serpents' teeth. thankless children. can you tell I've taught Shakespeare this week?

I know, I know, I'm not posting as much these days. Attribute it to lack of time and a need to do school-related things, and forgive me, please.

The highlight of the week was meeting with a group of 25 or so people, a mixture of students from the college in town (10th and 11th forms, more like a specialized high school) and people associated with EuroLing, a foreign-language organization that my friend Natalia works with, to speak English. I told about my life and answered questions for 2 hours, all in English. They all had really good questions, and ones that showed that they understood English and were wanting to know more about points I'd mentioned earlier. I think they knew pretty much everything about me by the end! :)

The other highlight of the week was reading King Lear with my 8th form. Our textbooks have a page and a half summary of the plot, simplified, which I turned into a 6-page play, typed up, made 15 photocopies, and handed out to my kids on Thursday. We divided up the roles and went at it. And it was great! Sasha M, who played King Lear, did a good job, and Firuyza, my best pupil in that class, put some emotion into the role of Cordelia. And, since there are no small parts, only small actors, kudos to Maxim's excellent portrayal of the Fool (let me comment that I wrote the part with him in mind) and Vitaly's soldier, who very dramatically killed Cordelia.

We've talked about memorizing lines and performing it for the school. I hope it happens.

Tomorrow I'm going to the music school in town to watch various of my students perform in a recital...at least 3 Y kids and several 3rd formers at the minimum that I know of already. Then I'm off to Kyiv for the first part of next week for PST University, teaching our new Trainees about primary school. I teach next Thursday, and then I have Friday off for Thanksgiving! PC, perhaps to make up for sending us to site on Christmas last year (the only time I've ever had McDonald's for Christmas dinner!), gave us either Thursday or Friday off to celebrate if our schools let us. My friends Greg and Susannah are coming to my place, and we're going to have a big dinner.