Its an AAAAAAAATRAYGE!

Evening all.

Sunday evening and antiques roadshow has yet again consigned me to the sofa, while i check emails and dream of that day that i finally find a faberge egg in a dewsbury moor raffle. The lounge is currently filled with lovely winter smells of roasting vegetables and christmas trees. Both of which should be self explanatory, but may need elaborations.

First, some background. I have been told this week i have a very tidy lounge, a fact i'm sure my mum would love to know! It is tidy now, but on thursday was the proverbial home of a pig. On wednesday night I left school, after the yearly 'snow meeting' crossing everything (not myt eyes however, as i feel that hampers driving ability) hoping for snow.
I woke on thursday morning at 5am, rushed to the window to discover a really crappy raining yorkshire morning. DAmn it. So after cooking some crumpets (oh yes pacamama, I have remembered how great they are... yes i had forgotten... yes i realise that is crazy), and having a good hot cup of yorkshire tea, I got dressed and headed to school. Iwas half way there, still only seeing the odd pile of ice, and occasional smattering of snow, when i got a text saying school was shut as snow was really bad. This came as yet more confusion to my tired brain. I was very confused as on tv before i left, i saw pictures from manchester leeds and dewsbury all of which were under at least 5 or 6 cm of snow! where the hell was i? some weird twilight zone?! Ah well... at least this meant i had a day off!

I used this day off productively by doing 3 tasks. one: I turned my car around and decided to go to sainsburys for my weekly shop. Good idea huh?! HELL NO! i was one of only 3 or 4 people in the whole of sainsburys at the ungodly hour of 7:15, and my brain was not ready to cope with the madness of it. I ended up walking what felt like the equivilent of 10 miles, as i kept realising i wanted things from oposite ends of the stupid supermarket!

TASK 2: buying a christmas tree. Now i always thought this would be easy. head to B&Q, buy christmas tree, go home put lights on it. bob is your dads brother. Nope... not so easy. Went to three places to buy tree, and finally found a tree the right size in homebase, and got piss wet through trying to put the stupoid thing on a trolley. by the time i had got it in, paid for it and got it out to the car... the fact it didn't fit in my car was the least of my worries. I was cold wet and covered in pine needles.

TASK 3: When i finally got the prickly wet monster of a tree home, i then spent 2 very long and painful hours trying to find somewhere for it to go. Eventually after a cup of tea (yup tea does solve everything!) I decided on a place, decorated it and cleaned up the lounge. Am very proud of it and it makes my lounge feel really cosy!







Last night i went to see the Mighty Boosh at MEN arena. It was SOOOOOOOOOOOOO funny! really really funny! i wish i got paid for running around stage, singing silly songs and basically being an idiot.... hmmmm actually that sounds alot like teaching! :) Only outrage witht eh mighty boosh is that I ended up selling my single spare ticket for a quid 10 mins before it was supposed to start. grrrr.

The other OUTRAGE of the weekend is that next week i have heard that Xfactor are about to commit musical sacrilige. The winning X factor contestant is going to release Halleluja. My god. seriously... SERIOUSLY! i am most displeased.

grrrr.

CROSS INTI x

Stone Roses.... Stone roses....in full

And so it starts.

Been listening to last hour of build up to this play. The opening riffing starts. I feel like I'm 13 again. Wow!

I kinda knew about the SR at the time, and with my sly hangings out with the 'gungers' listened to their stuff, but it was really as a full grown adult (like i ever really am!) that i really gave them the credit they deserved. I'd love to say ' yeah i was there from the beginning' but truth is i wasn't... not even close. But as mentioned on the radio, it doesn't really matter when you signed up... its good to have you along.

I never really made the link between the stone roses and the smiths before, but in the build up the influences were talked about a lot. I never liked the smiths as a kid, but the older i got, the more i enjoyed them, and am now actively looking to check out their back catalogue. Maybe thats part of growing up. And maybe its part of adopting northern england as supposed to my previous life in th home counties!

Wow... shiver down my spine as waterfall starts.

Not sure what it is about The Masterpiece shows i like so much. Think its one of the following.

The albums they choose are aways either one of my favourite albums, or one i have always wanted to listen to, and so its great to hear them broadcast; means that everyone hears them: like a great friend sharing great music with you.
Or/And
I like the idea of sharing. People all over the countrylistening and getting the same spine tingle or giddy memory at the same time, listening to the sam bass line, or mad guitar jam, kinda feels like (just for a short while at least) that nothing else matters.

Both are great reasons i reckon, and probably equally as valid.

I remember a great friend of mine (wave pacamama) pointing out to me, how the album doesn't sound dated at all. and listening now, i know what she means. can hear their infulence on current bands like Killers etc.

Well enough musings from me. As Bye Bye bad man fades out, I think i shall head off to enjoy the remainder of the album with a cool beer and a smile on my face.

Tmrw.... Rage against the Machine... (oh hell yeah!! )

INTI xx

Masterpieces and smugness

Today I decided that my general crapness as a teacher recently have come from being under planned and under prepared.

To this end I have planned properly this week including doing a weekly overview of the timetable with learning objectoves for each lesson written on. Hopefully this will stop me getting stressed with kids acting up, constant questioning and last minute lesson planning when i get to school.

As I finished all of this by 5pm i am feeling very smug! I have rewarded myself with a pizza express pizza and a bottle of becks! mmmm!!

So currently I am watching the general sunday night drivel of strictly come dancing results, random ITV celebrity special shows, and tragic 80s films. I have complemented this dire state of affairs with playing on the internet and facebooking (which is slightly annoying as i'm using it to try and get rid of a mighty boosh ticket... but no-one is replying!).

However, I am about to use this time more productively by revising ready for a week of fabulous radio1 greatness. This week Zane lowe is doing a new week of masterpeices. First is Stone roses -The stone roses. I'm really excited as the whole week is amazing! I shall try and comment on each album each night... meanwhile check it out here

Hasta luego
INTI xx

Re discovered greats

Today is a very autmn-y day... cold... mostly grey (although at the moment its very very pretty as the sun has come out!).

It is less than 4 weeks til christmas, and today I have started thinking about present shopping. I have an aim this year of buying most if not all my presents online... this way i can have them delivered to work. SO far i have ordered 2 things; only 25 hundred million left to get.

This week I have mostly been sleepy. the main cause of this is the cats disgust at the temperature, and them deciding my head makes a very good hot waterbottle. At various points during the night they arrive and pad my head to find the best and most comfortable spot, and then sit down. Some mornings i have woken up with cat ear muffs, which although is very warm, freaks me out slightly!

Last weekend I spent an inordinate amount of time doing data analysis of childrens SATS results and creating reports for senior management about the childrens progress... see you never thought teaching was the same as high power business procedure did you!? The bonus of this is that the format i used as a trial report has been adopted by the whole school as good practice! :) Oh how the little geek inside of me swelled with pride!

Big changes have happened this week in the set up of my classroom. At the risk of sending the two slightly OCD/autistic kids in my class into meltdown, i have completely rearanged the classroom tables and redistributed the team point groups. I now have the worlds most unfriendly classroom! I have put the poor kids into rows all facing forward!! hahaha! I have also put my desk at the front, harking back to victorian classrooms! All of this has so far had a positive effect on behaviour in class, and in my sets. The kids don't talk as much and seem to concentrate much better... or at least its easy to spot when one of the kids is falling asleep, (not that my lessons induce sleep... they are just ignorant kids.... hmmm... hope so anyway!) . I genuinely cannot believe i have made the classroom like this as it goes against all my ideals as a teacher, that talk and social interaction is an important part of learning, that peer modelling works, but hey... needs must!

