How to begin? This month has flown by and has not allowed much time for breathing. I may have been bored and wishing for lots of work to be thrown my way, but I was utterly unprepared for having a full - or rather, overflowing - schedule. Don't get me wrong, it is great, but I may have gone a little overboard.
In addition to my courses at Lingua Franca, I have started working for a small neighbourhood school in Schöneberg and they have given me a couple of hours a week, among other courses an EU-funded project to prepare young Berliners for work at the new BBI airport nearing its completion. This is very much a school-like experience with classrooms and people young enough to still be in secondary school. Unfortunately, most of them still act like secondary-school students and don't seem to have a clue of what they want, why they are there and - most importantly - of the importance of knowing foreign languages, and English in particular. To be honest, half of them simply seem to daft to ever get through the basics of the language. This is not necessary satisfying and I am looking forward to the completion of this project four weeks from now.
Lingua Franca has also finally realised they should be lucky to have me and have overloaded me with courses, several of them at the request of students whom I taught once or twice as a substitute for their regular teachers and who subsequently decided they wanted to continue with me. Although I do not believe my way of teaching is anything special of better than that of most other teachers, I am not unaware of the compliment this implies. Actually, I am quite happy about it. Having been specifically requested about 5 times in the space of two months seems to have removed any remaining doubt that may still have existed in the minds of the Lingua Franca staff regarding my not being a native speaker, which, combined with increased demand for language courses now that companies are starting to believe the financial crisis is a thing of the past and are allocating more funds to skill-development budgets, has resulted in my being quite busy.
Though work rather dominated my life right now (I am often away from home as early as 7.30am to as late as 9pm due to distances), it is obviously not the only thing going on. The weekend of January, we flew to Dublin and met up Mickael, Louisa, Gerry and Felix to create some new memories and relive our time in Milan. It was a blast. Lots of alcohol, good talks, way too many cigarettes, the Guinness brewery, climbing a cute little hill on the beach, the old city centre and pubs, pubs, pubs.
The café in the background was actually founded my ex-boss Caroline's great-granduncle, what a coincidence! For more pictures check out this link.
We went to Hamburg for Stephie's 30th birthday party, an 80s party extraordinaire at the beginning of the month.
For more pictures, click here. I had never been to Hamburg before and it turns out to be a pretty sort of city. I really like what they have done with the old harbour (Speicherstadt) and HafenCity. Those old warehouse done up as modern apartment building did look awfully attractive...
Stéphanie and Cindy came to visit us the week after, which was a weekend filled with excitement, shopping, excessive drinking and good quality time with the popjes. Last weekend, we spent a cold and rainy Sunday at the Deutsches Historisches Museum (German Historical Museum), where the modern, accessible, diverse and interactive collection succeeded in making me quite a happy camper - no doubt also influenced by the massive piece of Schwarzwalderkirschtorte I obtained in the café! This weekend is another weekend without guests and went to a Dutch pubquiz last night. Our 6-person team consisted of Arnaud, a Flemish Belgian living in Berlin, Kerstin, a German who lived and worked in Amsterdam for years, Pieter, the only Dutchman actually living in the Netherlands at this time and three Berlin-based Dutchies: Olaf, Nicole and me. We were convinced the composition of our team was a recipe for success but were sorely disappointed only to end up ranking in the lower mid range. It was a lot of fun though, especially when topped off by a couple rounds of my new favourite game of 30 Seconds. As someone who enjoys speaking fast and associating concepts freely, the task of describing as many different people, objects, events etc. within the timespan of 30 seconds is simply bliss...
There are lots of fun things coming up to. Tomorrow, Olaf, Nicole, Pieter and I are going to explore a part of Berlin we have not been before. The Soviet war memorial in Treptower Park, Köpenick and food in the Grefekiez should ensure enjoyment and our learning something as well as exercising our taste buds. Next weekend, we are flying to England to meet up with Matt in Liverpool or Manchester. The weekend after that, Jen, Massimo and Kate and gracing us with a visit, the weekend after that Olaf will be in Canada for work but I will be hanging out with Enrico and Belinda and April is going to be family month.
How time flies! February has almost come to an end... I don't when I will find the rest and time to write another update but it doesn't mean I don't want to. Oh, and BTW, we are also looking into our options for when Olaf's project finishes next month. Who knows where we will be this time next year. It's so exciting!!!
