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