LAst night I cooked the very 70s gordon ramsey menu of prawn cocktail, steak diane and cheesecake. From doing these three dishes i can feel my arteries graoning, and i have discovered that the 70's food style seems to be... smother everything in cream, garlic or some other strong flavour so that the real flavours cannot be detected at any cost! The poor steak that was part of the steak diane would have probably cried if it were alive, as eating it with the sauce was a sorry afair, with the steak shouting through a cream and garlic filled battle field "please! just one small taste of me?! please! just one bit that is actually my taste!" Poor steak. I realise that a talking steak is a bit bizarre... infact, a talking steak would be a cow... yes?!

Also developments in the realms of my ambition to play football for a team received a blow this week. I recieved a relpy to my enquiry to kirklees ladies team, about possible chance to join them. They advertise on thier site that they are looking for players. However they sent me an email back saying that although i was welcome to come to training and try out, they had a very competitive squad, over 20 players at the moment, and that they currently were not signing. I wondered for a while about just going to training, but feel that with no hope of a game might put me off.... that and that they seem slightly better than my general kickabout level of ability! The search for a sports team to join continues...

I have also cleaned out my CD collection, and rediscovered some gems of listening! Now i realise this is more of a guilty pleasure or a very sad admission in some peoples eyes... but top of discoveries is George Michael's Ladies and Gentlemen album. 2 cds of greatest hits. one of slow, sad and soulful greats like i can't make you love me and praying for time, And one cd of dancing greats like freedom and i knew you were waiting! Currently listening to dancey stuff while i clean and wash up and generally annoy the cats! tee hee!

This week has also seen the passing of 3 friends birthdays... a busy time of texts and emergency card buying. Of particular not is that of pequenopickolo of blog fame (check out right>>>) I would like to wish her a belated happy birthday on that of the most momentus age markers!! happy birthday!

And like in good news reports.. i shall end with a funny news story. This week has also seen my brother pass his final exam to become a police officer!!! well done Bro!! WAIT... this is not the funny news ... sorry... Well... on the way back from passing the exam he got pulled over and done for speeding!! hahaha! Really i'm not laughing... well done simon... i'm very proud!

The amazing walking vegetable

Tonight I am cooking a roast dinner and had to share this amazing find with you.

Whenever I cook a roast i get veggies from the garden, and now we've had some frost, I have started to pull up the occasional parsnip (the longer they are in the ground the sweeter they taste).

So a little while ago i went out to the garden in the pitch dark, head torch on head and wellies on feet, to get a parsnip. Imagine the hilarity when this was pulled out the ground!


I really wanted to make it some trousers! Unfortunately he is now destined to be peeled and roasted... ah well... it comes to us all! :)

I haven't named him yet...any suggestions?!

INTI xx

Bloggers curse

I have realised that commentators curse is not solely reserved for sports commentators. After pressing publish on the last post i looked up and new zealand were awarded and converted a penalty.

Sorry Irish fans!

Inti xx

101 uses for prawns

Evening all!

Wow... been a while since my last post. That's what teaching does for you! So have been back at school 2 weeks now and genuinely haven't had a chance to stop. Last week was particularly busy, as it was practice SATs week.

Initially my reaction to these test weeks is "Woo Hoo! no teaching!" then the first day passes and I realise it means I disapear under a mountain of marking, and eternal disapointment at the progress the kids in my class have made (or not made... which is more common). I really don't like feeling like i waste my life teaching, and when half my class can't even add two three digit numbers together, i begin to dispair!

The most disapointing part of this week however is the lack of amusing answers to add to my secret gallery of stupid test answers. out of all the tests, i only got two! And of those two I only managed to capture one, as the child who wrote "i just guest" (actual spelling) in the box where he was asked to explain how he had worked out an answer, eventually crossed it out and wrote something else. Below however is the one answer i did manage to capture... and a genius answer it is too.



So last night was the annual Children in Need TV marathon. It is amazing in this time of credit crunch how generous people can be. I know this sounds slightly sarcastic, but it was the main thought in my mind as the total topped 20 million last night. The other thought was i admit.... Please god make this insanity stop! Watching endless TV personalities make a fool of themselves should be entertaining, but actually isn't!

The other problem with CIN being on last night is that I had bought all the ingredients for Gordon Ramsey cook along live. However... due to children in need, cookalong is not on til next friday! Jeez! So now I have steak, Avacado and prawns all needing eating up in the next day or so! Damn it!

I'm thinking of making a prawn risotto for dinner tonight, but as i am extremely proud of my marking efforts (I have marked over 225 SATs papers, and levelled them all!!) all i feel like doing is sitting down with a beer and watching the Ireland v New Zealand rugby. I would watch England, but alas it is on Sky sports. grrr. Oh and on that note, I would like to publically thank Virgin for allowing us mere mortals the opportunity to have Sky1 back. Hurrah! I can now watch the simpsons to my hearts content.

Anyway... Enough rambling... I have a beer and many burly men beating each other up to get back to (current score Ireland 0, All Blacks 0 after 20 minutes).

INTI xx

pumpkin wedges

Sunday evening arrives then and this marks the end of Halloween and my half term. grrr rubbish. Ah well. time moves on.

Friday night was official halloween night and I celebrated it at t halloween party with my brother and others. My costume worked a treat and I was particularly proud of my home made cut-throat razor!

This picture probably doesn't make it look as impressive as i think it is, but you will observe the basis for the razor. A hinged ruler!! tee hee! I used plastic and silver sticky back plastic for the blade. I then selotape wrapped a slice of cleaning sponge round the other end and then covered that in leather effect sticky back plastic.
I then wrapped a leather lace around the middle to attach it to my costume. The finishing touch was blood on the blade. This was acheived with tart red nail varnish!

Costume assembled I headed to party in Hade Edge. Proper party! We played the hat gloves knife and fork chocolate game... followed by the slice the flour mound to without knocking the sweet off game, and finally bobbling for apples!

Having painted my face... this final game made me need to re-apply face paint before a final trip to the local! Always fun when in fancy dress to head to a local! we looked like nutters! :)

Saturday was spent being lazy and doing little bits of school work. In the evening I cooked yet another huge dinner complete with scallops, steak and chocolate fondant. (which i am still yet to perfect!)

Today I have been over to feed the small balck and white whirl wind known as simons dog Phoebe. She appeared a little scared of me, or maybe my peruvian hat, and proceeded to wee all over the floor. Yuk. That cleaned up i took her out for a short walk in the misty rain. The walk was fine... but yet again, I really cannot see the attraction of picking up dog poo in little plastic bags and carrying it around! yuk

Finally, While writing this I have been watching the closing stages of the Sao Paulo grand prix. The deal was that Hamilton had to get 5th or better to win the world championship[. I never watch F1 by the way, but felt this was a good background noise for writing. Anyway, I have spent the last 10 minutes feeling very emotional as on the last lap, hamilton dropped to 6th. The lap went on. Massa (rival for world championship) streaked across the finish line and the ferarri team began to celebrate... Massa was world champion!.... Suddenly, camera moved to penultimate corner, and, OH MY GOD!... Hamilton was battling with Glock for 5th place!. Glock went wide. Hamilton snuck through on the inside corner! he was in 5th!! one corner to go. If he held on he would get world championship! Massa's team were all jumping for Joy when suddenly they stopped. Hamilton had crossed the line. But what position was he?! FIFTH! LEWIS HAMILTON WINS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP!

I would like to state that i never get this excited, but hamilton winning made me get out of the chair and scream with excitement! Jesus what a geek i am!

ANyway, time to prepare for school tmrw. Really can't be bothered, only 7 weeks to christmas break up... sure it'll fly!

Hmm maybe!

INTIxx

Take yer coat off paul!

Happy Halloween all! :)

Halloween arrived for me on a train back from Leeds after going to a gig.

