On her last day before her maternity leave, Lorna gave me more work to do which, in principle, I don't mind doing, since I'm still working less than what they pay me for, but the extra lessons are at such inconvenient times. One extra lesson is Thursday, period 1, a day on which I usually come in for the third period. She also stole me one of my remaining three free afternoons in two weeks, whereas my French colleages are only in three afternoons per fortnight. Well, I'm not too happy about that, but I'll live...probably.
The weekend was fine. We met at Sandra's and Ben's on Friday evening and played on my Super Nintendo. Unfortunately, Ben had to go to work again at 11pm, but the rest of us still enjoyed the games and the Foster's.


Sandra and Thomas were crappy at Super Mario Land, so I was responsibly for finishing levels after they had lost all their lives. Sarah once again stepped in to save the day, hehe.



Yesterday evening, we went into town, this time Ben could join us and we had a few drinks. Today, J+M are taking me to the cinema to see Slumdog Millionaire which has just won the Golden Globe for Best Film. After the film, we're going to a pizza place. Eating out is a fairly good idea at the moment, since the dishwasher broke. Mike had managed to keep it going for a few more days, but yesterday, it decided it doesn't want to live anymore. The new one will be delivered next week and until then, I hope, no one will use up a lot of dishes.

My biggest problem at the moment seems to be that I'm fighting a fight I can only lose. One of my DVDs came with some kind of theft protection and I just can't get it open. Since I had another DVD like that with which I didn't have a problem I assumed the new one would be just as easy to crack...it's not. I might just have to decide that the film is rubbish to make myself feel better...

See for yourself. How the hell am I supposed to get that red thingy out of the black thingy?

Internet - best invention since fizzy water...when it's working

The first week has passed and everything is fine. We had snow (my first snow ever in England, yay!), but it's melted again for which I'm grateful in a way, because it doesn't provide me with excuses to take the bus to school anymore. There are major differences between the English and the Germans in handling snow: 1. no one clears the pavements of the snow, 2. English snowmen consist of only two balls. Very strange to my continental eyes, but maybe that's because the English never have as much snow as we have, so they have to see how far they come with what little they have.
So, here is a melting British snowman.


School is basically back to normal, although I was a bit amazed to see all of my pupils show up (note, I wrote that before today, Monday). I suspect they've realised that the exams are drawing close. I don't mind since it's better for my heart and my blood pressure anyway.
There is news from the language office: Sam's boyfriend has proposed to her. On Boxing Day, he told her she had an hour to pack her bag and then took her to Frankfurt am Main, which is one of her favourite places, and asked her there. Sam's comment to us was "It was our eight year anniversary. It was about damn time!" It's great to see her on cloud nine, she's been grinning all week, hehe.
Lorna is going on maternity next week and the new head of languages, Ferosa, has assumed her post. I just hope she won't make us work harder than Lorna did ;)
It was very good to see Sandra again. The other one seems to miss France even more than before the holidays. No comment!

I'll do it the Thomas way now and only allow my newly aquired DVDs to find their way onto the shelf once I've watched them. Unfortunately, that leads to them piling up next to my bed as you can see.

I've arrived safely in England again after two weeks of pleasant Freizeitstress. It was good to see so many of my friends again, thank you. And to those I didn't manage to see: sorry, but we'll catch up at some point ;)
Watch out for high quality pictures sponsored by my parents who were kind enough to give me a nice digicam for Christmas.