homecoming
It’s Sunday and I’ve spent a relaxing weekend helping Christelle study for exams and indulging in a little reading. I’m back on Bryson and enjoying it immensely. Down Under recounts his adventures in Australia and is very funny yet informative, as per usual with Bryson. His books and style of writing have definitely influenced and inspired me in the writing of this blog. I’m waiting for his next book about the Caribbean and, in particular, the D.R. entitled Se Fue La Luz.
Enough of my lame jokes. Tomorrow I start my last week of school before flying back to not-so-sunny Belgium on Friday. BBC World Weather forecasts very respectable day-time temperatures in La Romana of 30 degrees Centigrade throughout the week while dropping to a rather chillier 7 or 8 degrees in Brussels on the day of my return – and that’s during the day. At night it will drop to an unbearable 2 degrees! And don’t even get me started on snow; I’ve pretty much forgotten what that is.
As you can well imagine, I am having second thoughts about coming back to Belgium. I am already capable of catching a cold in a room air-conditioned at 20 degrees so I expect I’ll freeze through upon arrival and spend two weeks thawing in the washroom where temperatures are on par with the Dominican outdoors… at night… in winter. Nah, even that’s an overstatement. I’ll need putting in the microwave on de-frost. I think you get the idea.
My flight leaves at 9am on Friday morning but because of the time difference, the ridiculous number of connections I have to catch, the absolute certainty that at least one of my flights will be delayed and the fact that I land in Paris and have to catch a Thalys to Brussels from there, I will only be arriving on Saturday afternoon (morning if I’m lucky).
I start my journey back on Thursday afternoon. It just so happens that that is Pauline’s birthday and the Warot’s will be driving to the capital to celebrate. They have kindly allowed me to hitch a lift and join in the celebration. We’ll be staying in a hotel for the night and they’ll see me off in the morning.
From Santo Domingo I fly to the Puerto Rican capital, San Juan (if I’m not mistaken). From there I fly to New York where I (hopefully) catch my connecting flight to Paris CDG. It’s going to be a long day and if it’s anything like the journey over here in September, you’ll be sure to read about it here.
So, providing I actually get back and remember to dress like an eskimo, I should be able to go out and see you all. Hope you’re as excited as I am. Don’t let me forget the ones I won’t be seeing, namely the British side of my family including my Dad. Am very sorry I won’t get to see you this time round but will certainly be paying you all a visit over the summer, even if that seems like a long way off at the moment.
xmas exams
Last week I started the oral exams with all my classes. The vast majority were a success and that put my students in good stead to start their writtens this week. A 40 out of 40 on the oral, for instance, gives you 40% of your overall final mark which is of course very encouraging.
Writtens started on Monday and finish at the end of next week. My exams (I had a total of six – two per day) finished today. Now you would have thought that a week with no lessons and no lesson planning would have been a breeze. Allow me to correct that fallacy.
Note: While writing this a guy on a moto-concho just sped by and crashed into a bunch of parked moto-conchos outside the cyber cafe. Luckily he was not carrying any passengers and no one was injured/killed. That’s what happens when you buy your driver’s licence.
Back on topic. I’ve spent the past three days supervising and correcting 148 exams. I’ve never been so brainwashed by correction. After five or ten goes at correcting identical papers your brain switches on auto-pilot and starts ticking and crossing appropriately. It sounds silly but this is actually a fairly accurate description of what happens. Nevertheless, it took time and very nearly drove me insane. Thankfully my mental health was unaffected, or at least back to normal.
The vast majority of the marks were very good, surprisingly so in some cases. A couple of my classes have an average of 85% (!) overall, which means most people got 90% or more and a few did very badly. Whether this was the result of good teaching, good learning, well-timed cheating or a combination of them all, I’m thrilled to bits. A lot of my students have this knack of giving me the impression they don’t care or they’re not listening, yet when it comes to the exam they prove me seriously wrong. Either that or they study very very hard, though that’s highly unlikely if you ask me.
