My Tentative Plan for the ONE weekend

Firstly, I have to make a statement on how awful I have been feeling and will be feeling as I am going to be selfish for that ONE weekend we will have in England. This is because I am doing my own planning on where to go, as opposed to discussing with the other folks where they want to go. Eeek. Sorry.

So far, I heard that the group are planning to go to Salisbury to visit Stonehenge and then Bath etc etc. Well, that is an awesome plan, guys, but not for me. Sorry again. I'm pretty sure they are going to hate and shun me after this. Ohh the risk of becoming a Norma No Friend is daunting.

My simple plan for the weekend is...uhh...I'll let the pictures do the talking, alright?

Portabello Market, Notting Hill 

Oxford

Cambridge

Norwich

Dover

Canterbury

aaand maybe Bicester Village

My simple plan would also involve an old friend who lives in London, she wants me to show her around cuz I am an old pro?! Hey c'mon...that was ages ago la minah!! Can you imagine catching up stories accumulated over 20 years...this will be some weekend.

A Glossary to the blog

You will encounter some acronyms while reading this blog, just because I am a big fan that I don't need to type so much. LOL! I will probably explain what that means too...

By the way the items are not in alphabetical order, just listing them as and when they come to my head, okay. Here goes.

TVET - Technical and Vocational Education and Training-  is concerned with the acquisition of knowledge and skills for the world of work. They were also called Apprenticeship Training, Vocational Education, Technical Education, Technical-Vocational Education (TVE), Occupational Education (OE), Vocational Education and Training (VET), Professional and Vocational Education (PVE), Career and Technical Education (CTE), Workforce Education (WE), Workplace Education (WE), etc. 

CLIL - stands for Content and Language Integrated Learning. It refers to teaching subjects such as science, history and geography to students through a foreign language. This can be by the English teacher using cross-curricular content or the subject teacher using English as the language of instruction. Both methods result in the simultaneous learning of content and English. More on CLIL -> What is CLIL?

MOE - Ministry of Education (Malaysia in our case)

KK - Kolej Komuniti or Community College

KV - Kolej Vokasional or Vocational College

WKC - Westminster Kingsway College

LOL - Laugh Out Loud!

Any questions, just ask! Will update this list as and when required.

Cost of living in London

Planning how much money to bring is a HUGE thing bugging my brain at the moment. The current exchange  rate is RM5.52 to £1!! Should I spend money on food, or should I fill my luggage with maggi cups and later fill the empty space with souvenirs to bring home.

How much would visits to museums and tour buses cost me? Or should I just stay cooped up in my room after class? Here's a little insight into how much things would cost in London, thanks to London Prices. (*After this entry was posted, I went back to the original website and realised that it was last updated in 2007! Holy moly...expect an increase of 10% or so for these prices)

 

Yay..free visits to museums and what else? A cheapie seat at a West End Show? We'll see.

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The basic ingredients are not so expensive, and do look away from those scallops and king prawns. Will be drinking gallons of milk with sauteed aubergine with onions and carrots in butter, I think!

 

Tap water is safe to drink in UK, generally. Not sure in this cosmopolitan city. Lunch would consist of a Mars Bar and a can of Coke then. Will come back skinnier and a diabetic, oh dear!

 

I'm only posting this one in reference to the game of pool and the packet of crisps! What else would I be interested in you think? Hahahahaha!!!!

So much to do and soo little time

It is autumn and daylight is short. How short? Check out this prayer times and we shall see how short the daylight is.

Sunrise 7.31 is the earliest and 7.50 is the latest.
Sunset or Maghrib is at 4.02 the latest and 3.52 the earliest!! Yikes.

Our schedule at WKC starts at 9 am and ends at 4 pm maybe? Haha...so this trip is getting to be really funny, I'm telling ya. We can only enjoy one hour of daytime before our class starts. This also means that we have to do shopping at night, and by 6pm. Everything but pubs and discos, shuts at 6pm.

So what to do and where to go? That'll be in another post. Coming soon.  

The Chosen 20

So here is so called the chosen 20. 13 are from the polytechnics, 4 from the community colleges and 3 from the vocational colleges from all around Malaysia. The three institutions are called the TVET 3, MOE. I don't know, acronyms are friendlier to writers, I guess, so we don't have to type at length...yay!

This two weeks of Phase 2 will see us delving deep inside CLIL + TVET where we will experience and witness first hand how TVET classes and ESL classes are handled at WKC.

When we go back...lalalala...we would have to go back and teach....lalalala...not just our students... lalalala....but our colleagues too! Tit for tat eh?!! Of course!

Staying with Susan Roberts

I wonder if she's related to Julia Roberts.

For the two weeks in London, I've been given a home to stay in with the Roberts family. Susan and her daughter will be my host and they live in Walthamstow in the northern part of London.

The best thing about my host family, is that there is a hobby section at the bottom of the document (which I am not sharing publicly), that says they are into The Performing Arts, Netball, Cinema, Eating Out and Formula One Racing. Hey...they are my kinda people! Only that I don't play netball, but basketball instead! Net...basket...what's the difference, eh? Hopefully we'll get along just fine and enjoy our two weeks together.

This is what the house looks like on the Street View Google Map:

I've bought some souvenirs for the foster family. I wonder if they'd like fridge magnets...

Since it's a household of ladies, maybe I'll get some batik scarves and sarong too. Or maybe a batik kaftan. Gosh I hope they are ready for a very jetlagged occupant.

Bed and breakfast for sojouners

We received some information and details on travelling to the college and where we'd stay in London. Everyone is going to live with a foster family and we're pretty much scattered around London. When I said around London, I really mean the North and South West of London.

Here is a map of everyone's homestays:

And here's a map of the tube stations:

Thanks Charles for devising these cool maps. He sure is techno-savvy! But poor guy he's the farthest from any tube stations and would have to commute via bus+tube+walking. Think positive bro...think positive okay!