I had just finished my last assessed teaching practice. The feeling of relief was indescribable. I did it, I couldn’t believe I actually managed to finish my CELTA. And I couldn’t believe that two my sweetest friends, Syed and Priya, took the day off to visit Cambridge and see me before I was to fly back to Cyprus.
As soon as I left college I headed into the town centre to meet them and I was so happy I nearly cried.
You may not realised it but that was exactly what I needed that day. After a month long, sleep and fun deprivation, away from all my friends, worrying they may forget me now that I’m leaving the country, it meant the world to me that two of them were there with me, celebrating my success.
So thank you Priya and Syed. Thank you for being such sweet, caring friends and for making the trip to Cambridge. It meant the world to me. I miss you!
Have you ever met someone you have a lot in common with? I mean A LOT. Similar taste in music, reading, films, your whole belief system, life aspirations, dreams, even sometimes identical way of thinking.
It’s pretty rare.
That’s why I feel so blessed and overwhelmingly lucky I’ve met a couple of these people in my life so far. One of them is Helena.
One of my favourite things ever is our long chats over a delicious hot cup of herbal tea and cake about travelling, huge life dilemmas and our little adventures, from little wanders in the Forest to running across London at midnight to watch A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
We’ve been daydreaming of escaping our office jobs and exploring the world for a while before we both decided to leave the UK and follow our dreams.
We inspired and encouraged each other to finally take the big step and walk into the unknown.
I don’t know when and where we’ll meet again lovely lady but I cannot wait to see you somewhere on this big wild world and have a long catch up. So much to share already!
I remember just after my interview when Barnaby handed me a bunch of Cambridge English exam books.
I didn’t have a single clue about any of it and I found everything overwhelming.
For about a month I spent hours and hours on planning just four lessons a week. Who knew a month later I’d teach four lessons a day and have an hour or two to plan everything!
If it weren’t for Barnaby and Maro, who offered me my first teaching position only a few weeks after my CELTA, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
So thank you both and sorry I left so soon. I had to follow my heart. I’m not sure whether it was the right decision yet, only time will tell, but I’ll forever be grateful to you.
What is Pasta Grannies and why on earth do you feel the need to thank them? You might wonder.
Well, that’s how it all started a few months ago and I weirdly wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t discovered it.
I came across the Pasta Grannies Youtube channel just a while before and ever since that moment I kept thinking how awesome it would be to do something similar in Cyprus (with my own twist) and then maybe in another countries, but start from home, document my little island’s customs and traditions that have been passed on from generation to generation through our love of food. That’s what Vicky Bennison so beautifully has been doing on the Pasta Grannies channel.
So about a year ago I twitted Vicky with my idea and she replied with this:
That’s when I had an epiphany moment. Why not find a why to do it now? Why wait? Originally, I was to try and film every time I were to visit Cyprus but a few months later, I had another epiphany. I’ll save up for a few months, then quit my job and go back to Cyprus to attempt this. I even came up with a name for the channel and a theme song.
I decided to give teaching a go first (it’s funny how I ended up in Italy out of all places) but I haven’t given up on that dream yet and if it wasn’t for Pasta Grannies I might have still been stuck in an office, so thank you Vicky and Pasta Grannies. Thank you for the inspiration.
Today’s Thankmas is dedicated to my cousin Sophie (though technically she is my aunt, but she is way too young to call her aunt!) not only because she is fun, awesome and one of the few people in Cyprus I can talk in English with, but I wouldn’t have coped that well (or at all) on my CELTA and more importantly, I wouldn’t have been where I am today, as in teaching full time in another country, without her advice, help and encouragement.
A day after my grandpa died I had to teach my second assessed lesson, on Mongolian horse racing (of all things!). I woke up that morning with bright red eyes, I’d cried my eyes out the night before trying to come in terms with the cruel reality that I wasn’t going to see my beloved pappou Costa alive again (I’m tearing up now just thinking about it). Every time I thought of him I couldn’t stop sobbing (more on that here).
How was I going to actually stand in front of people and manage not to cry, let alone teach them?? Sophie’s advice was what got me through not only that lesson but the rest of the month.
‘Remember, teachers are really actors’.
To be able to control my emotions and not burst into tears every time I thought of my grandpa or someone asked me if I was OK I convinced myself I was a great actress. That’s exactly what I did each and every single time until the very end. I still do this today when I’m about to walk into a classroom and I’m exhausted or sad but I don’t want my students to be affected by my mood.