Went to see Paul Heaton with support from Cerys Matthews and Attic Lights. Was a really good night... Great songs, dancing, near miss fights, old people getting down and odd couples! We got there after a strange boy offered to walk us the RIGHT way to Leeds Met uni. He was eating something which i pointed out looked healthier than mine and Louisa's choice of cheeseburger and large fries, to which he made no comment and threw the remnants of it in the bin. I found this a little weird, but conversation continued and it turned out he worked at the hospital... I really had to bight my tongue at this point as i was convinced he was a cleaner and was unsure I could feign interest in that profession. Louisa thought he looked more like he worked in the morgue! i couldn't possibly comment! :)

Gig was filled with a very weird mix of people, fat goths in PVC coats, middle aged couples in annoracks and lots of mother/daughter combos. In fact we were the only (relatively) normal looking people there. This was confirmed after watching Attic Lights, when 3 short fat female chavs elbowed louisa in order to get her out the way, and an evening of sly comments and fighting talk followed. I was a little scared but this feeling was quickly swept aside as the lovely Cerys Matthews came onstage! Yey!

She was charming and lovely and played quite a few songs I did know, and the ones i didn't were really good. Loads of really good Tennessee inspired stuff, and a good slug of welsh influence as well. At one point a particularly drunk man a the front managed to heckle her with the ever classy shout of "Cerys is lovely" to which she commented that Men never change. Love her!

After Cerys, Paul Heaton arrived to chants of HEA-TON HEA-TON! He looked his normal chav looking self, and to our surprise opened a book on a stand in front of him. From our cleverly gained vantage point (front row stage left) we spotted that ... OH MY GOD!.... he had a book with all the words in! Not only that the words were in exceptionally large print! He was going to sing from a song book! He then sang mostly songs from the new album and we danced and sang til we were very hot. Paul however, who was wearing a coat indoors, refused to remove his jacket all evening, and by the end of the gig was a VERY sweaty mess! Louisa was joined at various points during the gig in shouts of Take yer coat off Paul! to which he finally answered that he didn't want to inflict his body on the audience... a little strange since he evidently had a T-shirt on underneath. Hmmm. Another amusing point was that in a few songs he plays harmonica, but sometimes even though we could hear his voice no harmonica sound came out... strange huh?! Ah no! it would appear the harmonica sections were pre-recorded and the sound engineer was having trouble pressing the play button! HAHAHA!Overall the gig was loads of fun, and was only marred by the fact there were two idiots sat behind us on the train back having a farting competition. Jesus. Was good to be at a gig... feels like ages since i've been to see live music. Am gonna look at a few other gigs coming up at leeds met... Dashboard confessional, Alphabeat(though not sure who will come to this with me) and Tegan and Sarah.

Also of mention is the fact i spoke to New Zealand last night! tee hee! Hello Abi in your shopping mall in kiwiland! was good fun, and without sounding to old aged... was amazed at the clarity of the line! NO delay no noise or anything! woo hoo!

So halloween arrives and i still have no cut throat razor. I shall head into town today and see if i can aquire one. hmmm. tonight is party and marks the end of half term break for me. Weekend is weekend and is part of termtime routine. grr

Finally.... in temperature news... overnight temperature was 2 degrees and current 10:30 am lounge temperature is 13.5 degrees. brrr.

More soon.

INTI xx

attend the tale...

I have solved the costume nightmare! woo hoo! Thanks to Louisa, who is costume queen, I spent a minimal amount of time last night putting together a truly terrifying costume that scared me when i looked in the mirror!

The costume so far consists of an oversize dress shirt, a brown waistcoat, a red scarf, a leather belt and bloody rag hung from the waist. I paint my face very pale, put red/black rings around my eyes and a white streak in my hair (although i am gonna go look for a black wig or black dye today to make it look better).

Figured it out yet?

Ok so if I tell you I need to make/find something to be a cut-throat razor...... What still no?! Ok I'll tell you... Sweeney Todd! woo hoo! Yet again I get to indulge my Depp fetish by dressing up as him. hurrah! I am still as i mentioned, without a razor at the moment. All ideas welcome on how i can make one/aquire one without being arrested! :)

In other news (hmmm, i sound like BBC!) I awoke with a heavy heart this morning. David Tennent is leaving Doctor Who. I realise this statement makes me seem very geeky, but sad fact is I probably am! I love Doctor Who and I love nothing better than a guilty pleasure night in with good food and wine, and a blanket and a few episodes of Doctor Who! David Tennent has been fab as doctor who, and I never thought I'd get over Chistopher Eccleston leaving. (I really should stop before i really sound tragic!). Anyway, the odds are already being taken on who the new doctor will be... James Nesbit seems to be a front runner, as does Patterson Joseph , who i have seen play Othello twice now i think... Both would be good, but my outside choice is Sam Troughton. He played/plays Much in Robin Hood. I think he exudes enough geek-ness to be a good doctor, and he would suit a domineering sidekick like catherine, as she would tell him what to do all the time. (BBC executives... I am open to offers of jobs working for you... script writier, geek consultant, anything!)

In further news, I am now fully fed up with the insane circus that has become the Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross phone message scandal. Just to add my two penneth, I cannot believe no-one has pointed out that it is the producers and editors who are to blame. Ok fair enough the two should not have called Andrew Sachs (manuel from fawlty towers) and left messages on his answer phone saying that russell had slept with his grand daughter etc. But what everyone seems not to have realised is that the show was pre-recorded and then editied over two days and then broadcast on saturday night. If it was so offensive, WHY OH WHY did the editors allow the programme to be broadcast!? AND... ( i realise i am ranting... but last one i promise) The media have hyped this up beyond all resonable proportions.. only 3, yes THREE, people complained at the time, but after the media published the transcripts, talked about it and reported it in the news... 13, 000 people have now complained. God bless the british mentality. we are incapapble of independent thought and must be spoon fed our views by the media! for god sake.

Ok rant over. for now. it just insensed me this morning. I shall stop now, as i am excited about working out how to make a switch blade!

Oh and temperature update. It again went below -2 last night and the current lounge temperature is 12.5 degrees! Although it should be a warm house today as i need to dry some washing, so SHOCK HORROR , I am going to put the heating on for a bit! Woo hoo!!

Bye for now... less ranting next time i promise! :)

Inti xx

PS. While looking for a photo of the costume... i found this painting and loved it.

Honey Honey ah hah honey honey

Yesterday I spent the best afternoon of madness in years!

I decided to go to the cinema to watch the Tuesday afternoon showing of Mama Mia. Yes yes, I know, everyone must have seen this by now, and yes I know it is rather tragic to see this by myself. However, I decided that it would be fun. I fully expected the cinema to be empty and on my journey there, upon discovering i was running late, I thought the showing may even get cancelled. This was not the case.

I bought myself the afternoon bargain ticket, topped it off with a diet coke and popcorn combo, and headed into the screen. Upon turning the corner into the screen I nearly dropped the popcorn. The cinema was packed!

Now here I know you are gasping at this amazing fact.... but wait... there is more!

The cinema was nearly full, and full of OAPs! it was insane! I tried very hard not to laugh and made my way to my favourite free seat (the one in second row, in the middle, with the bars infront of the seat) and sat down chuckling to myself. The trailers had already started but I was to busy laughing to enjoy them.

The laughing continued from almost the first moment of the film. I loved this film. I know i shouldn't, but i loved it! I'm trying to think of the last time i had the same feeling at the cinema... its that feeling where you aren;t sure whether it is actually the fact it really is good and funny that is making you laugh... or whether it is SO awful, that it is good and funny!

Watching Meryl Streep dance, and hearing Peirce Brosnan sing are two things that will stay with me for a long time. On top of this, the first song Honey Honey made me smile so much i couldn't eat my popcorn. How on earth they were allowed to write a lyric that goes "honey honey, let me feel it, uh huh, honey honey" I will never know!

After this afternoon of hilarity I left the cinema for Ikea... And I am now the proud owner of the third rug from Ikea bought specifically for my lounge. It is a shaggy black rug, which my cats now LOVE! they roll around on it and seem to pretend it is some kind of hunting ground, where they have schizophrenic episodes of jumping and pouncing!

