Monday 12th October

OK, here are the notes I took on Friday night in the pub on last week's antics:

Study Skills: it's well meaning & theoretically but I would prefer more practical work. I spoke to Dieca today about PowerPoint, and she said we will look at it after the mid-term break. So, I guess that was a good active thing to do!

Spanish: Jordi praised my essay on "Los Problemas de los Jovenes" but I feel I'm still making too many mistakes with SER & ESTAR...need to de revision! And carless mistakes with noun/adjective agreement...I think I need to print my work out and have a good look at it before I hand it in..... I came in early this morning and printed it, but now I need to find quiet time to read it!!

Literature: My work on "Valentine" received good marks which was pleasing as it had been written while suffering from flu, and I didn't feel it was really 'me'. I'm quite enjoying the experience of being guided through the murky world of poetry analysis. We're getting some kind of in-class assessment tomorrow, and that should be a very interesting experience!

French: No problems in class, and it's fascinating discovering the little bits of French that have been floating about my mind all these years! I still reckon French is somewhere between the 'purer' Latin languages (Italian, Spanish & Portuguese) and our 'bastard, mongrel' English! I need to do more revision....trouble is the classes aren't so difficult for me and I enjoy having to 'lower' my communicative levels!

Investigating Europe: Joe is a good guy and he approves of my project plans! Perhaps more importantly, he's given the official checks I require so I don't have to attend the class every week. That could provide a useful lunch break, as I'm teaching on a Wednesday evening. It was good fun going through the Barca games and reading up about key moments in the Spanish press & Sid Little's columns in The Guardian. I MUST FIND SOME SPANIARDS TO INTERVIEW & GET THE INTRO WRITTEN!!

Communication: We did a pre-assessment assessment but I won't get feedback till Thursday. I think I wrote too much of an essay, whereas Scott wanted something with more individual answers to the questions. Problem was I started writing the summary and found my style, so I wanted to continue in the same vein, and try to link the various points I should have taken notes to plan my specific answers I guess. I noticed that Chris was writing by hand, rather than using the computer like everyone else. He said that he gets distracted by spell checks, and loses his chain of thought...hhmmm.

Maths: I succesfully passed the geometry section, which I was pleased about as I'd had some problems with the vertical & horizontal aspects. I guessI'm not a spatial learner, well not in 2 dimensions anyway! Happily boogying through the algebraic stuff now. Should I complete Outcome 3 in the mid-term week? Will it speed things up? What exactly is the "Maths Investigation" all about then??

History: Well, we've been given our first writing assignment - 4 sides on The Chartists of all people! I think they were a bunch of middle-class people who organised demonstrations in favour of parliamentary reform...but Evan said they failed. He gave us a couple of articles to start us off, and it will be good to be able to write about a new subject without too much input from the teacher!