End of October

We are now at the end of October and after a very hectic week I have finally found a minute to write something here.

As for Comenius this week I am not having a meeting, this is mainly because we are well advanced with the work and it seems pointless to get everyone together just to answer mails. I have found the time to send Dominika the summary of the questionnaires that the students completed and also three logos, the only ones I have been given.

I have my group sending and answering mails to the German students. These are the only ones they can correspond with at the moment but at least it is going well. They have also been surprised to see that the level of the Germans is not really any different from their own. I think everyone expected them to be fantastic.

Administratively I am still waiting for the money to appear, I know that the Germans and others have received their 80% already so I suppose that we should get ours soon. I have to send a list of the teachers who are going on the trips to Ensenyament but how I am supposed to know who will go to Cyprus two years from now I have no idea.

I have got together a list of contacts for publicity, newspapers, radio stations and even TV. Now it is a question of contacting them and getting them to come and have a look at what we are doing. I have drawn up invitations for the Mayor of Roquetes, and other dignataries, along with all the parents but now we are so close to the trip to Poland in November that I don't think it is worth doing the inauguration now. I have decided to wait till we have got back, then I will have more material to show people and I also hope that the other countries will have their webpages up and running. At the moment Germany and us have a working page.

Poland's is up and running but has no content.

Bulgaria has a homepage, and as I have just checked, it also has the details of half a dozen students so they are starting to move, that is great.

This afternoon I have received a mail from Italy with an address for their page but it is an online generated forum and is a little difficult to navigate around. Additionally it is full of posts in Italian and I don't really know what is going on in each section.

First steps

I haven't written for a while as we have been busy with the first steps of the project, the actual project!!

It seems odd that finally we are actually involved in the work of the project itself.

Well anyway as I think I have said I have 4-5.30 on Thursday afternoons for the project with the students in Informatica 2. Not the best place as it is hard to use the projector but it is good enough. We have already completed several of the first steps of the project.

We have created the blog, even though Dominika wanted a webpage not a blog, and I have managed to include photos of all of the students on the blog. I have insisted that they be careful to give me decent photos to post on the blog as I know that some of them love taking pictures of themselves and others hate it. This led me to think that if some of them on the page look great and the others look like real morons they would not get the same level of attention from the students of our partner countries. Still now it is done and they have all posted photos of themselves and a short bio on the page.

Initially I thought that the pen pal network would be administered by Dominika, precisely for these reasons. But she has decided that they can all write to who they want to. Fair enough we have started to do just that though at the moment it is only the Germans and us. Poland and Bulgaria have web pages posted but there are no details on them and no one to write to. Still in our last meeting I was able to see that some of the students have already received mails from some of the Germans students and had to reply to them. I have insisted on receiving a copy of everything written by them... because I trust them about as far as I can throw them. Some like Ferran are already seeing this as a great chance to "pull" a foreign girl and their mails read the same way as a dating page!!

Apart from this we have also completed quite a lot of the work that has to be done about basic facts about the country. This has been a mixed success as I have received one piece of work that has been through a translator online and a couple more in Catalan!! I have now reminded them that I need it all in English and they have to write it themselves. The second part of this work has been shared out and I am waiting for the results now. We have only produced a couple of logos that are really worth it and I will send them to Dominika when I get a moment to scan them.

I have also asked the students to think about the contents of the exchange box and I have to chase up on what they think this week.

Admin details...

Ok so the contract has been signed and completed and sent off.

I have been on the net and reserved the flights for the visit in November to Poland. I am going with Guillem and Salome, Guillem is from the music dept and Salome teaches English with me. There is the hope that Guillem and I can use this visit to organise a music trip to Poland for the orchestra this year, a sort of English Music combination, and that is why he is coming along for this trip. Music, after all, is very transversal.

Unfortunately we will be away for nine days in total!!! The flights out are no problem, although we have to take two to get to Katowicwe! But on the flights back here we have to spend one night in the UK in Stansted. Of course as that is where I am from it presents no problem, I will phone one of my uncles and impose upon him!! The only other bummer was that I had to pay for the tickets myself and then ask for the money back, no problem except for the panicky phone call from my wife when she went to the bank and saw I had spent 700 odd euros on something!!

I have spoken to Nuria Estrada about all the things I needed to checl, basically she doesn't want to know, she has enough paperwork already and only wants to contact with us when she wants to. Fair enough that means I am on my own and responsible for the whole shooting match. Chould be fun.

I still have worries about things, we will just have to see how some things pan out.