Arrival

Emirites is the best airline EVER!! The food is good, there's enough leg room and they even give you a cosy blanket so you can go to sleep. I arrived in Bangalore at 5am in the morning and took an eventful taxi ride to my contact in India's house, eventful because the taxi driver had no idea where he was going and the driving in Bangalore is manic. They have no concept of lanes or only driving on one side of the road. Motorcycles and scooters zip between the cars, buses and autorickshaws. When they stop at the traffic lights on the far left they are more than happy to drive in straight in front of everyone in order to turn right. As you can imagine horns NEVER stop going, all day and all night!
Patricia set me up working in a school, I arrived on Friday had lunch with the headmistress and settled in over the weekend. I've got my own apartment in the teacher's block with living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and balcony(although I never go in the Kitchen because I think I can smell a dead rat!! lol -really should get that checked out). Despite the rat, noise (including car horns and club music which is nearly all English, ie Maneater!) and all my bedding having the words 'sick room' written on them, my room is great, I wasn't expecting anything like this good.
I've been observing classes for the past day and a half and learning about the school. It's Bishop Cotton's Girls School; there's 3500 girls here ranging from age 4-18 and with 60 per class. Nearly all of them speak really good English, and all teaching is done in English. They work scarily hard, during years 11 and 12 (our equivalent of 12 and 13) they take 6 A-level equivalents! Their exams are in March and between now and then the year 12 girls will have at least one mock exam per day which they need to get a good mark in, or they will be punished - I'm not quite sure what this punishment is. The boarders are woken up at 6am to study before school and then they have to study after school and after supper. The teachers are often incredibly strict and expect perfect behaviour at all times. The pressure here is enormous for the girls, because it is so hard to get a job your qualifications need to be good, and this school is ensuring that they are. However it is a private school and so it may well be very different in a rural or state school.
Tomorrow I'm going to be teaching a yr8 linguistics class, we're reading through the Scarlet Pimpernel (I've never read it before!) and I think the day after I'm suppose to be teaching a History class (on Indian Architectutre - ie my subject of specialism...!). It could be an interesting lesson...or at least a short one! I'm hoping to go and working in a more rural school soon, where they may actually need someone to teach english or other basic subjects. It's also possible that I could go and work in a hospital or program for female street children. It's a case of wait and see at the moment. But all is going well and I'm enjoying myself!