enjoyed the lessons. Some classmates said they missed a bit of human warmth, because he didn’t really do small talk and was quite reserved, but if you’re in his class for a while, you understand that he’s not that how-was-your-weekend-kind of a person at all, and probably doesn’t want to make an effort, as most of the students leave after 2 weeks. After a while in his class though, you sort off understand his humor, the way he conducts the lessons and what he expects from you, which is interesting.
So yeah, after 3 months in his class, it’s a bit upsetting for me, it’s silly, but over the past months I’ve had different teachers in the schools in both Oxford and London, and I’ve really started to notice how important it is to have a good teacher, it makes a great difference in your progress and especially the way you enjoy the class, sometimes even whether you show up in class at all.
I don’t want to judge too early, so I hope my new teacher will be OK, but I somehow have the feeling he can’t measure up to Ross.
On Wednesday afternoon I helped Robert out, who was moving flats and needed a hand with his luggage. From now on I’m going to think twice before I promise a friend to help out, because I had a sore neck following days… Anyhow, he’s happy with his new room and about the fact that he can take the quiet Overground train to work, instead of the Underground, so that’s cool.
Thursday was film club time again, ‘horror theme’ this time, if I weren’t so devoted to film club, I wouldn’t have come, because I absolutely hate horror films and would never voluntarily watch one, unless it’s a classic or a very relevant film. It’s not just because I don’t like being or feeling scared, but also because horror films usually are just utterly ridiculous. I can see that for a lot of people it serves a great entertainment purpose, but other than that it’s just complete rubbish to me, the dialogues are silly, the acting isn’t particularly high standard and the plots are completely inconceivable. They usually just make me laugh out loud, and go ‘Yeahhhhh right…’.
If I watch a film, I often watch it for entertainment of course, but I want some artistic value as well, I want a good or interesting story and/or dialogue, relevant acting and preferably good imagery. To me, the horror somehow fails as an artistic genre within film, because of its inconceivability. If a film is scary, yet realistic, it’s usually a thriller, rather than a ‘horror’. Anyhow, that’s just what I think, feel free to prove me wrong, I’m willing to reconsider my position.
After film club I met up with Robert again and we went to The Drums instore at Rough Trade, seeing them for free sort of made up with that one time I missed half of their gig at the Brixton Academy, after oversleeping. They were pretty good live, though I had mixed feeling about it. It sounded very different live than from their recordings, but I’m not sure if it’s for the better or the worse, the singer seemed like yet another Ian Curtis imitator, not only because of his singing, but also because of his wicked dancemoves. The guitarists seemed a bit autistic, one of them not even noticing he knocked over his microphone stand.
On Friday I went on a short day trip to Brighton, with my housemate Lucie. It was great, Brighton is an awesome city; the beach, the pier, the colourful houses, the fact that it reminded me of San Francisco and the North Laines. We walked a bit on the beach, then visited the Pier, which consists of a little theme park with arcades and a lot of candyshops. Then it started to rain so we started looking for some place dry, we ended up in a café at the Laines, and we sat in a lower area in the café on cushions on the floor. We had some good entertainment that afternoon; 2 women and a man came to sit in the lower area as well, but one of the women slipped on the step and hit her head against the ceiling, resulting into a cut in her head that started bleeding excessively. The guy took of his shirt and pushed it on the wound, whereas the other woman was squeamish and started sweating and panicking. Eventually the ambulance was called, and one of the ambulance guys asked: ‘What happened’, one of her acquaintances explained: ‘She slipped on that step over there and hit her head against the ceiling’. The ambulance guy: ‘Ah over there, where it says “Please mind your head”?’
After the drama was over, it wasn’t as bad as it looked at first, me and Lucie left, because it had stopped raining. We walked around the Laines a bit more and visited the Royal Pavilion, something I wouldn’t recommend, it’s a tacky palace, and very expensive for what you get. Then we went to the Northern Laines, which is basically Camden in Brighton. Then we made our way back to the trainstation, as we were both very tired.
On Saturday, Mandy, Desi, Hidde and Mandy came over for a day, which was great fun. I was very happy to see them and I really missed this, just nonsense humor and conversations, making crisps hats, throwing each others food in a pile of horse shit, making fun of the tramp sitting behind us in a café and making fun of people in Hyde Park. Nosing around on Brick Lane and playing in the Rough Trade photobooth.
No comments:
Post a Comment