In a Sentimental Mood

I feel like a Tory MP with all the false promises I have made in this blog, regarding upping the frequency of them that is. Bit of a relief that, unlike jobs in the public sector & funding for education, the amount of blogs I upload is completely unimportant.
Besides, I have been pretty busy and this is still relatively quick on the back of the other. Currently I have some kinda illness, but definitely descending from the highest plateau of the malady now so there's no cause for concern/joy. Does have me feeling like complete shit still though, but that's only somatic...continuing to settle in here and mentally I feel quite content or whatever.
Not much to tell of from school really. Think I'm improving as a teacher but the jury is clearly still out amongst the children, was told in one ear today "You are a beautiful teacher", whilst in the other a kid whispered "You have two heads", so conflicting views. Also had a brilliant, very informative conversation with a little girl about shit the other day. Don't mean 'shit' as in 'things' there, but physical shit....anyway I took down a transcript at the time cos I thought it was great, so here it is:
"Joshua, what is the caca en Ingles?"
"Poo"
"Can I tell you about the poo?"
"Yeah...." (I must add that I only said yes because I assumed she wasn't actually gonna tell me about shit)
"The poo is one thing that is brown and soft and if you eat grass it is green and brown and if you are sick it is yellow and it comes out of your anus and...."
....at the mention of anus ("ah-noose") I had to stop her, although not before her friend intervened with "or Rectum!". If I ever see any of them eating grass, I'm not gonna stick around to see what happens next that's for sure. Such a strange dichotomy in these upper-class kids, this is a girl who had told me in the previous lesson that she likes to play Beethoven, but she also loves a crack concerning shit (that pun was completely unintentional, obviously I would never say anything so crude intentionally as my friends know well).
On Friday there was a staff party, at which a co-worker and myself got really drunk and leeched on the female staff before stealing the leftover alcohol at the end.....I like to think we set out our stall for the year to come. Weren't too embarrassing (of what I remember) though and now it seems easier to converse at school, so probably a good thing.
Not much happened at the weekend apart from that, sat in and watched a ridiculous amount of football as per usual (love for Falcao is growing week by week and I fear his lawyer might have a job on his hands sometime soon). Here I kinda intended to take what would be an unusual move for someone as narcissistic as myself and talk about something other than my own life for a change, although only to indulge myself in complaining about the current racism storm and the FA being comprised of a bunch of pathetic sycophants....but right now I don't feel much like going into it. I do think it's important that people as unimportant as myself talk about it though, Jamie Redknapp's advising that it is best we stop talking about it now is complete bollocks. If injustices aren't talked about then they heighten in their severity and regularity and so Jamie should be ignored even more than he usually is.
Signing out here, stuff to do before wasting yet another night watching football....hopefully see Franco's boys Pepe, Ronaldo and co. beaten in Germany tonight.

Lonnie's Lament

Finally getting round to writing another of these, working is not conducive to writing. My journey to Ecuador was really eventful but of the way back I don't remember much happening. The girl sitting next to me on the flight back to Europe was going insane with her prayers at the start of the journey, never seen somebody so scared of flying. Proud of myself, perhaps undeservedly, for sequestering my desire to turn to her with a crazy look on my face and say "Tonight, we dine in hell"....I guess probably she didn't speak English anyway. As I say I remember little else from that journey, this is about all - thoroughly searched for drugs in Guayaquil airport until they realised I wasn't traveling to Amsterdam, nearly missed my flight in Quito and lost 50 Euros in Madrid airport right after getting off the plane, slept an hour in two days and sorted out all the shit here like that, was a bleak time really.
That weekend I went to the At.Mad game vs Valladolid, which was pretty special. Once my financial situation is more steady I'm gonna go all the home games and finally realise my dream of becoming best friends with Falcao.
I started work the Monday after that so consequently I haven't seen much of Madrid yet, it seems pretty cool from what I have but I haven't really capitalised so far, so whatever opinions I give on the place in here are based mainly on my first impressions of my bedroom and the school. Work is pretty cool, it's maybe a little more difficult than I anticipated and I think it helps if you give more a shit than I do about things to teach primary, but still I think I am doing okay. Highlight so far was probably shitting all over one of them (metaphorically) in an Elvis Presley style dance-off the other day. Had a class voted over who won and he didn't get a vote, I killed it, never has there been a teacher with such hips.
Next week there is a staff party which is casino themed, so my gambling addiction will be revealed to all less than a month into work. I picture myself sitting at a table crying with my last 50 cents on black 17 after all the rest of the teachers have left to party in Madrid, pretty excited at the prospect.
I swear that from next week, I will start noting down when something funny or notable happens because right now I am writing this without any recollection of the last few weeks, which is a shame because it's been pretty funny I think.
Everybody at the school is cool and I'm, if not happy, at least getting by without too many grumblings. Except today I am far too hungover and a family in my apartment block have sang Cumpleanos Feliz about a million times, least in a couple of minutes the birthday is over and I have avoided shouting "I wish you had never been born!" out of the window. Gonna leave it here but I will keep on top of writing and maybe write another in a couple of days. Hopefully some exciting shit happens over the weekend for me to report. Hope all my Alaskan followers are doing great.

