I was told that today would be tests so there would be no lessons and that I should bring my own lunch because the students would be leaving early. Though I had to ask to find this out. So I go into school all prepared or a day sat at my desk trying to work on tomorrow’s Kindergarten lesson plan without letting the bad school know I am doing work for someone else. Then the bad teacher tells me that I can’t stay in the school after the students have left because all the teachers are leaving too, to go and look at some new text books in the city office. It’s nice that they give me warning more than an hour in advance I supposed. So they deliberate about what to do with me and eventually settle on letting me go and see the books. All seems fine and dandy but I have to make a 45 minute bike ride to get to the city office and it was 28’C outside with no sign of cloud cover. Knowing it’s going to fry me, I’m a little concerned about spending at least a couple of hours in a stuffy little room listening to some guy waffle on about English books. Nevertheless, I took that bike ride but stopped off at my flat on the way to have a quick cold shower - since I was overheating - and to have something else to eat, because my lunch wasn’t that great. After that, I get back on my bike and hope I am not too late. I make it to the city office with barely a minute to spare and I try and find the right place. I follow the directions I was given, to go to the 5th floor, only to find, after a bit of confusion, that it is not on that floor at all. I really didn’t want to have to stroll in late to this presentation thing but it was looking like that was the way. Anyway, this nice janitor man showed me the way, and as luck would have it, I arrived at the same time as the bad teacher. I never thought I would be glad to see her, however, it was good timing and outside of the school she doesn’t seem so bad though she practically refuses to relax, rushing and barging everywhere.  Anyway, we go to the room and I’m pleasantly surprised to see that there is no presentation, there is only a stack of books and the teachers can come and go as they please. So I sit down, talk with the bad teacher a bit, but she leaves quickly, then another couple of teachers show up. In the end, I’m the one, the one who isn’t supposed to be there, who actually looks at the books we’re supposed to look at, for more than 10 minutes. The idea is that the core text books are changing next year and the teachers are to vote on which ones replace them. I made an informed choice but my vote counts for squat where as the other teachers barely glanced (one didn’t even look, he just chatted to someone and then left) and they get to vote. No wonder the books we got last time were duds.

The other highlight was that I left and got home very early and as the city office is right next door to my good school, I got to ride home with some of the kids. It was fun having a conversation with them.

I’ve been spending the evening preparing for tomorrow. I have my first kindergarten lesson. I’m not sure what to expect. They will either have me just play with the kids or they will want me to teach something. So I have prepared a lesson on colours. I hope they haven’t done it already...