The News Part Dos

Here it comes...

The News Part Dos:
With the crocuses and daffodils popping out and the occasional drop of snow or hail (happened just a few weeks ago, believe it or not), spring has finally come to Leeds.

We've been doing a lot more exploring lately. Here’s a short tour diary with pictures.

I don’t remember when it was, but sometime in the last few months we went to check out the Bronte sisters’ house. Here's our favorite Ian checking out the Old Apothecary across the street from the Bronte Parsonage.

In March we went to Halifax for an artists’ book fair with our friend, Jo. We stopped in the little English town of Hebden Bridge for some tea and homemade scones with jam and cream.

Later in March we took a short trip to Liverpool for our anniversary. Just as we got off the bus and into the city, I saw a city bus marked "Penny Lane" in the destination slot. Wish I had had my camera out! Anyway, we paid respects to John, Paul, George, and Ringo by visiting a few Beatles sites including The Cavern Club where The Fab Four used to play back in the day. Fabulous. We also checked out some museums, stayed in a fancy hotel, and had a fantastic anniversary dinner. The only thing that wasn’t fantastic was that I caught what I was sure was the bird flu, and then I gave it to Ian! Nice anniversary present, huh? Both of us ended up calling off work and spent most of the next week cuddled up at home with the tissue box. Anyway, despite minor health issues, we had a great weekend seeing Liverpool, watching TV in our hotel room (we don't have a TV), and reminicing about the past year.

We had some time off this past week for Easter so we rounded up some friends and headed to Yorkshire Sculpture Park for the day to hike around. We forgot the camera, unfortunately!

Next stop… in a few weeks we are headed to Italy to experience Rome and Venice, stroke our chins at some great art, and eat lots of good food!

In other news, Ian has now made it to number 29. Last year in Okinawa we looked forward to taking advantage of things in the UK that we didn’t really have access to there, so we celebrated by going to the symphony and using our oven. We had a fun time trying to be gourmet for his birthday meal – I planned a menu that included New Zealand roast lamb (Ian supervised and it turned out fantastic) and a Pavlova (I made by myself when Ian wasn’t home and it flopped!). Oh well, at least it tasted ok. Last year I tried to make Ian a birthday cake in our little Japanese microwave-pretending-to-be-an-oven, and it came out with a big chunk missing, so I’m hoping that next year will be the year when I’ll be able to pull off a good cake. I’m learning!

More news later…

I am the walrus,

Kristy

The News Part Uno

And now, our bear is crawling out of hibernation to deliver a few exciting blog entries (hopefully). It’s been awhile (insert two-tone “so-rry”) so there’s quite a bit of news! Stay tuned for the exciting second installment.

The News:
After finishing my course in February, I went back to supply teaching secondary school and hamster-wheeling the job search. Supply teaching is interesting, you know, never a dull moment. Some days a kid will threaten to kill you, and other days you’ll overhear a kid who cried in your class because he got in trouble tell his buddy that you were the best teacher he ever had. Most of the time you come home feeling completely wrung out from riot-control that day, and it doesn’t take long for the cheeky comments and flying projectiles to get to you if you’re not careful, but every once in awhile a kid would come up to me after school and try to repeat the Japanese phrases I taught him just for fun and make me feel like, “Oh, maybe I am supposed to be a teacher!”

Anyhow, I’ve been trying to get out of supply teaching.

The job search hasn’t really been a hamster-wheel in the traditional sense, actually. It’s that I’ve been looking and I just couldn’t find anything I even wanted to apply for…for months and months. The hamster got a little lost there for a while. Then, at the beginning of February, Ian and I ran away down to Burton-on-Trent to see James for a few days and when we got back, I found a job that I did want to apply for, but didn’t really expect to get. The application was due the next day, so I made use of the valuable life skills I learned in school and stayed up to get the application together in a few hours.

To make a long story somewhat medium-lengthed, I got the job! Now I’m teaching English to refugees and asylum seekers at one of the local colleges, and so far no one has thrown anything at me or made so much as a hint of a death threat! It’s been a bit of a culture shock, to be honest. I’ve started volunteer-teaching a refugee in her home once a week, too, and that has been an amazing experience. At the moment, I’m a pretty happy Kristy with the way things have worked out!

Whohoo,
Kristy

What British kids say when they get in trouble…

1. Miss, that is well tight!
2. Whot!? I didn’t even do naught!
3. Miss, it were ‘im (him).
4. My name’s not Tom. It’s Bob.
5. Miss, what part of America are you from?
6. I’m not bovered! (bothered)
7. But Miss, I don’t know how to read!

He he,

Kristy

Engrish

A photo we took in Kyushu a couple of years ago made it onto the Engrish website. Check it out here. It's super-funny!