When I moved back to Cyprus (for what it was going to be for a few months but I got itchy feet so I only stayed a month) Sophie recommended me to a great local language school, who offered me a part-time job almost straight away. Working there was what made me realise I wanted to give it a proper go and try my luck somewhere I could get a varied experience, away from ‘home’, whatever that is. I’m so confused now that I moved away from the UK, I don’t know where home’s anymore but that’s another story!
So thank you dear, thank you for everything. Without realising, you probably played the most pivotal role in what is turning to be one of my life’s greatest adventures!
“Doing and actually getting an A on my CELTA (relevant post here) was undoubtedly one of my most memorable and probably the biggest highlight of the year and I wouldn’t have managed to finish it, let alone achieve the highest grade without my classmates”, I wrote yesterday.
But there are two so very important people I would certainly not have done the CELTA (let alone get an A) without, my CELTA tutors, Jonny and Fiona.
I posted about it before and from conversations I had with fellow teachers, I feel I was lucky to have such great tutors.
They were not just incredible teachers themselves (I observed them both delivering interesting, interactive, informative lessons so naturally they made it look easy, but trust me, it is not!) but amazing teacher trainers too. Our input sessions with them were always fun and varied, they managed to grab our attention every single time and we learned a lot from them (with some exceptions towards the end of the course when we were all exhausted and our attention span shrank significantly). Two superb professionals, who though quite different in their teaching methods and personalities, they are a match made in heaven.
What made a huge difference for me was their understanding, kindness and above all, empathy, a rare trait nowadays.
I cried in front of both of them on week one after I informed them my grandpa had died and they not only offered me a break if I had felt I needed it, but they checked up on me making sure I was OK.
They also helped me manage my anxiety which reached ridiculous levels during my CELTA- I haven’t felt that stressed teaching as a professional and I’ve been working with a large number of students, nothing beats CELTA-induced stress I guess-, especially Fiona. She had a way of bringing me back to the moment and somehow making me forget about stress even for a while.
I shared a special moment with each I won’t share, they are both quite personal , but I’ll never forget.
I’ll never forget as well that they believed in me enough to push me for that A grade. They didn’t have to do it, they took a risk and I’m over the moon I didn’t disappoint them.
So thank you Jonny and Fiona. Thank you for your advice and nurturing, your empathy and kindness, your love for that you do, your honesty (God I miss a no bull***t Fiona chat!), for believing in me and for all your hard work.
I wish I’d have spent more time with you, there’s so much more I could have learned!
Doing and actually getting an A on my CELTA (you can check out relevant post here) was undoubtedly one of my most memorable and probably the biggest highlight of the year and I wouldn’t have managed to finish it, let alone achieve the highest grade without my classmates.
The (full time) CELTA experience is so unique and intense, it brings people very close very fast, at least that’s what happened with us. It’s hard not to when you spend most of the day, every day for a month together and you see each other at their worst, stressed, tired and emotional.
We looked after another, comforted each other, read each other’s assignments, lesson plans, helped with cutting, glueing, offered food, got coffee, had a laugh, a cry, long chats, we did it all.
I still remember the hug Carolina gave me when I told her my grandpa had died, the sandwich Darren offered me just before my last TP, since I was so stressed I hadn’t eaten all day, the coffee I desperately needed and Elliot got me when I was running late for my lesson planning session and I had barely slept the night before, laughs to the point I almost peed myself with Sonia, deep conversations on life with Monalisa, Shalala’s look, she could always read my emotions, (I’ll never forget on our last day when we just looked at each other and we both started crying) Fatima’s spicy dates I snacked on for days, Ralph’s bright red face the first time he made a sarcastic joke and Anoushka’s brilliantly still unspoilt enthusiasm (ah to be 21 again!).
So thank you everyone, I would have quit on week one if it weren’t for you.
I hope you are all doing well in your new and not new jobs and lives. Maybe one day we’ll meet again but even if we don’t, we will always have that strong, special bond of August 2019 in Cambridge.
My biggest worry when I moved to Cambridge for a month to do my CELTA was accommodation.
Cambridge is expensive and I couldn’t afford a BnB (or AirBnb) near the college for a month and I didn’t want to live in the centre and commute every day so I opted for the homestay option (staying with a family, though luckily in my case the host’s children had grown up and moved out) the college offered which included breakfast and dinner. But I was terrified. I’ve been living on my own for the last three years (minus a 6 month break in which I lived with a flatmate I did not get along with) and I had knots in my stomach even thinking about living with someone else again.
