Friday 21st September, 2012         1230

Well well well! This is a milestone indeed! This, folks, is my 500th blog.

Today got quite interesting about fifteen minutes into my first class. My phone rang and as I don’t answer it while teaching unless it is the college calling, I took it from my pocket, didn’t recognise the number and so cancelled it. I put my phone on the desk and returned to teaching, only for it to start ringing again. This time I simply hit the red button. Just as I started teaching again it rang for a third time! Obviously the caller wasn’t getting the message, so I snatched the phone up and snapped “I’m teaching!” into it. A woman on the other end then asked me why I wasn’t in class. I said I was and I was in room 204 because it had been changed on the website from 201. She ended the call and it was only then that I realised it was Prof Fang! A great way to ensure my contract gets renewed! Five minutes later she came to my class with a home teacher and called me outside. It turns out the alteration is not effective until next week (as nobody told me that part it is not my fault thank God) and so a class was waiting patiently for me up the corridor. Someone definitely dropped a ricket because had I gone to 201 the class in 204 would have been waiting in vain. If it was my fault I would have found out before the start of lessons because in all likelihood there would have been another teacher already there. Hopefully those I disappointed earlier are now my last class this afternoon. Never a dull moment here.

2245

An interesting day all round as it turned out. Much to my surprise my desperate ex student appears to now be sorted out with an apartment to rent and of course is now even more convinced I work miracles. I am pleased for her but at the same time have a different opinion considering she will be living in one of the new two bedroom places whilst I will not!

Earlier I decided I would eat at the sweet pork place so got the dogs downstairs and Pepsi on the bike. Just as I was leaving Olivier hailed me and asked if I was going for a beer. I said where I was going and asked if he would like to join me and he did, so off we went. Great for me because we westerners go Dutch and there was no need for me to get a doggy bag. I advised him western Wednesday was on for next week and that he could bring a student and I think he perhaps is looking forward to it. All meal I kept noticing a girl waiting in the restaurant kitchen watching us, who, every time I glanced at her gave me a wave and a smile. I guessed she was a student but not that her boyfriend was one of the cooks and she was waiting for him to finish work. Blow me if she didn’t come out just before the boyfriend, stop at our table and chat in French with my dinner companion - she is one of his students (I would suspect one of his best from the conversation they had which I couldn’t understand but from school days garnered the gist of). Well that little act earned her an invite as Olivier’s “date” and she will be there next week.

I have no idea what to make as yet, he makes his own pizzas so they are off for now in case they get compared, I was tending towards chilli yet he loves lasagne. I can’t make up my mind so will see who agrees to be my partner (I want them to have something they haven’t had before) prior to deciding - after all, what’s the point of being the commis chef if you can’t choose the menu?

I have heard nothing from the kids’ school yet despite my saying I needed to be notified at the latest by Thursday night so as far as I am concerned I have a free weekend - if I get asked to teach the answer will be an emphatic “no”. It may be of course that they don’t want me anyway but the owner is so disorganised when it comes to me - thinks I am Chinese and simply cancel arrangements at the eleventh hour for him - but it would be nice to receive a panicky text and send a flat refusal along with the reason.