Polar bears and baby prostitutes.

Things are still going well here in Thorpe. The week has gone by incredibly fast, setting the tone for the entire summer, I'm sure. On Monday, I am getting switched out of my TA duties in the SAT class and helping in a computer class instead. I don't mind he switch, since I am basically useless at helping with the SAT subject matter. I like the teacher and the students in SAT though, so I will miss them. I think my favorite duty is wandering around in the mornings collecting attendance cards with another TA, Julia. So far the weather has been good so this job is basically taking a nice walk after breakfast with a cup of coffee. The TASIS campus is really beautiful which makes attendance walk even better. In my photography class, I still feel pretty useless, but I'm hoping I don't get switched out because I pretty much get to take the class with the kids, which is fun. I wish I had brought my old film camera so I could develop pictures with the kiddos. I randomly subbed in for an ESL teacher this morning. I basically had to give them an assignment and then make sure they were doing it, but it's fun to say I taught a class. Sort of.

I had to flex my authority figure muscles on Wednesday night when I was on duty. This is when we are assigned a variety of campus-wide tasks between 4-10pm. During study hall, I was assigned to go through the girls dorm and make sure that everyone was in their room doing their homework. They aren't supposed to be talking or doing anything else. Yeah right. By the end of it, I felt like I had been beaten up. I ended up dragging three Russian girls to "supervised study hall" which is basically detention. They are already notorious for being trouble makers. I kind of chased them around the dorm before I got them into study hall. Please take into account that one of these girls responded to a prompt in ESL class by saying she would like to "kill everyone". Another one dresses like a baby postitute (and actually ran around in her underwear on the first night). Some of the other girls were really big brats as well. I'm dreading the next time I have to do this.

I didn't get assigned to chaperone a Saturday trip this weekend, but I'm probably going to grab an extra seat on the bus going in to the Tate Modern because I love that museum. Two other TA's Julia and Meg, and my co-resident Monica, are chaperoning the Tate trip so I'll have people to hangout with there. I was hoping that my cousin would be in the city this weekend so we could meet up, but she is in Coventry working. I have to chaperone a Sunday trip but it's nothing exciting. We are going into Staines which is a neighboring little town that has stores and restaurants (which Thorpe lacks). The kids have the option of going to Staines Monday-Thursday after sports so it's not a big deal of a trip but I think there will still be a good amount that go on Sunday because when you're that age you really just want to go hangout. Maybe it's also more fun to go shop when you have an unlimited amount of money from your parents to shop with like these kids do.

My free weekend is in a week. Some people are traveling to Paris for the weekend, but I'm not feeling the hectic scramble to get somewhere and back in such a short period of time. I'm probably just going to go crash with Amy and Christian for the weekend. Julia is from Oxford and is probably going home on Friday night and said I could come with her if I wanted to. I might do that and then go to Amy's on Saturday morning. We'll see. I'm a big fan of playing things by ear these days.

I have finally gotten a little more contact about my research. I hope it continues so I can get it finished quickly and travel for a good amount of time. I'm still undecided about where I want to go, but we'll see...my mind is on Prague right now.

Something that really stresses me out here is the amount of styrafoam cups I go through. I'm pretty sure Dr. Duquette told us in environmental health that styrafoam is one of the worst materials ever. In fact, all the cups are disposable at meals. It probably is alot of work to wash regular cups, but I just saw an article about how the North Pole might be ice-free all summer. And what about all those polar bears that keep drowning? Do you think it is worse to use all those cups or use a bunch of water and environmental toxic soap?

I'd say I miss you all....but I don't have time to miss anything. Except peanut butter, which isn't allowed in the cafeteria due to allergies.