Aside from all of this I have now realised it is mid week and I have not done as much work as i would like, so am going to make a concerted effort today. This will, however, be hampered by the fact i need to go out to buy more cat food and facepaint for my friday night halloween party. I'm currently thinking about being a Bad Fairy in my New Rock boots and stripy tights, but am also swayed by recreating the Elliot in ET halloween costume-think he was supposed to be a zombie- as this involves black clothes a grey hoodie and face paint! easy! I also have an idea forming in my mind whereby I wear leggings and balck longsleeve top and put ripped white trousers and top over the top of them to kinf of look like a mummy/zombie! I really have no idea.. ideas welcome please!

Ok for now it is time to have breakfast and think more.

INTI x

p.s. It is still freezing today, but i did sleep in my bedroom last night... assisited by copius layers, 2 duvets and a hot waterbottle! it is 10am. amd current inside temperature13.5 degrees! Tea and porridge await.

Credit crunch vs ice cubes

Its bloody freezing here this morning!

Temp went down to -2 last night and my house without heating has not yet gone above 13 degrees! I have taken to sleeping in the lounge as it is generally warmer than anywhere else is the house.

I realise all of this makes me seem rather pikey but i genuinely cannot afford my 200 quid a month gas bill, so no longer put the heating on. Given that my kitchen is attached to the lounge whenever i make a cup of tea or cook some food, it heats the lounge and so the lounge is just about bearable. Everywhere else in the house i can see my breath most times during the day!

The effect of this caged existence is that I have developed cabin fever. I am doing school work and watching TV, eating my meals, baking and washing up- all in the same room! argh! Today I am going to venture outside.

I have just decided to put the heating on for an hour to heat the bathroom so i can have a bath, and i have decided to escape the misery of real life by going and watching Mama Mia at the cinema before it gets taken off. I definitely believe that the best way to deal with the misery of negative equity and rising fuel prices is to lose myself in a camp musical adventure! I had considered going to see High School Musical 3, but given that its half term, going alone to a kids film is probably considered a bit weird. Also I fully intend to find someone to join me in seeing that next week sometime, so for now Mama Mia it is!

There is also another motive for this trip out. I have finally been considered worthy to be brought into the 21st century and been granted a GREEN BIN! yup... i shall now be able to participate in that new fangled practice of re-cy-cling. wow! how new aged! as from next week my rubbish collections change to alternate general and recycle waste. In order to do this well, i need a new bin to collect recycling wast inside the house. SO I'm going to take a trip to IKEA! (yes OK... it is an excuse... i like going there too!) I also intend to buy more tea lights as this is also a cheap way of heating my lounge!

Right, the film is at 2:45, and it is now nearly 12, so i had better get ready. I shall finish my cup of coffee and shove some lunch down my face (Heinz tomato soup... woo hoo!) and head off. Enjoy your warm lives out there...

Bye
INTIx

Monday morning musings

Monday mornings. Hmmm.

The weather outside is very cold but at least its sunny today. Better for a more proactive mind and for getting things done. I have cleaned and tidied up and am attempting to get school work done early in the week so I can enjoy the weekend.

I had forgotten how god awful daytime TV is. Jeez! I unfortuately slipped into the Jeremy Kyle> ThisMorning>Loose Women brainwash train, and here I am at 1pm having analysed all my classes half termly levels with disfunctional teens and over caffeine-ed middle aged women all putting the world to rights in the background. Hmmm better check my levels and action plans, they might suggest a course of talking therapy for half of them!

The cats have made a few visits in today and been surprised to find me in. Jack rewarded this by bringing in a vole and announcing his greatness with meows for nearly 10 minutes... he then proceeded to rip the poor things head off, at which point i took the carcass off him.

I have also realised its not far off being time to start thinking about christmas. wow. that soon came around. Think i need to shop smart this year, what with credit crunch and huge gas bills (i am currently sat in the lounge with 3 tops on, 2 pairs of socks and slippers and am still shivering- i refuse to turn on the heating!). I shall start thinking about clever presents this week.

Halloween this week/weekend. I wonder how south america celebrates this? so they celebrate it? I'm going to find this out too, and find out how mexico and new zealand celebrates it too. I'm going to a fancy dress party on friday. No idea what i'm going to wear tho! does being a pirate count? or is that just me copping out a bit! MAybe if i go as davvy jones! ahahaha! ah yes i like this idea!

I'm off to research world celebrations of halloween and davvy jones costumes now.

Til next time,

INTI x


UPDATE:
I had completely forgotten that halloween is quite big in mexico... its the first day of the 3 day festival that ends with dia de los muertos (day of the dead). I am now very jealous! that sounds amazing.
In New zealand halloween is not that big, as spring is in full swing, but aparently they do still dress up and trick or treat and stuff

Other places in the world it would appear it depends on how american influenced they are! jeez... does that mean the Uk is an american sheep?! hope not.

Bye again! x

Failed vegetables and choclate brownies

Its finally half term!

I have spent the last few days productively by lying under a duvet watching TV and drinking too much tea! Ah the bliss. :)

Final week at school finally passed with little incident. Wednesday was whole school Eid celebrations... yeah yeah i know... EID was weeks ago.... but we decided to mark EID with an assembly and afternoon of celebrations. I dressed up for the day in traditional costume, complete with scarf, and we learned all about Why Eid is celebrated and all the customs and foods that are eaten. In the afternoon we went to the school hall as a year group and tasted Asian sweets traditional food, and had the opportunity to have Henna done by professional painters. I had my had and wrist painted and I love it. It looks amazing! would love to have had more done, but it had taken 20 mins already!



As for life in huddersfield, Well, I've been going over the scrapings of whats left of my veg patch. I planted root veg so they didn't need looking after while i was away over the summer. Unfortuately the british summer decided to ruin this plan and the wetness meant slug populations reached epidemic propertions, fuelled by most of the veg in my garden!

Last weekend I decided to try and salvage as much as i could of the vegetables. I had planted 2 rows of swedes 2 rows of beetroot, 2 rows of parsnips, a row of spinach and a row of salsify. I have left one row of parsnips, the spinach and salsify in (as they are largely untouched) but here is what i salvaged:
Sad huh?! One and a half swedes and a beetroot. RUBBISH! As i only had one beetroot i decided to experiment slightly and cooked some beetroot and chocolate brownies as inspired by river cottage. Have a look here at the recipe. They were SOOOOOOO good, but i shan't be making them a lot as they have 250g of Butter in! NOw those of you who are unsure quite how much that is, that is a WHOLE PACK OF LURPACK! jeez!

Cooking those also inpired me to cook a bit more... last weekend i also cooked my favourite steak dinner and chocolate fondants for the first time.

This is them before they went in the oven (yes i know there are two... i was fairly sure I'd muck them up, so thought two would be a good idea):

This is the second one out (first looked like a pile of wet brown stuff), with some vanilla icecream on the top. TASTY!!:


SO i feel i have now talked to much about very unhealthy food, and feel the need to get outside. I am thinking about going for a big old bikeride today out to a resevoir I went to a few weeks back for a walk with friends from school and their kids (all very wholesome, children, walking in the woods and feeding ducks!)

Oh and before i go, I know Halloween is a week away but i have bought a pumpkin and cut out a face from it. woo hoo!! here it is:


Would love to hear any name ideas for him... all i've come up with so far is toothy!

BYE!!

INTI x

The long and winding term....

So been a while eh?

Sorry for that, trying not to inflict my stress on the general public, and recently thats about all i've managed to be part of! So, the aim of this blog will be twofold:
1. to skim over recent events
2. to be positive and say all the nice things of recent days/weeks

CYCLING
Cycling is carrying on well, especially as I now have padded shorts, a luminous cycling jacket, and some snazzy little trainers!! I look....guh----hoood! tee hee! The kids at school have really got into it, and our class assembly last week was on 'Be Safe be Seen' and how to be safe on your bike! I'm so proud. They also ask me everyday what my time was (how long it took to cycle to school) and they take turns writing it on the board in class under the current record (44.13mins). Bless them!
I'm very proud of my time... in 10 days of cycling i've managed to get my time from 57mins to 44.13mins. I feel this is a big deal! the average time is currently about 48 mins, but i fully aim to beat the 44 next week!

