Spent the entire day hacking. Well, almost, the entire day: from just after waking up, through breakfast, to when the power went out (when I switched to reading); and then, after the power came back, until now, nearly bedtime. I was working on the software I use to upload stuff to my blog here, and […]
Another week is over. Fridays are my best and my worst days, because there are seven hours of class, but they’re my oldest and thus most advanced classes. Read: most likely to remember what they did last week, most likely to think critically, most likely to listen to what I said the first time, etc. […]
As previously discussed, water is kind of a thing here. I feel like if I were to write a memoir, I could do worse for a title than "How to clean things using only dirty water". Speaking of which: To get water to wash myself with, I do the following. First, go out the front […]
Drained. 7 hours of class today. 1e was spunky without being disrespectful — they even went so far as to try to flirt with me. Whereas séconde had most of its students — they said 55 of them were present today. Yeesh. They were spunky while being disrespectful. Can’t say as I blame them; we’re […]
Some days I am struck by the grand cosmic incoherency that is my life. Or I guess life in general here. One thing that tends to accentuate this is speaking French to Germans, which seems to happen with surprising frequency. I thought I’d refresh all the blogs the other Volunteers here keep. Most of them […]
This past weekend’s festivities included an afternoon "dinner" at Boris’s house, followed by a quick trek through the brush in the countryside near Boris’s house/farm. A couple German volunteers from Bafoussam came along. Some pictures: We begin. Boris is in the lead, probably telling the chick, whose name is Ester ("With an R. Like the […]
Finished my fiches de progression today (aka "schemes of work", aka "projets pedagogiques"). Brought them to the secretary’s office. She printed them out for me, after first arranging them to minimize wasted paper and fixing my various French mistakes. (Examples: pratique, not "practique". Exercice, not exercise. Projet, not project. Décembre with an accent. You get […]
Hmm, I’m getting close to needing to keep a list of what titles I’ve already used and which ones I haven’t. Sorry I haven’t written much lately (6 days without a post??). I’ve been pretty busy. I’ve been spending a lot of time at the computer lab with some students, trying to do miscellaneous repairs/survey […]
School started yesterday. I wasn’t as prepared as I really should have been, since I was at a nightclub with Boris the night before, so I didn’t really have the energy to prepare solid lessons. It hardly mattered since there were hardly any students there. They were supposed to be there at 7:30 for the […]
An outfit I purchased for when I exert myself. The phrase "faire du sport" gets used a lot to mean "exercise". And hey, is that a math teacher moustache? Jesus, I look like I belong in the Village People. The outfit was 3,800 CFA (I bargained down from more.. 5 or 6 k) and the […]