dominican journal

I woke up this morning feeling surprisingly in sync but completely unprepared. Nevertheless, my first day went as well as could be expected. I spent the morning with the younger classes revising things they already knew which, to be fair, wasn’t much. When I asked them what they’d done with the old computing teacher they all yelled in unison: NADA! This made me laugh at first as it’s a fairly typical answer from a class of six-year-olds. Maybe my next class will remember what they’ve learned, I thought to myself as I walked in and repeated the question. “NADA!”, they shouted.

Still unsure as to whether this scarily blunt response was true or not, I walked into my third class and once again got the same answer. At this point I thought it might be worth asking Philippe (my boss/headmaster) as surely he knew what they’d been up to. I think by now you can guess what he told me. Turns out they’re all world champions at Solitaire and Minesweeper, but when it comes to computer-related activities that don’t involve games, they’re utterly clueless. I’m not surprised they fired the other guy.

In other news, I’m staying at Sophie’s apartment with her boyfriend, their two kids and the maid. It’s very close to the school and in a quiet little area which makes a change from two years ago. The maid stays in all day looking after Sophie’s youngest which affords me (and my belongings) a little extra security.

On the whole, life is good and I’m looking forward to the next four months. I won’t even bother to mention the weather because it’s obviously freakin’ awesome!!

That’s all for now folks.

P.S. Thanks to all of you who came out on my last night in Brussels. We had a good laugh (especially when Kevin went to the wrong toilet and woke the landlord!). The pasta incident was also hilarious. Kevin, can I hire you as an entertainer? Although for the full effect I would have to hire Wheeler too. Apologies to Gina for the all noise and chaos we caused. It was totally worth it though, n’est-ce-pas?