CAT PROBLEMS
MArley has not been well recently and after a trip to Reading for the weekend i got back to discover he was wee-ing blood. Now I realise the less said about this the better, but just to inform you, that in male cats, passing blod can be a sgn of endstage renal failure, and this can happen to any cat at anytime with no symptoms at all at times. After the third little puddle in 30 mins after returning home, i got vey scared and decided the best option was to call the emergency vet. I calld them and they agreed that i should bring him in there and then. Now, after a hideous train journey back from Reading ( i won't go in to all the details, but it involved irate old ladies, smelly buses, and long long queues in manchester) I arrived back at about 9pmish, so taking Marly o te emergency vet, meant, no dinner and a drive to the other side of Halifax, and down a road where there were clearly major drug deals going on. All of this cost me 120 quid before I even knew what was wrong with him.

It turns out, i have a stupid cat, who it would appear, had gone on anti-toilet protest at me going away for the weekend, not used the litter tray once, held it all in, and so had given himself chronic cystitis with a bladder infection. So for the last week, i have had to throw antibiotics down his throat every morning and night, and give him pouch food, mixed with lots of water. All of this shenanagins have cost me nearly £200! Stupid cat.

Gald to say all is well now with Marley and his bladder. Again... i feel it is important to say Stupid cat. Love him tho!


OTHER STUFF
As the title suggests... I am more than ready for half term. I'm bored of it all at the moment, planning sucks, teaching is hard work, I have a cold, and someon has injected all of year 6 with hormones and so i daily have to put up with arguments, fall outs and tears all based around who has called who a fat s**g or who has dumped who... ugh. I thought i'd escaped all of this in primary school!!

Other than that, I would only start ranting and raving about the stress at school, and don;t really wanna do that i i started off so positively!

So until next blog... Take care

INTI xx

Fat man Fat dog soggy trousers

Evening all.

Since my last blog I have attacked new found love of cycling and put it to use to cycle to and from school every day. This is roughly a 20 mile round trip, and am proud to say I have achieved this everyday this week so far- making 80 miles so far this week if i include the trial run.

(SMALL PAUSE FOR APPLAUSE)

What no applause?! Well i'm chuffed at anyrate... especially as it has PISSED it down yesterday and today, and i still cycled in and back from school. Today i particularly enjoyed the ride home, as i took it easy and just cruised all the way. Because of this i looked around a lot more than usual and saw things that worried me but also... the world's fattest man walking the worlds fattest dog!... was a wonderful sight, as they both wobbled along wheezing, drenched to the skin! hahaha!

Worrying sights were a small child wondering around by himself in the dusk and rain, and very anti-white graffiti written on a fence i passed. made me a little scared and i rode a bit faster for while.

This friday is INSET day which ends off a fairly rubbish week at school, for various reasons.. been a bit all over the place, EID was yesterady/today depending on which mosque we a asked, so kids have been off school - reducing class sizes to 12 or 13, -should be good, but the kids who are in school just resent having to work. RUBBISH! Today us lot in my year group tried to aleviate this by sacking off numeracy and having singing practice for harvest festival in a few weeks.

After a very long evening spent trawling through old hymn book to find a traditional harvest song (don;t suggest autumn days... i really wanted that one, but another yeargroup bagsed it!) me and the other two teachers gave up and decided that 'cauliflowers fuffy' was as traditional as we could go and so set about getting yrics and backing tracks. WE then presented this to year 6 today and after an intitial cry of "ugh.... we sang that in nursery" They attacked it with true gusto and were actually Very good! we have also decided that we will perform a small sketch to go with it- along the lines of the california raisins/ munch bunch. We are going to make a band of vegetables (read here kids in costumes) and they will perform a song. After much discusion with the kids, we came up with 'Scouting for Veg' and they are going to sing "Veg is Lovely, Veg is Lovely...etc"WE thought this was very funny and got slightly over excited and delerious at one point!

Anyhoo, its time to sign off as tmrw is school photo day and i have to get my beauty sleep. (no sniggering please!)

NITE!

INTI xx

fitness and liquorice whips

Evening all...

Hope you are all well in your various global positions. I am feeling virtuos this evening.

I will come to the hieght of my virtuousness later, as i fell i should say a little about my psat few days.

Well. This week i have been VERY CROSS and VERY HAPPY! CROSS first... lets get it out of the way... On thursday I went into work with a good attitude and was in a very good mood by the time i arrived. This was cut short by people moaning in the staffroom before school and then again at lunch by a member of staff slagging off one of my children (who i quite like even tho he's a behaviour problem). Afternoon was slightly redeemed by My genius topic afternoon. As PArt of Topic, we are looking at pictures of objects with meaning. SO we looked at some still life painting and photos, discussing how it made us feel and why the artist had chosen these objects... i culminated in this picture.:

I like this as it is a continuous line drawing. The artist never lifted the pen. I love drawing like this an proceeded to get my kid to draw an object in this style. After a while i did my favourite 'silly' acitvity... get a pen... get paper... get a partner... look directly into partners eyes and try and continuous line draw partner withour taking pen off paper OR looking at drawing. Its SOOOOO funny!! the kids were dead good and critically commented on both the pros and cons of the process and each others drawings.

Later that day my geek staus emerged. Senior management have been devising a new maths assessment and a colleague had produed a table to record results in... together we realised that it would actually be easier to do an Excel spreadsheet, that way it would calculate reprts and percentage acheivement automatically. I volunteered to have alook at the possibility. I spent 2 hours when i got back from school, creating said excel spreadsheet. and very prod of it i am!!

Friday was good, as i decided I couldn't be arsed with Gymnastics for 2 hours, and so decided to set up a tricky obstacle course and sent them off in threes (one blind fold) to guide each other round. The less said about this idea the better... however, i shall tag it with two words... Good and Noisy!! After school, we had friday club... love this club... much like the programme teachers, we all head for a drink to the local on a friday after school. This week was good as russell, quinny and Gemmma all came for a drink too. I got vey nostalgic in my head and went very quiet... tho i don;t think it was noticed!!

My friday night pizza, wine and DVD contiued with MEat feast ... 2 glasses of red wine... 'Be kind rewind' dvd and by 8:30 (half way thru the film) asleep time on the sofa!! i'm def getting old!

Today I decided to test run a cycle to work. I'm planning on being organised and not taking any work home, so i can cycle to and from work. Today was a test run to make sure it wasn't horrific! OH MY GOD i loved it!! I even took photos along the way!

This is during my journey on the greenway. About 70-80% of the whole route to work is on greenways like this, through woods and fields. Its made up of 3 greenways and i only have to be near any buildings or cars for 5 mins max!! woo hoo!!


This is the wreck of the bike i own. TOok it to wheelspin bikes to see if they though it was worth repairing ( i cleaned and serviced it tot he bvest of my ability). they were very impressed i'd taken such good care of it! This was a pleasure short lived, because the guy next to me at the desk stopped talking, looked at me and then continued his conversation about £2000 replacement shocks for his bike. Now I don;t have anything against improving bikes, and given unlimited money i would happily chuck my hunk of junk and buy a good road bike, but as i have no money and this joy of a bike i make do. i more objected to his look... i can;t help it i have a skip bike?!

Anyway, cycle was really good. The sunshine probably made it better, but still. I loved it. At many points during the journey i grinned like a small child due to the greatness of being active, but also at having my faith restored in humanity... i've never seen so many families out together since i was little!! Families walking dogs, families out for a walk, families on bikes! I was so happy and said hello to everyone, much to thier surprise!!!

