Car and Subbing

This was supposed to be posted last night, but our internet went on quite a long tea break. Sorry!

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More info on the car... it's a tan Nissan Primera, which I've never seen in the States. I'm not sure what year it is, but I think it's a '96. Pictures will follow. I haven't taken any yet. I think we need some sun first. It's just so sad and pathetic looking out there in the fog, and it doesn't even have a name yet. Besides, Nathan and I haven't gone anywhere together in it besides crazy. 


Our American friends the Matt and Brandy gave it to us. Matt is in the same department as Nathan working on his PhD in theology. They needed to upsize (to make up a word) and get a van because they are expecting their third baby this Spring and couldn't fit three car seats in the car. It was gifted to them by some previous American PhD students, and so they gifted it to us. We plan on gifting it to someone else when our time is up here as well.


It was so, so generous of them to think of us, and we couldn't be more grateful. It will really improve our quality of life here and help us with the occasional claustrophobia we feel when we don't get out of walking distance to our house for weeks on end, except for my solo trips to schools to do some subbing. I mean, we haven't even seen the beach closest to us, which is only 20 minutes away in the car. 

Thank you so much Matt, Brandy, Violet, Camille, and baby boy!

To abruptly change the subject, today's sub job was so much better than Tuesday's, probably because all I had to do was take attendance and pop in a movie for the three classes I watched. Actually, the homeroom class I had first for about 15 minutes was the same one I sang the national anthem for earlier this week. They asked for a repeat today, which I obliged... anything to keep them occupied and not destroying people or property. 


Afterwards, they asked for another one. Seeing as how it's St. Patrick's Day, I told them I would sing a little Irish hymn. One boy asked if he could dance while I sang, which I allowed. He started off all Michael Flatley like, but I was only four lines into Be Thou My Vision when the Michael Jackson-like pelvic thrusting started, so he was promptly fired.


The first movie I showed was Zulu, a 1964 historical film about the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879 starring Michael Caine, and the first 20 minutes or so was just a scene of African Zulu warriors and villagers dancing for a visiting Swedish missionary and his daughter. Did I mention that the Zulu females were topless? Did I mention that I had to show this to 8th graders? Yeah. 


Then, for a film studies class, I showed a documentary about how movies have changed since the 50s. It was really interesting aside from all of the foul language, nudity, violence, and substance abuse. I never knew Dennis Hopper was flying high the whole time he was filming every movie he ever did in the 60s and 70s. All I knew about him before today was that he was really mean in Speed. 


"Pop quiz hotshots!"





"What do you do?!"


Anyway, I was really shocked to see some of the movies on the shelf behind the teacher's desk for use during "film studies." Among the titles were: Se7en, 40 Year-Old Virgin, Platoon, Casino, Sex Drive, Snakes on a Plane, and others. The only "classics" I saw were the Lord of the Rings trilogy and... actually, I can't think of another. 


Pop quiz hotshots. What would you do?