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I was so happy about hearing from Mum that I decided to write another entry...
I'm not sure about the cigarette, Mum, but my iron has been used before so I'm 90% convinced someone has been in. I keep my valuables with me everywhere I go (no pun intended)(or achieved). E-man is not old enough to drive.
Tom, you're wasted at the NHS! Hollywood awaits! Although, despite years of expensive education, even some of my students' English is better than yours! I live and breathe the game of S-Head in your name. Amen.
In other news: I got paid today. I've been told that they haven't decided how I should pay for my utilities yet. The people I work for are good. In fact, one of the guys I play ping pong with sent me a text to tell me my wages were ready for collection. Very bizarre. What's just as bizarre is that the other teachers are paid straight into their bank accounts and not in cash.
In today's debate classes we looked at negotiation. We went through negotiation techniques, vocabulary and I had them doing a role play where they were negotiating prices. Then I broke them into 4 groups and told them to make as much paper money as possible using the equipment I gave them. I'd bought scissors, rulers, protractors, paper and felt-tip pens and they had to make rectangles, squares and triangles, with each shape having a different market value. When I was getting too many of one thing, I lowered the market value of it and did the reverse if I didn't have enough of something. Of course, I was the Bank of Mr Monks.
Sounds easy enough but I only gave one team all of the equipment they needed. The other teams were missing some things and one team only had paper. They had to negotiate with other teams in order to trade materials and make money. My god did they all get giddy, although I did have some students in full-on sulks because they didn't have any scissors! It was an excellent exercise in supply and demand, inflation, deflation, monopolies and leverage. They were pretty good hagglers, it must be said!
I've finished the course text book with my sophomore students and we're moving onto specialist English in the coming weeks. Some of my students want to be businessmen and women, teachers and some even want to be international hosts (whatever that means), so I've devised a 3-week exercise that incorporates skills from each career. It's bloody genius.
Friday night sees me, Will and Wes going to Shenyang. We were going to go last weekend but didn't. Shenyang is north of Huludao and takes around 1.5 hours to get there by train. We're going to stock up on a few home comforts like vodka, bread, cheese, olives... And, of course, we'll be making sure the night life is up to scratch.
Also, Wes brought some Tobasco sauce into college today to kill some of his students at lunch. Oh, and we three were invited to go mountain climbing with the Party's college mouthpiece in a couple of weeks. Yes.
OK, Guy Garvey awaits... Love to everyone, especially if you've moved house recently.
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