This evening i have been thinking about my birthday celebrations... 4 months is not a lot of time so i need to start thinking hard. looked into canal boats and events happening in January... my proudest moment was putting 'pirate party january 2009' into google! :)

I leave you with a question....

When we were playing with magnets in class this week one of my children discoverd that the N pole was stronger on mist of the bar bagnets than the S pole

>>> My question: is this because we in the UK are nearer magnetic north?!<<<<<

INTI xxxxx

My monday Geekfest

I feel i should blog, as i have had a rather geeky day.

Geekattack 1: I have compiled an excel spreadsheet of all the cameras and memory cards in school
Geekattack 2: I have realised i am very excited by doing maths with my very intelligent year 6 top set, as we generally just test out mathematical statements, and have races to see who can divide 4 digit numbers quickest.
Geekattack 3: I had a little rush of excitement tonight when i realised i had no work to do, and could watch QI, then mastermind, then universty challenge, then cookery then Amazon with bruce Parry all back to back.
Geekattack 4: Upon reading the Pickles blog update yesterday, I got out starwars and found the scene that is filmed at Tikal. Then googled it, then let out a little woo hoo when i discovered there is such a thing called a Wookieepedia !!!

Ok I feel this is far more than i should actually reveal about my secret life. I'm going to stop now and go make myself a 'SPICE TEA'

BYE!!

INTI xx

Spiced tea and dancing boys

Hello again!

Yup so it would appear that saturdays in my life are filled with much that is blog worthy.

So earlier today I made the most amazing bacon sandwich which i feel is definately worth describing. I have discovered that it is possible to buy mini portabella mushrooms so i sliced these using my 'worlds sharpest surgical steel knife' into perfect thickness slices and grilled these along with some danish bacon, meanwhile I cut two doorstep slices from a still warm fresh baked white loaf, and fried a perfectly circular free range egg. Sandwich assembled I carefully sliced it with the other large 'worlds sharpest surgical steel knife' so that the egg ran down the middle!!!! Man i'm hungry again now!!! Sorry I realise this is slightly weird to tell you how i made a bacon sandwich, but it was the first proper one i've had since i got back to the UK!

Secondly, I feel i may have ingested substances i'm not supposed to. About a year and a half ago, my parents went to Sri Lanka and brought me back some presents. Amoung these presents was a small clear plastic bag containing herbs and mixed brown powder marked 'SPICED TEA'.
This moring I finally decided to try some of this. I opened the packet and was hit with a familliar smell... Weed! er... ok, so thinking i was just a bit over tired, I made tea. after 2 minutes the liquid in my cup looked like treacle and still smelled like weed! upon tasting the brown liquid it tasted exactly as it smelled! I ahve now consumed the whole cup and seem to be suffering no ill effects, although I am taking to show policeman brother later... (wait... maybe this isn't such a good idea, I ent getting charged wiv possesion guv!)

ALSO! after much searching I have got closer to finding apicture or video of dancing peruvian boy on BBC's Amazon. Have found 3 pictures of note so far and a video. Pictures and displayed below:
He is three-year-old Icka, named proudly after the Real Madrid goalkeeper. He was the son of the first family Bruce stayed with on his journey.

He was ace in all the bits he was in and was, true to all peruvian children we met in south america, old beyond his years, almost a mini man!!

This was shortly after aforementioned dancing (which I still haven't found a video for... grrr.) He aparently loved bruce and having read the blogs that the whole team of the program did while filming, it would appear he was a bit of a star and was obsessed with his reflection in the camera lenses!

I have found a video of him, but can only work out how to send a link to the blog that its in so if you wanna see why he's so ace go HERE, and while you're at it have a play around the site... its dead good, and the program is brilliant. god bless the BBC! (I feel i have to say this as i'm not too sure where I stand legally on posting photos from the site!! Sorry BBC!)


Other than that My saturday continues with sleeepy happiness as it is finally sunny, and I have been able to sit on my patio drinking potent tea and eating homemade apple and ginger cake. does life get any better!! woo hoo!!

INTI xxx

Pirate day!

Yesterday was international talk like a pirate day (uk site here)!! Hurrah!! However... being that my week was so awful.. I completely forgot about it till I woke up this morning BOOO!! Shame really as it means a day where i can legitimately 'be' a pirate. Grr... Never mind! I shall make up for this by being a pirate all day today. I'd like to take this oportunity to state that i do not condone modern day piratical events. I have read about a few recently that have made me shake my head in a disaproving manner. I only condone dressing up like johnny Depp and getting drunk and sailing around in the sunshine!!

Piratical adventures today... i fully aim to wear my pirate beads, scarf and linen shirt and head out to have fun. Later i'm going to see ocean colour scene, so feel drinking will be done so i shall have some dark rum and toast pirates with a hearty Yarr. Does this sufice?! Hope so.

Yesterday was friday, and friday at school means one thing to me this year. 2 solid hours of PE!! :) and :( 2 hours of PE is hard work, and for this term, my post is gymnastics in the hall. ugh! The way we have planned it is that the 3 teachers in the year group station themselves in 3 different areas and each of the 3 classes move round the 3 areas every 40 minutes. the three activites till half term are gymnastics, netball, and cross contry running! I drew the short straw and got gynastics till half term. grr. never mind... i get first choice next time!! hahha

Ok so let me set the scene for gymnastics primary school style. We have an old wooden climbing frame style bars that wheel out from one wall, 3 ropes hanging from the ceiling, that pull out and lock on a pulley system (see... primary school pe is coming back to you with avengenceright!! ) 3 padded tables of varying height and an old wooden vault. I skillfully place these around the room. set the kids a challenge for each peice of equipment and let them have 10 mins per activity! mainly carnage reigns... but in amongst this carnage little star gymnasts present themselves. my main horror so far is that a good 20%of kids are too scared to climb above thier shoulder height, some children can't even climb onto the wooden vault with help, and only 7 children in the whole year group (76children) can climb up a rope, and only one of them is a girl!

What has happened to the kids of today?! Do they not climb trees anymore!?! it upsets me greatly. In fact one observation about who can climb the rope is that its generally the kids who are introuble in and out of school and tend to get incvolved in dodgy (ie illeagal) activities who are able to climb! make from this what you will!

After school us weary teacher converge for a sneaky beverage at a public house down the road, and this week was no exception. however this week wa comedy. Walked in :
ME: "Pint of Guinness please"
BAR LADY:"no draught guinness. only bottles"
ME: "Er...ok, yep that ok" While looking slightly confused as i'd had it the week before, "Oh and A rum and coke"(not for me)
BAR LADY: "We don't have any rum"
ME: "what?
BAR LADY: we don't do rum.
ME (after consultation with colleague): Double jack daniels and a splash of lemonade with ice
BAR LADY: We don't do ice
ME (again wanting to scream WHAT?!) : really... er ok no problem.
Drinks appear on bar, i pay and sit down with others. five minutes passes
BAR OWNER (a big bothered looking man): I'm afraid you'll have to leave. we have to close.

An there it was... no explanation, no time to finish drinks.... we had to leave, so i gathered up my guiness, which i poured back into the bottle and resealed, and left! madness!!! No one knew why.... maybe we had entered a parralell world that was about to collapse. who knows!!

Other news from yesterday: Last night i decided i wanted to watch Juno, I knew I'd like it, and so decided to buy it rather that rent or download it. OH MY GOD ITS GOOD!! Its easily now one of my favourite 3 fims ever! I got to the end and started watching it again. I'd like to share some quotes:
Leah: Yo Yo Yiggady Yo.
Juno MacGuff: I'm at suicide risk.
Leah: Juno?
Juno MacGuff: No, it's Morgan Freeman. Do you have any bones that need collecting?



Leah: It's probably just a food baby. Did you have a big lunch?
Juno MacGuff: No, this is not a food baby all right? I've taken like three pregnancy tests, and I'm forshizz up the spout.


Juno MacGuff: You should've gone to China, you know, 'cause I hear they give away babies like free iPods. You know, they pretty much just put them in those t-shirt guns and shoot them out at sporting events.


