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Hello:

Finally at school today and just loving it. I had a long, long night of planning because I get to teach a full class lesson today on the basic principles of rhetoric. Basically, my 10s (which would be freshmen in America) have to act as entrepreneurs, create a product, and sell it to a board (which will be and my HOT cooperating teacher, Tom Barlow!) We're teaching them how to be effectively persuasive by using simple rhetorical appeals: ethos, pathos, logos. Product development is going well. One of my students thought to create toilet paper with crossword puzzles, word game, etc. as you pull so that you are never bored in the bathroom ;-) Too funny! I didn't want to com in unprepared today, so I did all of my planning last night and now I'm sitting here bored and FREEZING during my planning period(s). Yes, the teachers here get TWO full planning period, plus one lunch and one tea break...a literal tea break where we all gather in the lounge and make hot tea. Bet you wish you were a teacher in the UK!

We didn't make it to dinner last night because the seminar lasted so long, but we did make it to the ice bar and it was one chilly experience. We all had to put on these insulated robes before going in and once we were actually inside our whole group broke out into spontaneous dance parties to keep warm. The pictures are hilarious! Plus, if you know Dr. White or Dr. Chambers and can picture them dancing around, that's a laugh in itself ;-)

We're going to the Prime meridian after school, taking tons of pictures, and then heading back to change and get ready to see Twelfth Night (by change I mean that I have to change OUT of my nice teacher clothes and INTO jeans because absolutely no one dresses up for the theatre here).

It's so much easier to update the blog here at work, so I feel like my posts keep getting shorter.

On a fun note, I'm pretty sure my friend Aleks is taking the Oxford/London Express on Saturday to come visit me. She's studying at Oxford the whole semester and I'm stuck here in central London until the 20th--and then I'll join her in Oxford for a ridiculously good time and a visit to Blackwell's, which is quite possible the best book store in the entire world. :-)

Missing you all! (But probably more when I decide to move here since I love it SO much!)

C