On a hot, sunny day, the 25th of July, I met Mary, my host, for the first time. She didn’t say much before she grabbed my luggage to clean the wheels and asked me to take my shoes off. I wasn’t sure what to expect after that first encounter.
But Mary turned out to be an incredible host. She didn’t speak much English, though we always somehow managed to communicate, she was wonderfully weird, hanging out bedsheets to dry on the staircase, wearing a plastic bag on her head to keep the fish smell away and I loved her to bits.
She made delicious albeit always ‘with a Chinese flavour’ food every day for all her guests, she would serve dinner for me in her own private kitchen when it was too noisy in the other room because she knew I needed peace and quiet (she’d even tell others to keep it quiet when the levels of noise were too high), she brought me fruit and other treats when I was stuck in my room for hours working on lesson plans, she did my washing and made me feel comfortable and well looked after.
My CELTA experience was definitely one of my 2019 highlights and Mary was huge part of it.
I would have probably worn the same dirty clothes and starved for a month if it wasn’t for Mary. So thank you Mary! I miss your delicious cooking and your sweet laughter!
Saturday evening. I’m wrapped in my fluffy blanket, not because it’s that cold, it’s still 20 degrees in Reggio but because I’m just getting overa cold for the second time in 5 weeks.
I just finished working on my portfolio tasks for my Young Learners IH online course, since I had zero free time on any weekdays this week. Not a single day. At least today I had time to catch up with some of my friends and family. (Apologies to all my friends who I haven’t messaged for a while, or didn’t reply to your messages, I honestly, genuinely didn’t have the time. Keep reading and hopefully you’ll understand).
I was going to go out after this, have a drink with my lovely fellow teachers but I’m exhausted, I’m finding it impossible to leave my sofa.
Surely that’s not how a typical ELT teacher abroad lives you might think.
I’m not sure what I expected teaching English would be like. Most of the stories I’ve read or heard are of partying, travelling, exploring, tasting the local cuisine, living like a local. The actual teaching was rarely mentioned in detail, I always assumed it won’t be that time consuming, though when I made the decision to join my current school I was well aware that was not going to be the case.
‘We work hard here, but we love it’ Lucie had said at the interview. That was one of the reasons I accepted this job. I needed a challenge after years in a mundane job and I could feel just from talking to Lucie how much they all cared about teaching.
”Since it’s my first year, I’d rather work hard, learn as much as possible as fast as possible, so the following years are easier.” I told myself.
I didn’t quit expect it to be as crazy busy though.
So let me give you a taste of how a week of a newly qualified teacher at a busy IH school in Reggio Calabria is like.
First of all there’s no ‘typical’ week. Every day or week something would come up that will change your schedule. ‘Typical’ doesn’t exist in this job, I’ll therefore describe you last week as an example.
(Also, this is NOT my full-time schedule as not all my courses have started yet, this is about two-thirds of the way (God help me when it all kicks off)).
Monday
11 am. I made it to school early (considering I don’t finish until 7pm today). My first lesson starts at 1:30pm and I have to leave the school at 1pm to get to the public school I’m teaching at. I thankfully prepared a draft lesson and I only had to print copies of everything and gather all the material I needed.
But first, coffee! I can’t survive without it. OK let’s do everything quickly (everything takes longer than you’d expect). Oh shhhugar (not a good idea to swear at school), I need to have some lunch before I go. Do I have time?? Nop. OK it will have to wait.
3pm. I’m back at the school. I’m starving, a quick bite (thankfully I brought lunch with me today) whilst I show a colleague how to use my camera for some filming for a promotional video and then off to finish planning my lesson for my one to one later today, re-design my poster for the conference on Friday (ah, why did I do it in Word?) and if time allows plan my new one to one with a doctor starting tomorrow. Lisa already gave me a few ideas for that (I love Lisa’s ideas) so that will save me some time.
About 4pm. A message comes in. Tomorrow’s external lessons are cancelled, public schools will remain closed due to the weather warnings. Southern Italy is not built for rain.
5:50pm. I lost track of time. I have 10 minutes to print off an activity to do for my one to one, the rest of the lesson is ready. The weather is getting worse, we can hear the gusting winds hitting the windows. Apparently the port closed. I wouldn’t like to be in a ferry in this weather!
6pm. One of the receptionists comes in. ‘We are closing the school’. Hooray you might think, you now have some free time. No. I make it home around 7pm, feeling a bit shivery and with a sore throat. Just what I needed!
