Nancy is going back to Oregon in two days, so our little Thanksgiving Day group plans a goodbye dinner. Catherine and I are the first to arrive at the Mexican restaurant in Leceister Square. I stand outside for a few minutes, taking in the majesty of Leceister Square. The square is pretty big, with a grassy area in the center that has benches for sitting. That area is currently occupied by a Christmas carousel and vendors who sell cotton candy and other amusement park-like games. I love the bright lights. The buildings are so tall and old and intricately beautiful. People [View Full Entry]

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This room is CHAOS. It's the same year 9, bottom-set class where the fight broke out a few days ago. Everyday, I have something semi-fun planned during class. I say "semi-fun" because it's still work, but it's always an activity, group work, and experiment, etc. I hold it over their heads, telling them that if they don't behave, we won't get to do our activity. At my school in Tennessee where I taught last year, this always worked. Kids like to do experiments, so they behaved themselves so they wouldn't have to work out of their boring textbook. But these kids [View Full Entry]

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This morning, I packed my workout clothes and took them to work with me, so I'd have no excuse for not going straight to the gym after work. My gym is one of a large chain in the UK. Everyone has heard of it. In St. Albans, it's pretty much "the" gym. The whole city has a membership. For 35 pounds a month, I have access to the weight rooms, cardio equipment, aerobics classes, the locker room, saunas, and tanning beds. It's actually pretty great. Two things I don't care for: #1--I have to walk about 30 minutes to get there. [View Full Entry]

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In this school, every student is grouped into "sets" based on ability-level for every subject. Science has three different groups, or "sets". The "top set" is the highest-performing group, and the "bottom set" is the lowest. Right now, I'm in the midst of a nightmare-ish lesson with my bottom set year 9 class (8th graders). They won't shut the hell up long enough for me to say ANYTHING! If you're sitting there thinking, "Well, you should just tell them blah blah blah..", I can assure you that telling them anything is just as impossible to me as trying to tell the [View Full Entry]

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The Sports Cafe It's a normal bar, for crying out loud! The doorman is acting like we're trying to get into some upscale New York City VIP nightclub, and we're not on the guest list. He asks, "Do you have a table?" "Um, no. But we're planning to get one, when we go inside." "Can't," he says. "They're all taken." "Oh, well that's alright," I say, expecting to go inside anyway. He doesn't budge, staring at us. I ask, "Can we not go inside without a table or something?" "One moment," he says, turning his back to us and speaking authoritatively [View Full Entry]

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A friend of mine in Nashville has a friend who recently moved to London. So we got each other's contact info, and today, we're walking along Oxford Street together, weaving in and out of crazy Christmas shoppers. Today is the BIG shopping day here, the day with all the sales, the London equivalent to the "Day After Thanksgiving" sales. The city has decorated the streets with Christmas lights and erected a stage in the middle of the Oxford-Regents Street intersection. We have DJ's to entertain us as we're pushed along the packed sidewalk, and soon there will be live music as [View Full Entry]

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After our meal at the Italian place, Steph, Gary, Troy, Raeann, and I decide to go have drinks. Of course, walking around Leceister Square, one is bound to get sidetracked with all the action going on. We stop at a discount ticket shop to check out prices on some West End shows. We browse around the vendors. And...hey, there's that crazy evangelist guy with the "Everything Is OK" sign! He's preaching in front of a Burger King, still on his step ladder, surrounded by laughing teenagers. We walk on. Ben and Jerry's! It's like a God-send. Rays of heavenly light descend [View Full Entry]

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Dinner with Stephanie, Gary, and Troy As we sit in the tightly-squeezed upstairs of a small Italian restaurant in Leceister Square, sipping wine on this lovely Friday night, Gary's iPhone rings. He turns white, "It's her. I can't answer it." "Don't answer it!" we say. Gary fidgets with the phone, brows furrowed with stress. "If I don't answer it, she's gonna hit the roof." Troy says, "If you DO answer it, she'll be hitting the roof, so what different will it make?" Of course, I don't pretend to know all the ins-and-outs of Gary's relationship. I met him only last night [View Full Entry]

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Tonight, I am meeting Catherine and Stephanie and a couple of Stephanie's friends in front of the National Gallery to watch the Christmas tree lighting in Trafalgar Square. This is one of my favorite parts of the city, probably because the square is such a wide-open space, and I tend to like those. I am the first to arrive, and shortly after, a choir begins to sing Christmas carols. The tree is very tall, but the branches are sparse, and the needles sag sadly. The choir sounds like a volunteer church choir. Catherine calls me, and we spend ten minutes trying [View Full Entry]

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After the Thanksgiving Day service at St. Paul's Cathedral, Stephanie, Nancy, and I are eating at a little French cafe across the street, chatting away about how we each wound up in London. At times like this, I enjoy the slow pace of going out to eat in this country. We even order coffee after our meal, in typical British fashion, and sit and talk for an extra forty-five minutes. Next thing I know, we're at a salon, getting manicures and pedicures. Steph has a friend, Catherine, who is a student at the "student salon" nearby, so that's where we are. [View Full Entry]

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