In addition to my courses at Lingua Franca, I have started working for a small neighbourhood school in Schöneberg and they have given me a couple of hours a week, among other courses an EU-funded project to prepare young Berliners for work at the new BBI airport nearing its completion. This is very much a school-like experience with classrooms and people young enough to still be in secondary school. Unfortunately, most of them still act like secondary-school students and don't seem to have a clue of what they want, why they are there and - most importantly - of the importance of knowing foreign languages, and English in particular. To be honest, half of them simply seem to daft to ever get through the basics of the language. This is not necessary satisfying and I am looking forward to the completion of this project four weeks from now.
Lingua Franca has also finally realised they should be lucky to have me and have overloaded me with courses, several of them at the request of students whom I taught once or twice as a substitute for their regular teachers and who subsequently decided they wanted to continue with me. Although I do not believe my way of teaching is anything special of better than that of most other teachers, I am not unaware of the compliment this implies. Actually, I am quite happy about it. Having been specifically requested about 5 times in the space of two months seems to have removed any remaining doubt that may still have existed in the minds of the Lingua Franca staff regarding my not being a native speaker, which, combined with increased demand for language courses now that companies are starting to believe the financial crisis is a thing of the past and are allocating more funds to skill-development budgets, has resulted in my being quite busy.
Though work rather dominated my life right now (I am often away from home as early as 7.30am to as late as 9pm due to distances), it is obviously not the only thing going on. The weekend of January, we flew to Dublin and met up Mickael, Louisa, Gerry and Felix to create some new memories and relive our time in Milan. It was a blast. Lots of alcohol, good talks, way too many cigarettes, the Guinness brewery, climbing a cute little hill on the beach, the old city centre and pubs, pubs, pubs.
We also met up with my former colleague Brian and his wife Elisa and met their gorgeous offspring Daniel:
The café in the background was actually founded my ex-boss Caroline's great-granduncle, what a coincidence! For more pictures check out this link.
We went to Hamburg for Stephie's 30th birthday party, an 80s party extraordinaire at the beginning of the month.
For more pictures, click here. I had never been to Hamburg before and it turns out to be a pretty sort of city. I really like what they have done with the old harbour (Speicherstadt) and HafenCity. Those old warehouse done up as modern apartment building did look awfully attractive...
Stéphanie and Cindy came to visit us the week after, which was a weekend filled with excitement, shopping, excessive drinking and good quality time with the popjes. Last weekend, we spent a cold and rainy Sunday at the Deutsches Historisches Museum (German Historical Museum), where the modern, accessible, diverse and interactive collection succeeded in making me quite a happy camper - no doubt also influenced by the massive piece of Schwarzwalderkirschtorte I obtained in the café! This weekend is another weekend without guests and went to a Dutch pubquiz last night. Our 6-person team consisted of Arnaud, a Flemish Belgian living in Berlin, Kerstin, a German who lived and worked in Amsterdam for years, Pieter, the only Dutchman actually living in the Netherlands at this time and three Berlin-based Dutchies: Olaf, Nicole and me. We were convinced the composition of our team was a recipe for success but were sorely disappointed only to end up ranking in the lower mid range. It was a lot of fun though, especially when topped off by a couple rounds of my new favourite game of 30 Seconds. As someone who enjoys speaking fast and associating concepts freely, the task of describing as many different people, objects, events etc. within the timespan of 30 seconds is simply bliss...
There are lots of fun things coming up to. Tomorrow, Olaf, Nicole, Pieter and I are going to explore a part of Berlin we have not been before. The Soviet war memorial in Treptower Park, Köpenick and food in the Grefekiez should ensure enjoyment and our learning something as well as exercising our taste buds. Next weekend, we are flying to England to meet up with Matt in Liverpool or Manchester. The weekend after that, Jen, Massimo and Kate and gracing us with a visit, the weekend after that Olaf will be in Canada for work but I will be hanging out with Enrico and Belinda and April is going to be family month.
How time flies! February has almost come to an end... I don't when I will find the rest and time to write another update but it doesn't mean I don't want to. Oh, and BTW, we are also looking into our options for when Olaf's project finishes next month. Who knows where we will be this time next year. It's so exciting!!!