Ok Ok... will stop now. I laughed and cried the whole way through... I might even watch it again today!! tee hee!

So am off now to pirate myself up and re-aquaint myself with Ocean Colour Scene's backcatalogue. HOW EXCITING!!!

BYE!

Inti xx

black eyes and the family of Darren

Well hasn't it been a while! Just realised that my last blog talked about the world ending and then i disappeared from existence! probably not clever.

Well life in the UK continues to amuse in small amounts by life casually throwing me 'things' to deal with. As a true brit i shall begin with comments on the weather. Lately it has been grey. then it has rained. then it has been grey. then it has rained. but i'm sure anyone in the UK is not surprised by this!

School related gubbins

So school, oh how i love it. Updates first.

Pressurecooker (aka slightly agitated girl) has been forced into finding release valve, and is now fading into the background. This is mainly due to the fact that a by with ... er.... not sure how to be diplomatic and still keep my job...... a boy who has difficulty with the general state of being in a classroom as it is too busy for him to handle which often causes him to use various parts of his anatomy to become more closely aquainted with walls tables and windows, occasionally other children as well (usually with quite impressive force). This coupled with the other small boy in my class whom we shall name 'small' who also has similar aggressive problems, but is quite small and has to sit on a padded chair, ... all combines to make pressure cooker seem quite normal!! :) The only time i really notice her now is during topic on thursday where she gets over excited, as we are studying world war 2 and she did it in her previous school last year, and cannot wait to tell me and all the class every 5 seconds about all the facts she knows. I have developed a coping mechanisim for this... i pause, slowly turn my head to face where pressurecooker girl is nearly falling out of her seat with excitement at something she feels is worthy of interupting me talking about, sigh and say sweetly, "yes *pressurecooker*, what would you like to add?" whereupon she tells me some random unrelate fact, and follows it with a face that is uncannily reminicent of les dawson when he dressed up in sketches as a woman.

Earlier this week, I had a truly momentus day almost as good as last years daily efforts carrying a certain child around and being hit. Started well, as I sat in assembly watching my lovely former pupil we shall call 'Ucker, hitting the child in front. she was given a second chance but green spot (she takes a carpet spot to assembly so that she sits in her place) all most straight away, flew in the air while one of the senior leadership team was doing an assembly on perserverence and how to never give up. smiling to myself at the irony of this i had to sympathise as her teacher then removed her kicking, swearing, and wriggling through the doors to her centre. I later discovered that after this 'Ucker managed to slap one teaching assistant round the face, hit another one and then at breaktime hit all of her buddies who keep her entertained.

After break i went to collect my class only to discover that at least half of them were fighting with each other, and the 4 naughtiest boys were arguing with my release cover teacher about the fact that they were supposed to stand at the front of the line(I had told them too otherwise they tended to fight at the back of the line). This release teacher was SCREAMING at them for being insolent and making up rules. The boys were trying their hardest to explain but teacher was having none of it!! I ran away!!! Later in the day after an afternoon where i was supposed to be on release time planning and marking, but had spent it all helping everyone else, I wearily walked back to my classroom and then remembered I'd left something in the centre, turned round and promptly walked into the corner of the classroom door. This hurt. a lot. no seriously. I managed to hit my cheekbone below my left eye so now have a lightly swollen eye and a cheekbone so tender that i can't sleep on it. Clever huh?!


Amusing part of school this week has been twofold...

1: all teachers have been set up with a new school email account, and aswell as knowing all thier account profiles and settings i know all thier passwords: which are al animals... imagine the joy as passwords were revealed in staff meeting, to the cries of... "why the fuck am i elephant?!" and "meerkat? what are you trying to say?!" BTW... I am a type of cheese. Correct answers to this question will win a picture of my black eye!!

2: Today I learned what started the second world war!! Having done stupid history at GCSE (social and economic history of england!?!), I had never studied either of the world wars. As I had to teach how war broke out as part of my topic lesson this afternoon, I had a 20 minute crash course from one of my colleagues who had produced a powerpoint to show his class. How interesting is the build up to WW2!?! I'm now hooked... I want to know more about chaimberlain and why he kept giving hitler a second chance when churchill was in the background telling him not to! (now i realise this is a very simplistic view, but remember i've only learned about it in 20 mins today. I intend to find out more this weekend!)


House related Gubbins

Darren is back!!! And this time he's brought his family. Over the last few days my cats have managed to find kill and chase at least 4 mice around the house. How do I know they are not from outside i hear you ask... well.... I know this because on monday I saw one run accross the front of the sofa, and last night one ran over my foot while I was working!! nice huh?! unfortunately, Jack seems unwilling to finish what he started and his current favourite game is to catch them, jump on me with it in his mouth, then bat it around until its back is broken, or back legs are broken. then he gets bored and the maimed mouse struggles like some Platoon extra, gasping and pulling on its front legs, and hides under the cooker where I can't reach it and dies. I then have to get a stick and flick it out and put it in the bin. I am very bored of doing this and I hope Darren the mouse has warned the rest of his mouse family to stay away!

Tonight I made an amazing cake (mainly due to growing jealousy of how much cake is being eaten in central america by one pacamama and one questionmaster). It was a golden apple teacake with whole peices of apple and ginger crust! It tastes amazing!!! unfortuately i did not line the tin sufficiently and the entire thing had to be scraped out using a palate knife and now resembles a cake used as a weapon during a heated argument between phil and grant mitchell! Ah welll.. it all tastes good... who cares!


Finally Highlight of the week:

On monday I watched the amazing new BBC2 programme Amazon, with Bruce 'I like taking mind altering drugs and living in a grass skirt with remote tribes' Parry. It charts the course of the amazon from source in the high andes in Peru, to the wide mouth that opens onto the atlantic. First programme was this week and made me horridly homesick (don;t think you can be homesick for somewhere you don't live, but you know what I mean!) for peru and the highlands journey through bolivia. The highlight of the whole programme was the three days he spent with a peruvuian family who herd alpacas 2 kms from the source of the amazon at an altitude of over 4000m. They explained all the traditional beliefs and rituals, he drank chicha, chewed coca leaves, made offerings to pachamama, and helped herd and shear the alpacas ready to trade their fleeces. while doing this at one point the father of the family had a little radio on and his son (an unbelieveably cute 3 or 4 year old boy) danced like a dad at a wedding in the background. I've looked for a clip of this all over the net, but can't find said small boy anywhere! BOOOO! Again... a prize will await anyone who can find it. I've watched the whole episode twice already this week (he goes on to the red country to meet the Ashaninka tribe whose way of life is currently threatened by the cocaine traders, who are destroying huge parts of the amazon rainforest and the Ashaninka land to make coca fields to enable them to make more money from cocaine.)

Enough raving about how amazing the programme is... i'm off to book a new trip that follows the amazon for next year! .... now where's that winning lottery ticket?!....

Muchos queso, y gatos
Inti xx

"Its the end of the world as we know it....."

Just a quick update on the days momentous events.

switch on. After watching "the big bang machine" on I am loving the LHC at CERN and all the paranoia and actual general science attached to todaysBBCfour last week and grinning like a cheshire cat all the way through it (due to something to occupy my intellectual appetite at last, and a very long and altitude induced conversation on the inca trail with pequenopicklo of blog fame about string theory and the big 'what's out there'), I quickly became obsessed with the theory and experiments that the team were going to be looking in to.

Today was switch on day for the machine. Many media companies (here i point the finger at radio1 among others) reported this fact with the tag line "is this the end of the world?" Quite clearly not!! but fun to think so anyway! The chance of the scientists creating a black hole was most likely, however the black holes (thanks here to Mr Hawking for helping me understand this) would disappear quicker than they would register so again... the world would not end. I quite liked my Dad's take on this... (this is what he sent me as a response to my over excitement at discovering this experiment was going to take place)

"I have to say that while it is interesting stuff I get worried about science that makes predictions and then invents experiments to prove the theory. It's a bit like in flat earth days no-one noticed that sails slowly sink below the horizon. Interesting mad world philosophy - the world changes to support the theories being tested!"

