February 13, 2011
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My life in Belfast continues to (mostly) delight and I am confirmed in my belief that moving away from Birmingham was the right thing to do. I've had another busy week with teaching English at the college to my Proficiency class, though to be honest I feel they know more about English than I ever will! I love the time we spend together as they are a great bunch of students with a variety of interests and backgrounds yet they all seem to get on with each other and me. We are at a crucial point in the teaching year now as we are becoming even more focused on the exam they will sit in June. The Cambridge Proficiency exam is the highest level exam that students can take as second language speakers and they need it to enter some professions and further study at British universities and although all exams are important to those that are taking them I can't help feeling that this is perhaps the most important one. I am very organised though and I'm moving all of them in the right direction and making sure that they are getting the practice that they need each time we meet. I'm hopeful that come June I will not be seeing any of them coming back to re-take the course!
This weekend was nice. Friday we went to see a play at the Waterfront Hall 'Shoot The Crow' which was very good, though the language was very 'earthy' but given the fact that the four actors were playing tilers working on a building site it didn't seem wrong that they should be swearing so much. It was a preview night and so the great and good of the Belfast Arts scene were there and it was nice to see a few people I knew and hadn't seen this year due partly to my being so ill but mostly because the theatre scene seems to slow to a hibernation pace in the mid winter.
Today Patrick and I went out for Brunch and then to the cinema for an early showing of Never Let Me Go which was astoundingly and heartbreakingly beautiful. I have been telling everyone to see it as it is such a good film! The subject matter of human clones produced just for spare parts and how we should treat them and how they should be expected to cope with this knowledge was handled extremely well by what is basically still a very yound cast. Charlotte Rampling was in it too and is aging wonderfully but sadly she didn't have much to do as in the end the film is about the three cloned children/young adults at the centre of the film.
Following that I drove us to Clement's in the Botanic district of the city for a coffee and then home to pick up Fintan for a long walk in The Ormeau Park before heading back home to prepare for a nice evening in.
Not a bad life at all.