I filled in my register (we need to submit a form after each lesson we do), had a shower, dinner, I helped my bestie with a presentation she was working on and then I re-designed my poster, from scratch. I finished about 11pm. Absolutely knackered. And it’s only Monday.At least my poster looks cool, I can’t wait to see it in A3 on Friday! (Thank you Suzanne for reminding me how awesome Canva is).
Tuesday
12pm. I don’t need to be in until 3pm now that my external lesson was cancelled but there’s a lot to do and no time to do it in.
OK, let’s start by planning today’s lessons, pop in to lesson planning with James (life and time saving!) and then make time to start preparing for my first formal observation on Friday.
3pm. Time to film one of the lessons. I’m glad I managed to do that. I love filming. The little ones are adorable and Mariah, their teacher is awesome, it gave me a couple of ideas for my lessons!
4:20pm. I just finished filming and I need to hand over the camera to Suzanne and rush to my next assignment, help out an Italian couple with their presentation for a pitch event.
4:30pm. The lady arrives but she is not happy, her first session was with someone else, she didn’t know she would get me today. It was hard not to take it personally though she kept repeating it wasn’t my fault (the conversation was in Italian but I could pick up a few words). Anyway by the end of the session both herself and her husband left smiling and thanking me profusely. Job done.
5:30pm. I have 45 minutes to finish preparing for my adults lesson later tonight and start working on my lesson plan for the new classes starting tomorrow. OK, I need another coffee!
6:15pm. Time for my one to one with the doctor. Not sure what to expect, I can’t even concentrate.
7:15pm. It all went well. You never know with one to ones, they are so personal and intimate, if your student doesn’t like you, it can make your life and theirs impossible. But all good.
7:45pm. OK, thank God I last minute printed all my material for this lesson. And thank God I teach adults too, keeps me sane!
9:30pm. I made it home. My throat hurts even more, I’m tired and I need to finish some work but I can’t. I do the register, have dinner and straight to bed.
Wednesday
11am. I drag myself to school. My throat definitely got worse overnight and I didn’t sleep much because of my now blocked nose. I have my Italian lesson in half an hour and I still need to print all the material for my classes today. I just hope and pray to make it through today.
12:30pm. Italian lesson done. I have about an hour to prepare everything and then have some lunch. It’s gonna be very close.
2:30pm. I’m here with the rest of the crew, two classes back to back at this new school. The language assistant is lovely, but she doesn’t speak much English, I hope it all works out OK.
5:50pm. Alessia picked me up to take me back to the school but we are stuck in traffic. I have to be at the school for my 6pm appointment.
5:55pm. Oh my lord. OK. Pheew. I drop everything on my desk and run upstairs (My desk is in such a mess I can’t even look at it).
6:20pm. The lady who I had the one to one with (another person to help with their pitch) didn’t show up. I might get some time to work on my observation lesson after all.
6:30pm. The lady showed up, half an hour late. Running back upstairs!
7pm. She was so lovely, I wanted to give her a hug and her business idea was great. I hope she wins!
7:30pm. I need to get my hair dyed and I need to buy food but all I want to do is lie down and wake up when this cold goes away.
8:30pm. After a quick stop at the supermarket, I made it back home, had dinner and put the hair dye on (finally I’ll get rid of white hair, it’s been giving me nightmares)! My cold got worse, I can’t breathe properly.
9:30pm. OK, I need to comment on the forum, a requirement for my online course, otherwise workload will pile up. What day is it again??
11pm. I’m heading to bed early. Oh please universe help me sleep.
3am. This is the fifth time I woke up. Stupid cold!
Thursday
11am. I don’t need to be in until 1:20pm but I have a crucial, time-constraining to-do list. I head to the pharmacy to get some Nurofen Cold and Flu (14 EUROS!!!) and straight to school.
1pm. I finished preparing for my poster presentation, I finished reading the scientific article the doctor sent me for tonight’s lesson and I can have lunch very quickly.
1:20pm. INSETT time. Vince is presenting today. I love Vince, his British humour in his Italian accent. Brilliant. And what a great time to sit down and have a little break from all the things I have to do and learn something new.
2:50pm. I’m running to get to a local school I’m invigilating an exam for. Thank God Anna showed up to give me a lift. I wouldn’t have made it on time.
3:10pm. I’m at the school. Not sure where to go, I vaguely remember the way from last time. I asked the caretaker, she doesn’t speak English bless her.
3:14pm. I found the room. It was locked. Back to the caretaker. We somehow managed to communicate using gestures and Google translate. She came back, let me in and the person with her turned the lights on for me (no it wasn’t a simple switch on the wall, in case you are wondering, it was a panel with labels in Italian!).
