Still no stats

I am doing everything I can to avoid my stats paper. I did the first part of it, but really only concentrated for an hour of so, and most of that was just copying out of the notes. My distractions include trying (and failing) to do the Guardian cryptic (this holiday has made me even slower), repeated knee exercises and green-pea icing, searching for a nice nest for X and I, cutting vegetables, reading Twilight, just staring out of the window. Today must still be part of the holiday.

Spurs beat Burnley 4-1 last night, yeah Carling Cup! Still have the second leg to go, but it's looking good. We also have Defoe back, good stuff, although our strikers seemed to have woken up a bit. Would sell Bentley like THAT though, what a waste of £15m.

X stayed over, it was nice have some time together again. We have been planning our nest, it's very exciting!

Twilight is pretty drivel-full in that it's clearly something I would have loved at 13, but right now it's just boring, I want to skip through to the dramatic vampire bits, but instead I keep getting stuck in all the teenage angst and swooning, BORING.

Oooh dinner-time, a justified excuse! I also signed up to Twitter, finally, but I think I preferred just popping in and out of the special forums on it rather than having my own account. I loved the US elections forum, hmmm, maybe there's one for the transfer window....

Varnish; Squash; Books

My gosh the house stinks! All this varnish is making me really rather light-headed. Tried opening the windows, but frankly would choose being a wee bit high over freezing my ass off almost every time.

My Metro horoscope suggested that the Pisces Moon is making me unproductive. I am happy to use this excuse. Rest and relaxation is called for, it said, so I have decided to do just that. The guilt is nagging, but only quietly, I can block it out.

Played 4 games of squash with Ish last night, thoroughly enjoyed myself. I forget how much I like Ish until I see her again. She is one of those where you can jump straight back in to the level of intimacy you had before, as if we had never really been apart. The games were good, and the chatter was good too, but I am sad for her. She hates her job, and it's messing up her life. Such a shame, she has so much potential. For those of you that don't know her, she is perfectly vivacious, the life and soul of whatever's going on, the kind of person who can be everything to everyone. But yesterday she wasn't fully herself, and she blames her job. I hope she can get out. Actually, I just hope she can get back to being her old self.


In other news, I finished A Brown Man and Other Stories, and am now suitably paranoid about my coffee coated exterior (literally, I tipped the cafetiere too far, but like the smell, particularly as it is attempting to overthrow the varnish). I have moved on to The Amber Spyglass. Finally I hear you say Bladey. Well, yes, and no. I am about 6 pages in and already finding it tedious. I am sure I'll love the middle bit of the story, but I hate getting into it. It doesn't help that I went to the library after the gym this morning and now have 7 other books that I'd rather read. It's going to be a battle.

I may be out drinking tonight, so I apologise in advance if I'm on poor form tomorrow. Except I won't be because I'm so excited about seeing all you girls again, especially in such a swanky venue! Woohoo, it's gonna be lovely, can't wait to catch up!

Writing the personal statement

I've now spent over three hours trying to write a personal statement. It is still decidedly mediocre. And incomplete. My concentration is shot.

Some distractions I have indulged in:

• dancing to the Funky House Sessions (both discs...that's over two hours of music)
• opening and shutting the windows in my room to obtain the optimum climate (cos that's what's holding me back)
• painting my toenails
• thinking about packing for the weekend (but not actually packing)
• drinking cheeky beers with my bro (his idea, but really, it's not helped)

It wasn't good when I checked out a graduate site for tips and it said that many people write 10 or 12 drafts of their statement of purpose, and over something like 2 months. I have until 4am.

It's not a good time to have to do this. It turns out that I am not a fan of drama any more. I wish I had a crystal ball. And a time machine. Then maybe I'd be better at all this.

Expect an update in about 6 hours time i.e. when we leave for the weekend.

Update 23:47: I'm done. Got into the flow of it and it's done :) First draft obviously, but still. Packing can wait till the morning. Will ramble again on Monday, enjoy your weekend!

Dazey Day

I am hibernating. By that I mean I am wearing lots of clothes and hiding in my bed. This is nice.

I didn't bring any books home to mark today. I didn't really feel like it.

It's time for a week off the drink, I think the cumulative hangover is causing my melancholy. Perhaps also the horrendous nightmare I had last night that woke me at half four and stopped me going back to bed. Going to school on 3 hours sleep is just silly. Nevertheless, I am pleased I can push myself through it. Although "it" went by in a daze to be honest. A daze of dropping things, amongst which include my phone from the first floor landing to the ground floor; a knife from the kitchen drawer to almost my toes; a colleague's cafetiere (yes, the glass broke).

