'The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco'
[NAFDA] Spike-centric discussion. Lusty, lewd (only occasionally crude), risque (and frisque), bawdy (Oh, lawdy!), flirty ('cuz we're purty), raunchy talk inside. Caveat lector.
Day three of my body thinking this is an appropriate time to wake up. We're going to have to have a serious chat about this, I think.
I feel badly this morning, though, because I came into the kitchen and started to make myself a bowl of ice cream, and I hear a quiet voice, "Val? Did I wake you up?"
Noipe. But apparently I woke Emily up. She was out cooling off in the living room. She doesn't have an ac unit in her room.
...okay. Wow. NOT the phone conversation I was expecting to have, today.
So I've been waiting for a phone call from my new employer or one of their representatives today, after an email yesterday. I'd been emailing them on and off over the past month or 2 asking about flight details from the UK to Cairo. It's only the past 10 days that I've been thinking "Come on, guys, tell me when I'm supposed to be leaving, already!" and my emails have grown a bit tetchier.
Yesterday I finally got an email from one of the Big Cheese guys there, telling me that there had been problems in emails due to the fact that they were shifting to the new campus. (Which I guess I could have figured out, if I'd thought about it. But I still wasn't wholly impressed.) He asked for my phone number.
So this morning he phones me. And I'm thinking he's going to tell me about the flight thing. Nope. Not so much. Instead he tells me that they're not opening in September after all. That they're delaying opening by 12 months.
...huh.
The reason he gave me was that there are power cables within 100m of the school, and that although this is legally no problem in Egypt, and although their American Architects were aware of this and didn't perceive a problem, they have become aware of (unpublished) research in Britain which states that it is potentially carcinogenic to have such cables within 100 metres of a school, and so rather than take any risks with the health of their employees or the children they were in the process of getting the things moved. But that this was not something that could be accomplished in 3 or 4 weeks.
So they're going to delay opening by a year.
Imagine my expression, ladies and gentlemen. Not unlike that of a cartoon character who had just been hit over the head with a log.
BUT, he tells me, they are honouring their contracts with the 17 members of staff they've recruited for the school. They will be distributing us between their other campuses, in Dubai, Cyprus, wherever, for 2005-2006, then bringing us together in Cairo for 2006-2007. But they knew that in the case of flatmate and myself, we'd be wanting to stay in Cairo, since we live there already.
Either we'll be working in the American sister-school of the place we were supposed to be going, if they can squeeze us in, or else we'll be "helping set things up" at the English school - dealing with parents, I guess, that kind of thing.
But they'll definitely be paying us, he says. And someone will be calling me wrt flights today.
stunned
Damn it. Either way this pans out, I'm not going to be teaching the British Curriculum next year. Which is a bit of a blow, I've got to say - I went straight from doing my Post Graduate Certificate of Education to teaching in Egypt, without even doing one year's teaching in Britain yet. I need the experience.There are pluses to having experience with the American System under my belt, undoubtedly, but it's not going to help me consolidate my skills and understanding of the British Curriculum. Which is a bit of a pisser.
Wow. Really, really not the conversation I was expecting to have.
Wow, Fay. Just wow.
I was so scared at the beginning of your post that you were going to say you weren't going to get paid. I'm glad that is not the case.
Yeah - a big yay for not having that unsuspected financial sword of Damocles suddenly drop on me. Believe me, I do appreciate that that didn't happen.
But - DAMN. I'm going to be either (a) teaching an unknown yeargroup in a system I don't know at all, and which will maybe undermine my existing understanding of how to implement the British Curriculum, or (b) not teaching at all.
And I'm not sure which is worse.
If it's (b), I'll do my damnedest to get work tutoring most evenings - ideally with primary kids, but if not then at least with someone. (We live round the corner from the Cairo American College, and my friend's friend has been living off the money she made tutoring the college kids in English Lit.) Which will supplement my income nicely too, of course. But won't really make up for 12 months of being entirely out of the classroom. Still, better than nothing, I guess.
Shit.
I'm so sorry.
Wow. That's a huge change in expectations, Fay. Could be worse, of course, it's just as well they're still honouring your contract. But that's a lot to absorb.
Oh no Fay, I'm so sorry. Maybe you could stealthily implement the British curriculum, and teach it to the American kids. Heaven knows they'd likely benefit.
Well, I dunt really nor 'ar ter rayt it dahn, sithee. 't i'nt ar ah normally talk, missen, so it's a bit on an effort to type it rayt way withart mekkin a rayt prat o' missen.
Oh, I love this. Is "sithee" the same as see thee/you see, or is it see there, or something else?
Wow, Fay! Um, wow. Good that they are honouring contracts, but...huh. You and flatmate wouldn't consider moving elsewhere?
James Herriot didn't do too badly with writing the Yorkshire dialect, I thought. Of course, I couldn't understand a thing anyone said my first two days in Yorkshire. After that, my ear adjusted and it was fine.
It was one of the very few times I haven't unconsciously started talking like the people around me, though, because I was just completely unable to. I go to Texas, I started askin' fer a pahce o' pah. In Malaysia, [teeth hiss] noh taxi lah! NSM in Yorkshire. Which is nice, because I hate it when I do that.
Just got back from Mal's first unscheduled trip to the doctor. He's been a bit under the weather, and got a really bad sore throat yesterday. I let it go, just doing him with baby Tylenol, but today he started to show a fever too. Looks like he's just got a little virus, poor thing. He sounds so hoarse!
Oh, dear. Bless Mal! Poor wee scone!
Oh, I love this. Is "sithee" the same as see thee/you see
Yes. This.
...just emailed my flatmate. I wasn't going to steal the boss's thunder, but then I did. So we've had a slightly hysterical "Oh. My. God!" conversation, punctuated by much shell-shocked laughter. It'll work out, one way or another. I mean, I do appreciate that, as problems go, having a guaranteed income and some uncertainty about whether this will be earned by (a) teaching at a reputable school or (b) fannying around doing nothing isn't exactly a terrible problem.
And Flatmate was already busily making plans for taking a trip out into the White Desert in November, with "the boys" (our neighbour C, and our friend/now his boyfriend K). So the kind of problem where you're still planning holidays in the Sahara really isn't a huge problem, I realise. Just call me Marie Antoinette.
But, yes. Huge change in expectations. A lot to absorb.
On the plus side - conceivably a lot more time to work on my novel.
I go to Texas, I started askin' fer a pahce o' pah. In Malaysia, [teeth hiss] noh taxi lah! NSM in Yorkshire. Which is nice, because I hate it when I do that.Oh, I share your pain. I don't even need to go anywhere. I can meet one person from somewhere else, and start doing it. And because Bostonians have their own quirky accent, I even do it when an American with no discernable regional accent is in my presence (iow, I lose my own accent). I'm always afraid people will think I'm mocking them.