3:22pm. I quickly arranged the chairs and let the students in. We start the exam.
4:45pm. I’m finally back at the school. I need to finish a vocab exercise I prepared for the doctor, finish my lesson plan for the adult class straight afterwards and finish preparing the material for my observation lesson tomorrow. PANIC!!!
6:15pm. OK, only thing left to do is finish cutting the material for tomorrow. But time for my one to one.
7:15pm. What an amazing lesson. I taught him English and he taught me medicine. We talked about different cancer treatments, types of cancer, haematological diseases. Fascinating. I should have paid him for teaching me.
7:45pm. OK I just need to get through this lesson then I can finish all the cutting and head home to finish off my documents for the observation.
9:45pm. All the material ready for tomorrow, I can head home now.
11pm. After a quick dinner and shower, I spent the last two hours preparing my paperwork for tomorrow. All done now. OK I need to go to bed. I have to get up at 7:30am.
Friday
7:45am. Thank God for Nurofen I feel a bit better. I only have 45 minutes to get ready. OK, remember it’s Friday, this week is almost over!
8:40pm. After a very tiny, small breakfast I got ready as quickly as I physically could and ran outside. The School’s annual ELT conference starts in 20 minutes!
8:50pm. I thankfully made it at a reasonable time, only 10 minutes late and it hasn’t started yet. Pheew.
11am. The first two sessions were great, especially Simon Ward’s talk on using positive psychology in the classroom. I forgot how awesome and engaging psychology practitioners can be. I guess that’s what experience with helping other humans make sense of the world does for you. Now for my poster presentation and then I can leave early (thank you Lucie!) and go back to school to print off the paperwork for my observation and have some lunch.
11:30am. The poster presentation went better than I thought. I was worried no one would be interested in my poster but I actually got to talk to 6-7 different people who genuinely seemed to enjoy it!
12:20pm. All ready for my observation lesson. I have no food with me so off to the nearest shop.
1:20pm. We made it to the school early. That means I can check whether the smartboard works! Of course it doesn’t. Let’s hope the mini-projector I brought with me does the trick.
2:30pm. I feel defeated. I don’t have any strength even to cry. Whatever it could have gone wrong in that lesson, it did. Technology failed me several times, my regular language assistant was not there and the children wouldn’t listen to me but I refused to shout at them. I tried my best. On the positive side that’s why I asked to be observed and be given feedback on this class, is my most challenging by far and I desperately need help.
3pm. I have some admin to do and then I need to tidy up my desk. I can bear this mess any longer.
6pm. OK admin done and handed in, I deserve a coffee and a snack. Lucie just came in and gave me a chocolate bear for presenting a poster at the conference. She is the sweetest!
7:30pm. Desk all clean, everything packed. I can go home and not do any more work for today!!
10pm. I’m so tired I’m actually heading to bed early on a Friday. Thank you universe. I can’t believe I made it through this week.
That’s it, that’s how not just my week but everyone else’s I work with has been.
The first year of teaching is NOT easy. If you work full-time, if you care about your students and what you teach them, if you care about your teaching and your performance, if you work for a school that cares, prepare to work hard. It’s exhausting but at the same time incredibly rewarding.
I miss having time for myself, I miss doing other things I enjoy, I miss not having free time to just chill.
You know what though? I love every minute. And also that means it will only get easier.For now, I’m ready for another crazy week.
It’s been a crazy busy few weeks as you probably have guessed from my recent updates.
I’m finally catching up with my blog and vlog (and my life in general). So, almost two months later here’s the vlog from the short break I spent at the beautiful island of Rhodes with my sister Stella.
Places mentioned/we’ve been:
Nafsika hotel. One of the cheaper options for accommodation, where we stayed. Sparkling clean, central, amazing sea views, pretty decent breakfast. We loved it.
The port area
Anemos taverna– The cafe/tavern we stopped before heading down to Tsambika beach. Gorgeous views.
Tsambika beach- Where the mountain meets the sea. No need to say much. We loved it.
Rhodes Old Town (including the Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights)
Steam Cafe. A cool, indie cafe with healthy options, perfect for a rest stop on our way to Rhodes Acropolis.
Pizza Del Vesuvio. The last place we ate before we heading back to Cyprus. We were after a traditional restaurant just opposite this but it was closed. Decent pizza and decent prices though.
Hope you enjoyed this. Next vlog will have an Italian flavour!
Lessons I learned after I turned 30 