There's a Banana in My Briefcase! Day Thirteen

I've decided that the humble banana is a vegan's secret weapon. On days like today, I swear they are the only thing which keeps me going.

Today was the first DELTA seminar, or "input session". It was Background to Second Language Acquisition. We looked at the three big theories - the Behaviourist position (BF Skinner, with his 1957 book, Verbal Behaviour, Robert Lado, Contrastive Analysis), the Innatist/Mentalist position (Chomsky, with his 1959 "A Review of BF Skinner's Verbal Behaviour", Stephen Krashen, the Input Hypothesis), and the Interactionist position (Michael Long, caretaker talk, negotiation of meaning).

I left the building a little dazed and glazed - and ate the banana from my briefcase, and felt so much better.

Then I slipped. Not a major slip-up in the grand scheme of all things vegan. I mean, I didn't sit down and have an oozy, bloody steak. I didn't munch down on a ham and cheese sandwich. I didn't even get a whiff of a fast-food burger...

Nope, while in the supermarket at the train station, looking for some nuts to snack on, I weakened, and bought Gatorade. A coffee (which I am also trying to cut back on) would have been a better option! At least I could have put brown sugar in it. I did think "Oh, bad food choice, bad food choice" while buying it, but low blood pressure was saying "Get me some Gatorade, woman!", so I did...

On the train, I had my prepared lunch - peanut butter on brown bread sandwiches, mandarins, a(nother) banana, and the hazelnuts I'd bought (along with the Gatorade). I drank the Gatorade, as I googled it...and found that, apart from being appallingly bad for my health, the fact that it contains white sugar means that it technically isn't vegan, because white sugar is refined in a process which uses animal bones. This magazine contains an interesting article on the subject (of sugar refining), as well as some recipes and other useful stuff.

It's been such a busy couple of days that I decided not to beat myself up toooooo much about the slip-up, and just get on with it.

It was straight off the train, into the car, and off to Viterbo for our annual Cambridge Exams seminar, organised at the lovely Villa Sofia. There were three speakers. Josephine McNulty, who gave a very useful presentation on using technology in the classroom. She's the first presenter I think I've seen who addresses the "what to do if you only have the projector and computer, and not the actual interactive whiteboard?" question, and I'm about to go download some interactive whiteboard freeware to start getting a handle on it.

Rebecca Haag spoke about the new FCE for Schools exam, and her talk included some ideas and tips for classroom activities as we prepare our students for this exam.

Margaret Horrigan was the last speaker (she was also the first of my day, as she's one of my DELTA tutors!), and talked about traditional teaching methods. Page 21 of this journal is where you'll find her article on this subject.

Back to menu plan - raced back home and found my mother-in-law's wonderful minestrone, and this time, hubby had asked her not to put in the parmesan rind, so I could eat it! Yay. It was full of borlotti beans, rice, potatoes (yes, starch, starch and more starch, but yummy anyway!), carrots, celery and all those good things. I topped it with some nutritional yeast, and was as happy as a vegan who cheated could be! Finished with two kiwi-fruit, a mandarin and two oranges. I think I got my 5+ today!

Off to google wine + vegan now, and plan a lesson using my new freeware.