19th July,2000 (Wednesday) Shiny

Early in the morning, Amy received a call from Wilson's host lady informing her of the possibility that Wilson was sick and couldn't make it to the school. Amy went over to his place with my Vitamin C tablets. I headed for the school by myself with a handy camera in my hands as Mrs. Rees told us that we could do a bit videotaping this morning.

I went from class to class in the hope of capturing how our students were taught. Each class consisted of a mixture of students - students of different origins but with similar level of proficiency in written and spoken English. I was impressed by the fierce debate in a class where brighter students were placed. All students were engaged in active conversation and there was sufficient interaction between the students and the tutor. Yanice, Emily, Prissy and Helen were among the students in this class and they did engage, and some even won the applause from other international students. To ensure that my tape contained a bit variety in the class activities, I moved on to another class packed with another group of more active, playful and fun-loving students. Jeff, Suki, Daniel were among the learners. Each group in the class took turns at presenting a story on the basis of 4 unrelated pictures taken randomly from newspaper and magazines. Partly due to the tension arising from my presence, Daniel manifested unwillingness to do the given task when he was asked by the teacher. Only after a presentation by an Italian group did he feel more confident and put up a good show. To preserve more power supply for the prize-giving ceremony on the last day, I terminated the video taping the moment I finished what I had to get that morning.

We spent the afternoon in the town of Bournemouth which was about 15 minutes' drive from the Poole town centre. We all got involved in the bowling games before we headed towards an amusement part near a coastal beach. Students went on their own way to search for fun in the area and I walked by myself along the beach for a while. Vicky, who was with Joyce, was still angry with me and deliberately turned away from where I was. I have tried my best to soothe her feelings about what I mistakenly said to her the previous day by buying Joyce and her an ice bar but she passed it to another person. Maybe she was still mad at me and I decided to go to another site. I met another 7 students in front of the Skytrain where passengers on board were put in such a simulated environment as a roller-coaster. I succumbed to their pathetic facial expression and subsidized them for the game. Once the game started, screaming and laughing suppressed everything inside the machine. We got off with unsteady footsteps until we realized that it's almost time to get back to the pick-up point.

I decided to stay in Bournemouth with Alex Tso, Daniel, Jeff and Derek as they didn't want to go back so soon. Peter was the last one to get on the coach as he got the meeting time wrong. I'm sure the kids on the coach were now familiar with where they should get off in Poole after the intensive training in the previous few days.

To our surprise, shops in Bournemouth closed at around the same time as those in Poole. That means we could hardly find a place to shop around. Eventually, we settled in a British version of Deli Francs and ordered the same item from the menu : as none of them knew how to give the order at the sight of the strange names on the menu. We had a nice talk and we decided to go to have a glass of wine in a pub back in Poole. It took about 45 minutes before we could get on the bus route 103. We occupied the upper deck and our conversation covered everything from the tangible to the most intangible.

When the bus reached the Longfleet Road, I left the 4 guys alone and went back home for an early sleep. I thought they proceeded to a bar for another gathering and I was sure that they could find their way back home.

Before I went to bed, I tried to give Vicky a call to see if she still felt very angry, but she was not home. I just told Mrs. Johnson that I might call her back that night. I then phoned Wilson (who was in the same host family as Dominic) to see if he was getting better. It turned out that Vicky, Joyce, Alex Yiu were in Dominic's place. As I didn't want to stand in the way of their happiness, I just told Dominic to pass onto Vicky a message that I was looking for her. Believing that Dominic would pass the message to Vicky, I didn't give her the call that I told Mrs. Johnson that I might make. Little did I think that the call meant more to Vicky who accordingly stayed up for my call until 11:00 a.m.

I couldn't sleep in and went down to watch the Queen's Special in the lounge room. Queen's mother remained the most popular member of the royal family as one could tell from the euphoria and fervor among the crowds that the 100-year-old legend has captured the hearts of millions on a scale unparalleled by any other human beings who have ever lived on earth.