Back and forth

Kinda abandoned this of late due to not having done much, sorry to my vehement followers in Alaska (sure blogger's statistics are false). Recently I have been living a life pretty similar to that I did in Britain. It is with great shame that I admit to having wallowed in my room in this South American UNESCO World Heritage site waiting for the weekend and the punishment alcohol will deliver. Have gotten inebriated in some pretty interesting environments though, particularly la Fiesta de Guapulo....it was really interesting seeing such a party and the view from Guapulo is something I will keep with me forever. I will even cherish the memory of the gay dwarf being overbearing in his pursuit of me, certainly I regret my inauthentic "Puto" remark. I have some pretty funny things I could maybe include but I'm not sure if I want to divulge (don't worry Ma, it's not me and Paul Gascoigne with hookers and cocaine in a hotel room or anything, I just think that my humour is too much of an acquired taste and so I'd rather share with my friends only certain observations/events than potentially offend anybody).
As I'm sure all the non-Alaskan/Russians that are reading this will be aware due to the fact that you are most likely my Facebook and/or genuine friend, this morning I was offered a position teaching in Madrid which I have taken. Therefore, my Ecuadorean experience will come to a close this Wednesday. For a place I have only known a month, definitely a feel anomalous amount of grief over leaving. Also, I have yet to do anything of the touristic things so today/tomorrow I must make a flying tour of the city. I mean, I feel like I have gotten to know the city in a more genuine way and scratched the tourist veneer so this I don't really regret, but it would be nice to get some snaps of the place or whatever. Even though I don't really understand that touristy thing of taking photos of yourself in places to say you went there when you only really go there to take a photo of yourself there in the first place....I'm not a crazy nihilist who is about to go against such norms, I don't even have a piercing for God's sake.
If this blog is a little manic/inarticulate then I am placing the blame on me being slightly sleep-deprived, because of the time difference my interview was at 4am, stayed up to find out the news and haven't been able to sleep since on account of the million and one thoughts in my mind. I feel really muddled over the fact that I am now switching continents again and on such short notice, I think there's a real chance of me losing my grip of reality on the flight back and trying to hijack the plane with my on-flight meal or something. Let's be honest, I've never been the most sane person to start with.
One thing I will remember on the way back is to put my laptop in my hand luggage, rookie error thinking it'd be safe cushioned in it's bag and between clothes means I'm having to mess around with the browser window here to avoid the parts of the screen where it is cracked, I'm an idiot. Maybe I'll just put my pillow in my suitcase as I didn't really utilise it anyway and it was causing trouble in Frankfurt (does 'explosive dust' truly exist or have customs read too much Philip Pullman?)
In my sleep-deprived excitement I've just purchased a Bon Iver ticket for next month in Madrid despite having no money.....if anybody wants to come I'd really like that. Also, if anybody has any friends in Madrid who aren't easily annoyed perhaps you could put us in touch. Preferably they'd be a beautiful female or Falcao, I'm not too fussed though as long as it's not Pepe or 'CR7'. Sorry overload of football references, just excited to be back in Europe and watch the continental games in the evening/3 o'clock KOs in the afternoon again. Shit, my excitement has me rambling so I'll draw this to a close. I should also mention that the school I am to be teaching at looks really nice and I'm excited about that also, there are 11 other native speakers (English/German/Russian) working there which is cool and the women who interviewed me, who are to be my bosses, seemed really easy to get along with.
All in all, I have excitement which is personally unparalleled and really can't wait to get to Spain, but would like to say again that it is not without a heavy heart that I leave Ecuador and a big thank you to all those who have made me feel so welcome.