Apart from the almost dream-like wanderings of the day, I have spent a good amount feeling slightly restless, as if I am killing time until something, but I don't know what that is. Strangely I sat in my classroom alone at lunchtime, despite deciding I wasn't going to do any work today. That was definitely killing time, but then went it came round to lesson 5, I didn't really want to do that either. Apathy. Boo.

On the marginally more alert side, just played three of my scrabulous games and got some good stuff down. My words: jar (30); talented (60); dominate (90). A touch of arrogance perhaps? I am particularly enjoying the roundness of those scores, and the way they are multiples of 30.

I'm going to bed now, I think it's best. I don't want to join the legions of staff off sick at the moment.

Distractions from OFSTED

It arrived in the post today. The dreaded letter from CCCU confirming that OFSTED would be coming to observe Team TF at our Academy. Woohoo!

Apart from lunch during the SI, I have no real experience of OFSTED. Thus, my fear could be construed as irrational. It is based almost entirely upon the myriad of OFSTED anecdotes that have come my way during my brief spell of teaching, the highlight being my Head of Department detailing how he'd had a minor breakdown when they'd last visited. Excellent.

So I have a big long list of things that OFSTED will want to see. Unfortunately, it will be difficult for them to actually see these things because for the most part they don't exist. Yet. Believe me though, if I have a lot of work to do, the other TFers at my school will have double or even triple that (I am widely regarded as "the organised one" - toot toot, my own horn sounds good). Before even thinking about this work, I have to go through a period of denial and distraction. Here we go then:

1. It's Tamil New Year - happy New Year!
2. I have a cold. Excellent.
3. If my Dad thinks I am a bit of a brat, well, he should read the story about that girl who caused £20,000 worth of damage to her house during a house party. How awful!
4. Grand National - come on Numbersixvalverde, let this be your year!
5. Twitter.com - heard about this ages ago on this internet start-up business blog, but am pleased this is finally getting some serious recognition.
6. Professor Mankiw's blog - how exciting, the smart guy who wrote our Macro textbooks communicates to his students. Surprisingly light-hearted but frank for an economist! Plus, finally, someone who blogs more regularly than me!

No doubt more distractions later, hopefully in the form of alcohol.

Berts, hope you had a safe flight back, tell Grandma Pink and Carmela I said hi!

Coffee Bags, Micragolia, Scrubs Quote

Yay, I'm back from a glorious week in Venice! I bet you missed me :) So what's been happening? Well, I have made myself promise not to write about Venice until I finish my WA3, so you'll have to wait a bit on that front. However, I have to procrastinate somehow so here's a post for you anyway.

Firstly, I thought I'd invented fresh coffee bags (kinda like individual tea bags except with fresh coffee in them instead) and was whooping around celebrating my discovery before I googled them and found that they already semi-exist. Boo. But Potter helpfully told me about "second but better" theory so there's potential. Obviously what will ulitmately happen is that I'll just throw coffee bags onto my ever-expanding list of ideas and then forget all about it.

Secondly, my friend Netty is doing some crazy Mongol Race or something this summer, which essentially involves driving from Hyde Park to Ulaan Bator in a very small car. How exciting! And how faaaaar! She is very cool and made this lovely map, so thought I'd put that up.


If you wanna find out more or sponsor her, check out their justgiving pages:

Mercy Corps - www.justgiving.com/micragolia
Hope and Homes for Children - www.justgiving.com/micragolia2

Thirdly, CK sent me this Scrubs quote and said it reminded him of me. I assumed I was Dr Cox in it, but thinking about it now, I'm probably Elliot....

Elliot to Dr. Cox "Oh, you think you're funny?"

Dr. Cox "I do. I always have ever since I was little. It's one of the reasons that I'm a winner!"

Bricks in the freezer

Having wasted an epic amount of time not making the EAL (English as an Additional Language) maths exam keywords dictionary that I intended to compile this evening, and having not completed a strenuous workout at the gym (Hollyoaks is my downfall), I figure I'd not bother to waste more time but instead just ask you the burning question of the day instead...

So, in the Proper Education video, the kids are all saving the environment etc. and at one point the kids break into a flat and put a brick in the freezer. How is this helping the environment? I can't figure it out and I really wanna know!

Mouche, good geekiness, but what do the words mean? I know I could look them up, but we're all about not taking responsibility today.