Well said Dad!

So after today's switch on and the mass hysteria I have felt the scientists impact in my little life. At school today i went out to collect my children after break, only to discover one girl (remember i teach year 6 here) in hysterical tears. Apparently she had been like this most of break ... because, yes you guessed it, ... she thought the world was going to end! I looked her in disbelief and summoned all the sympathy i could muster and promptly called her a numpty. My exact words were "stop being a numpty and listen. they switched the machine on at 8am this morning, and it is now 11am. Do you not think if the world was going to end, it would have happened already?!"
To which she replied (between snot and sobs),
"but you don't understand, my mum would have died"
I pointed out that so would she have, and to stop being such an idiot and get into numeracy. Clearly sympathy is not a strong point, but i really have no time for irrational thought of 10 year olds and rainy yorkshire days.

Anyway, thought i should share this momentous day and its annoyances and ponderings, and thank you for reading this. If you have read this it means the world still has not combusted and i am still living in blissful overwork as a teacher and writing inane drivel on the Internet!

Love you all!

INTI xx

Rainy days often cause navel gazing and life contemplation and today has been such a day. Against the backdrop of the second VERY rainy day in a week, I have been thinking about things that have been significant over the past week.

Things that have vexed me over the last week: (Very unproductive to my general mental state i realise)

- Have realised that a small classroom at school means it gets smelly very quickly, even with the windows open.
- Why are my cats continuing to tip cat litter all over the floor during the night?
- I have a new girl in my class that I shall give the pseudonym pressurecooker. This is due to the fact i think she may be someone who if i can work out the right triggers will explode in quite impressive fashion. Whilst this makes my day to day teaching a nerve wracking experience, it does however present me with a 'scab' style scenario. I know I shouldn't pick at it, but dear god i want to make this girl explode-just to see what happens. So far, have discovered tests make her agitated, and she contorts her body into amazing positions in order to use anything but the table to lean on. Also when she has a disagreement with anyone, she gets very 'silent' cross and goes purple and veins appear! See... you want to make her explode now don't you!!

Things i have enjoyed this week:

- Realising that year six are no where near as scary as i thought, and that year 3's are so cute that i can't believe we even have to teach them!!
- Offereing to work a day for free can be good fun. I realised this when working at Endemic (go to www.endemicskatestore.com ) on saturday. It ended up being a bit like a grown up version of having a dressing up box! (sorry Lousia and Andy!) Would be quite happy to do it again... especially as i got to see 'proper chavs' ask for things that skate stores would never have, just cos they thought the store was cool! Oh and... When a guy asked if they sold Buffs... I knew what they were!!! YESSSS
- Cooking! oh my god it feels good to be able to cook my own food! I'm loving creating pasta dishes, and deciding what to eat each night. I particularly enjoyed cooking a BOlivian style meal of trout with vegetable quinoa the other night as it reminded me of being back in South America.
-The Paralympics. Having missed nearly all of the Olympics, its great to watch the Paralympics. So far I'm loving that the GB team repeatedly smash cycling WR, and have overtaken the Olympic GB team for number of Golds won. I also love watching the swimming and am constantly amazed at how well we do. I'm getting well into it, as it is on while i'm cooking my dinner every night. Today I cheered so loud for a Eleanor Simmonds in the womens 100 free, that i had a coughing fit and missed her win gold. I then had a mini cry at the emotion of it all, as she was only 13 and half the height of her competators. When she was interviewed she couldn;t even get her words out. She was crying so much she couldn;t even make sense! LOVE HER!
-REalising that i do actually have a brain! I watched University challenge last night, and managed to answer 6 starter questions the teams couldn;t even answer... proudest of which being "if you divide 666 by the sum of its digits you arrive at a prime number. What is that prime number?". I answered this in about 2 seconds! I even amazed myself! I shall pose this question to my top maths set tmrw. mwa hahaha!
- Loving Batman on an Imax screen. Went to bradfor wi brother and sister in law on saturday night to watch batman. Am totally in awe of heath ledger's performance. I truly am lost for words at his acting ability, and i find it really sad that that is the last film i will see him in. Such a loss.

Random facts:

Did you know Serpentine (what the inca crosses on necklaces are made from) are actually a form of asbestos!

Beelzebub means 'Lord of the Flies'!

Anyhoo... I now must stop writing, as i have IEP's to write and literacy to prepare for tmrw. oh and numeracy, and timetables to type up for support staff. Jeez... and its 8pm already! ugh.

BYE!!

Inti

knocked out turkeys

Today was the first day of term with the lovely creatures known as year six. My room was prepared but the question of dealing with hormone infested 10 year olds was still in question.

By 8am I had already had two cups of VERY strong black coffee, and was feeling a little sick at the stress of it all. Bell goes and like pavlovs dog... i respond by turning off music, wiping any trace of a smile off my face and walking out and shouting at aforementioned children to get in line.

Children in my class are reasonable and at the moment being very compliant little sheep. Got some good characters, and some overly helpful children. Character of the day award goes to one boy in my class who has turned up with half of one of his two top front teeth after falling over on holiday in turkey. The only smile that was broken by me all morning was when he told me this story and while trying to give him the "this is not the time nor place" look, I misheard him and thought he had fallen over a turkey. Hmmm Note to self: pay attention to children and try not to laugh at their misfortune.

These darlings of my life for the next 10 months (just realised thats just longer than a pregnancy ) have so far managed to amass 4 table points (rewards for good behaviour) and one warning (children get warning then caution and then sent to time out for any bad behaviour).

I shall note down day one as a 4TP/1W/0C/0TO. This is a good balance i find... a small amount of praise and a warning to show i'm not a push over. Yes very good.

School has taken my mind off how much I want to be away still, however coming home to empty house has made me eat more than i should and cradle a cusquena for the last hour. This melancholy state of mind has been rewarded by the only thing on TV being f'ing Big brther penultimate eviction. I never thought I'd hate it as much as i do right now. As if its still on... its mocking my summer i'm sure.

Cats are the only distraction from this... Currently Marley is asleep on my lap and JAck is continuing his slightly neurotic behaviour of trying to scoop all the litter out of the litter tray and running around the house meowing. THink he may be unwell. will monitor situation and report soon.

Will leave with the thought that tmrw is another day. In fact tmrw has already happened in australia.

one cup of decaf tea

After a herculean effort to get back from South america, I find myself in Yorkshire life far too quickly. Got back to Huddersfield at about 3pm on saturday after putting to use my new found skill of sleeping anywhere (sorry Dad... I was a rubbish passenger!). Thanks to my extended stopover in Atlanta, 2 Samuel Adams (oh yes I did and had a lovely chat about micro breweries with a lovely guy called John from Boston), and a double jack daniels, I had tricked my body back into UK time and after going to bed at a very reasonable 10pm, I proceded to sleep for 14 hours!

Upon waking, I discover nothing has changed in Yorkshire. Mist, and later rain. Oh the Joy. I am supposed to have spent today planning and preparing for school tomorrow, but have instead adopted the role of layabout student. I have bought baked beans, baking potatoes, orange juice, tea, eaten a pub roast dinner and pissed around on the internet. The only thing that has challenged me today has been looking at my wardrobe of clothes. After having a bath I took a full 30 minutes trying desperately to make sense of having a choice of clothes to wear. I kept looking at my backpack with longing as if it had answers. it didn't.

SO with complete lack of preparation I have made a chicken sandwich for tomorrow and am heading to bed with a funeral march for my summer ringing in my head. For minute and questions, I salute your onward journey and hope the rainstorms subside soon.

By the way, as far as i can find out phases of the moon are the same for both northern and southern hemispheres at the same time (given the time difference) just the image is reversed.

inti