Todos los ninos estan locos

Title of this is just borrowed from The Doors translated into Spanish, not really saying children are insane or anything it's just that I couldn't conjure up a title and I'm watching Apocalypse Now with Spanish subs at the moment. Nor am I saying that I don't think all children are insane - there's a good chance they are, just that I don't really have an opinion either way about it. You'd really think I'd have just changed the title instead of writing this verbose explanation but there we are, the legacy of my struggling to meet the word count in academic essays I suppose.
I don't know if I have done enough of interest in the last couple of days to warrant this (just to warn anybody bored enough to continue reading despite that last paragraph), but I've had a really boring day and feel like a release through writing which doesn't involve littering my notepad with more inarticulate writings that resemble the work of My Chemical Romance (hyperbole - almost certain they're not nearly as depressing nor as shite).
For the last couple of days I've been staying in a Hotel, 'Hotel Cumbaya', living the high life....relatively. Having said that, yesterday I lost my key and couldn't leave on account of the fact I couldn't get back in without being able to explain the situation to the guy at reception, which I could not. Couldn't even leave the place to get food or water....was like 127 Hours only 7 Hours and I didn't have to drink my own piss or cut my own arm off, still though, pretty intense.
Don't want to mislead you and make it sound as though being locked in a room for 7 hours was the most entertaining thing to happen to me since I wrote one of these, it's just the first thing that came to my head to write of. Thursday and yesterday I went to a couple of gigs, which were both really good and opened my eyes to the fact that good music is produced in countries such as Ecuador, something which I guess I was too ignorant to have thought the case before I came here. Also I kinda liked the fact that I couldn't understand the lyrics, I think when you're listening to unfamiliar music live trying to follow and comprehend the lyrics can be detrimental to your overall comprehension of the music and therefore kinda ruin things. That's just me anyway, perhaps I'm just a little too slow for it all. The bars that I've been to so far are really cool too, far more akin to the bars of Liverpool than I anticipated. Still getting used to the fact that when people here go to 'parties' after gigs and stuff, that isn't synonymous with getting shitfaced and causing irreparable damage to your liver and integrity though. I mean, my brain can recognise that it's a good thing, but my alcohol-dependent British heart/liver say different.
Tomorrow I might go visit the British Embassy to see about getting a Visa. Still debating whether or not to do so though because apparently that Julian Assange debacle means that there's loads of Ecuadoreans protesting down there every day and I think that me showing up might result in them presuming I'm some colonial wanker and setting me alight or something. In any case I read that if you just stay illegally, the only consequence is that you incur a 9 month ban from the country on departure. Just enough time to get a girl pregnant at home and retreat to Ecuador when the kid comes (tasteless/poor joke, sorry).
Gonna leave it here because I haven't much more to say, indeed reading that ^ back it would appear I had little to say in the first place. I will mention though, earlier I went to McDonalds and managed to order a whole meal and say I was eating in, all that shit, without any problems. Small victory but I'm reveling in it after numerous frustrations in food places. You could even say I'm lovin' it (holy shiittttt - new low). Gonna make these entries more sporadic after this, and hopefully more entertaining as a result.
P.S. My Ecuadorean Television career is over before it truly begun....gonna watch Brando's performance in this film even more attentively than usual.

Las Primeras Dias

Haven't really been on a computer because I didn't have the foresight to buy an adapter for my laptop and it has no battery, assumed I couldn't write on here via mobile and couldn't really be bothered to if I could to be honest. Didn't give enough thought to how demanding of an endeavour this blog thing is, documenting everything is testing and I am no Kerouac esque personality who can lay out his feelings with any sort of ease anyway, but I´ll carry on writing (if in a slightly superficial way).
Settling into Quito pretty well all in all. Spent much of my time in Cumbaya, stalking Juan whilst he attends Uni and doing not much at all in the grounds of the place. Pretty much a continuation of the last three years aside from the geography and stalking. Cumbaya and the University itself are both really beautiful places though. 
Last Saturday I went to a party of Juan's friends' which was pretty cool, the house would cause Kevin Mccloud to have the biggest orgasm known to man and his friends were jamming which was good entertainment. Ecuadorean beer is pretty good too, I mean I was drinking Brahma so I don't know why I'm saying that here, but I have tried it and it has my approval for sure. The DJ played Tribe for me too, so all in all it was a success. Didn't intend on commenting on the standard of girls there but I realise that my friends from Whitehaven are an assuming and suspicious bunch, don't wanna be called a big gay or anything - Ecuadorean girls are hot. And are puzzlingly interested in British people. Although my accent scarcely gives away the fact I am British. I feel like my first experience of a party here should have bore more fruit in terms of this being a longer, more interesting account, but then I guess all parties comprise pretty much of a bunch of people getting pissed and having a good time - so there isn't much else I can say.
I think this entry is gonna be very mundane cos the only entertaining characteristic I have is occasionally being able to make people laugh and I only source my humour from acerbic thoughts about life, maybe here I am at the moment too happy to be funny and therefore entertaining. As Lee Ranaldo says though 'you can change your clothes, change your hairstyle, your friends, cities, continents, but sooner or later your old self will always catch up, always it waits in the wings'.....plus the class system here is already stressing me out so maybe in time this will ferment into a-musings. 
I auditioned for an advert selling cable on the TV here yesterday, which was a pretty funny thing to do. I can confirm to anybody out there insane enough to think I have it in me to replace Heath Ledger that this is not so, but it was good to have a go at it anyway. If I by some miracle am selected then I'll be sure to link you all to the Youtube clip, and never return home knowing the abuse I'd get.
Sorry to waste your time with this shit, I know that if you wanted the rambling of an egotistical prick and no laughs in between then you could just buy a Michael McIntyre DVD.....I just really don't have it in me at this moment in time. I have been trying my hand at some creative writing for the first time in a long time and I'd share that instead but if you know or are one of my home friends then you will understand my motives behind withholding them. 
Tomorrow I am going to my first Spanish lesson, sure to be a disaster and therefore perhaps provide a laugh or two, so will jot down how it goes and then maybe upload it onto here should there be anything worth telling.

