Thursday, 28 May 2009

What a load of rubbish

Back in the UK prior to my departure I tried to recycle as much as possible.  Paper, Cans, Glass and Plastic all found their way to the local bank.  Unfortunately there is no such system in place here.  Let alone recycling there is a distinct lack of care for the environment.  I regularly witness paper simply discarded in the street.  Teachers on our training at the weekend throw their biscuit wrappers onto their school playground.  The grounds surrounding houses are littered with bags of rubbish.  Paper is sometimes burnt, plastic bottles are often reused by people, particularly by shoe cleaners and for transporting oil and kerosene.  However cans, glass, plastic bags and anything not wanted is always thrown.  Thankfully, a new teacher to the college has started a petition to collect money to tidy up the place.



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Tuesday, 26 May 2009

Eggs, oil and salt

I may have lost a certain amount of weight, however, I think my increased intake of eggs, palm oil and salt should counteract any benefit I may have achieved.  Bacon sandwiches, sausages and a rare steak will be first things ordered from the menu when I return.



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Monday, 25 May 2009

Summer Plans

For those not already aware, my brother and fiancé shall be visiting over the summer.   The college dean has approved me spending the holidays touring Ethiopia.  The basic plan is to take in 10 sites in 5 weeks starting from July 21.  Part of the trip is to the Omo Valley where Lou shall be joining us before she returns to the UK.  I've opted for flying as I've had enough of buses as day journeys really are not that much fun anymore.  Hopefully I will have a vast amount of photos, videos and memories to share.



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Thursday, 21 May 2009

Mosquitoes

The mozzies are back and this time they mean business.  Until now they have remained a lonely breed.  A quick spray of KillerÔ or hand splat put paid to them.  However now, each morning when I open the curtains I am greeted with a swarm of buzzing irritants.  Unfortunately they also seem to have developed an immune system to even the most vile blend of chemicals known to man.  



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Tuesday, 19 May 2009

Patience

From the title, you may expect an entry about my increased tolerance or difficulties being faced.  In fact, I wish to share with you my exuberance at finishing Mahjong Titans – a game included with Windows Vista.  I am sure my mother and I are not the only people addicted to the occasional marathon session of Solitaire on the computer.  I imagine that "Just one more game" or "Until I get them out" have been spoken many an evening.  After setting myself that very same challenge I was treated with the immense sight as shown below.  Needless to say I halted the celebrations and clicked "New Game" straight away.



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Sentence Construction

Following on from the language week we had, I decided to share some translation with you.  I thought about this issue during the Research Conference when presenters talked about translating instructions from English to Tigrinya and then translating student responses back to English.  It occurred to me that this may cause some irregularities, particularly as I am aware of the different sentence structure between the two languages.   Therefore, I decided to put it to the test.  I am interested to know if other foreign language specialists believe this to be the case with teaching other European languages.  The result is close enough to understand having seen the original sentence.  However, I believe it shows that children not just learning English, but learning in English must think and create sentences in a very different way to that of their native language.

 

Step 1 was to write a sentence in English.  For step 2 it was translated into Tigrinya, then step 3 was to write the literal translation of each word back to English.



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Saturday, 16 May 2009

Power Off

I know I have mentioned the power many times before but still.....let me put it simply.   For the last two weeks we have had no power every two days from 6am-10pm.  Only half of them were scheduled!



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