Trains, Planes and AutoMoFarah (after deciding 'Mein Kampf' was too much despite its relevance)

6.45 Manchester Airport - Blowing my resolution to cut down on cynicism. If there's a more profound demonstration of how obnoxious humanity is than visiting an airport, I don't know it. Fantasising about some form of disaster which I and only those I select can escape from (dunno where my source of power in this comes from - thinking maybe Bernard's Watch) and choosing to spare only the nice Polish girl who served me an overly generous portion of fries in BK earlier (fries at 6am - fat shit). Just grumpy cosa lack of sleep though, humanity isn't even that bad there are just too many fat slags in here getting ready to cheat on their soon-to-be husbands in Malia + gimps coming back from Cancun with 'I partied in Cancun' t-shirts on, would have never guessed from the fact that you just got off a plane from Cancun lads.  In case you're thinking I just assumed an Eastern European girl was Polish, she had a flag on her name badge, what is that shit? The Olympics are over Burger King, and serving fries was never an event.
Karma for being a grumpy dickhead in the frustrating yet relatively serene Manchester I guess - complete and utter nightmare in Frankfurt. Take heed anybody who by a massive coincidence reads this and is thinking of using Puerto Rico/America for connecting flights, you need an 'ESTA'. Found out 25 mins before boarding time this was the case and that you could only obtain one from way across the Airport in a different terminal. Sprinted there while frantically screaming at anyone airport staff I passed that I was looking for Hall B only to get there and discover the systems were down. Felt like Man City in the 93rd minute vs QPR @ 2-2. Systems miraculously regained life though and a stereotypically efficient German guy was my Mario Balotelli - working hard to put me in with a chance. Found a bit of pace anyone who seen my pre-season stint with the D&P would forecast as completely impossible and here I am somewhere over the Atlantic.
Sorry to any woman/non-football fans reading (who am I kidding? there are no women - I am really addressing my Ma and non-football fans here) for that mundane, tenuous analogy, just trying to spice it up a bit and I'm new to this....plus the added bonus of pissing Decky off should he read was irresistible. So relieved to have caught the flight though, especially when taking into account I went for a casual shit in Frankfurt pre-ESTA drama, really didn't wanna 'Do a Nath'....although I dunno if mine would count given that it wouldn't have been intentional in order for to write an interesting Facebook status pal?
Will type up the rest of traveling musings tomorrow.

Ecuador Eve

Feels a little fraudulent starting my 'Travel Blog' from my bedroom in Moresby Parks, but I don't really intend on doing a heap of traveling anyway and I guess I could justify it with some pseudo-philosophy about "Life being one big journey", & aside from that I want to use it as an outlet tolet everyone know how much I'll miss them while I'm gone.
The security of living in a place deeply affirmed in my consciousness as 'home' and being surrounded by most of those important to me is something I've overlooked too often and is really apparent at this moment, making the prospect of leaving less appealing than I'd anticipated, but ultimately it's something I gotta do (both for my own personal development and to avoid being called a pussy for the rest of my life).
Knowing I have Whitehaven and its ethereal attractions to return to is comfort though, and apart from anxieties caused by my shit Spanish, I've nothing but excitement in terms of looking ahead to being in Ecuador).
Intended to write down some of my pre-conceptions about my trip here for looking back on, but they'd probably just make me cringe at my naivete so I'll leave it here, safe in the knowledge that I'll be too far away to be ripped effectively for this sincerity by the time most of you read it.