My tarot card reading told me that at the moment I was confused and undecided about a lot of things. I immediately assumed the cards were talking about my job (especially since it was another teacher doing the reading) but now I wonder what else it might be about. It was very weird getting the cards done because they all fitted with each other and seemed to tell a story, which kept getting more and more real (but also surreal) as the cards got turned over. I want to get another reading done.

On Saturday we went to a birthday dinner party for one of my father's old school friends. It was great fun, particularly since there's nothing like an old boys' reunion when it comes to hilarious anecdotes about my father. Despite his insistence that he was a hardworking lad, it seems he managed to get himself into his fair share of trouble. Anyone who has heard the story of how my Dad impaled his cheek on a spear (luckily not too badly) will be relieved to know his school high-jinx weren't so dramatic. Still, seeing all of them together made it easy to imagine them with their dirty knees and scruffy ties, causing trouble left, right and centre. This is despite their privileged education at Royal College in Colombo, Sri Lanka (established 35 years before Keble College, if that's any indication of "fancy-pants-ness").

Tried to do some Christmas shopping yesterday. Failed miserably. Was rather more successful at TF choir - am finally managing to not sing the tune and sing the alto part instead, props to me! Went for yet another curry in Brick Lane last night, yum yum. I have decided Cobra doesn't count as beer so I am free to drink it in vast quantities, excellent.

Warwick brother is home, yippee! Proceeded to completely rearrange the reception rooms; am mightily pleased with the new layout, particularly because I feel it can now accommodate a piano, which means there is almost nothing to stop me learning in the new year, yay!

B-Team drinks in Walthamstow tonight...am starting to warm to good old E17, it's not so bad after all. But first it is time to do something productive.

Happy days at work people, mwhahahahaha!

Christmas Holidays!!!

Woo hoo! School's over for the year, it's holiday time!

I made it! Oh my gosh, yippee, exclamation marks galore!!!!!!! :) !!!!!!!!!!

2 weeks of no marking, planning, teaching, preparing, reporting, praising, telling off...running around like a headless chicken! Yay yay yay!

The end of term flew by in a blaze of classroom parties, Christmas assemblies, carols, fun lessons, and festive greetings to all and sundry. The Christmas spirit finally took control of the school and I was really taken back to my own school days by all the merriment, it was great! This was despite having had a heavy night on Thursday (maths department dinner, then a birthday in good old London town, then a jolly trip on the night bus....hmmm, why have I added the night bus as if it was a whole other event?) and so feeling a bit worse for wear yesterday. Imagine if I'd been feeling 100%...

With the kids finally sent home, the staff Christmas lunch kicked off in fantastic style. The promise I made to myself to keep it under control at work was thrown out of the window and after 6 hours of solid drinking with the other teachers, I was suitably merry. I really had an ace time, it felt like we were celebrating finishing finals, that's how jubilant everyone was! I guess it's been a tough term for everyone, so I'm really pleased we made it through.

Things that shouldn't have happened:

1. "Borrowing" a spare crate of Carlsberg from the staffroom after the party
2. Taking said crate to the pub and proceeding to secretly drink it alongside vodka
3. Bumping into some of my Y8 maths group on the road later on (what are the chances of that? I've never seen any of my kids all term, and then the one night that I am in teacher-guise and lashed, they see me.)
4. Getting my tarot cards read...exciting stuff, more on that next time.
5. Having to go and rescue my car today (actually, clearly it is better this happens rather than me attempting to drive it hammered).
6. Not making it to meet Mouche and Potato Potter. Sorry girls, I am rubbish...I really was in bed by 10pm!
7. Eating absolute junk (including ridiculous amounts of spicy peanuts, NOT good) this whole week and drinking beer after I had banned it. Whoops, I can sense Christmas will take its toll on my body.

Anyway, am very excited about the holidays and will fill you in on all the fun and games tomorrow!

Happy weekend!

I feel like this colour today. Weird right?

Nothing much to report, except that my girls played their last game in the tournament today. Alas they lost big time, but still there were smiles. Some Y10 girls were there to support, and at one point they got all the younger girls around to give them a bit of a pep talk. It was amazing to watch them sharing and helping each other - yes, I had a moment :)

I had an unmoment period 2 today when I gave my Y8s an end of term test. I am scared to mark it cos they all looked completely stumped the whole way through. Oh dear. One of my established colleagues gave the same test to her Y8 group, and the kids' National Curriculum levels actually dropped...I can already sense this will happen to my kids too. Great, I am unteaching them.

Played "maths charades" with my Y7s, which was hilarious. They loved it, particularly the whole boys vs. girls thing. Aaah the tension amongst young teenagers is fabulous...is it wrong that I provoke it so? Mwahahaha, but it's entertaining drama, and I do love drama.

Tomorrow is full of marking and reports and sorting out end of term stuff. Hurrah.

And finally, here are some Christmas jokes for kids to make you smile:

What is the difference between the Christmas alphabet and the regular alphabet?
The Christmas alphabet has Noel!

What did the pack of Walkers say to the Skips?
Merry Crispmas!

Why should you be careful at Christmas?
Because there are mince spies about!

And my personal favourite...

Knock Knock.
Who's there?
Mary.
Mary who?
Mary Christmas!

Ho Ho Ho!

Woo hoo, this week of school is gonna be great I think :) All my classes are having tests and then "fun" lessons, hence minimum serious planning. Their idea of fun and mine may well differ. I wanna play Charades and Mafia with them. They are probably more interested in charlie than Charades and I'm sure some of them harbour serious ambitions to join a criminal gang.

Still it will be funny to watch them work in groups. I love analysing group dynamics. Thus I will ignore their complaints and instead try and placate them with mince pies and sweeties (while remembering to apologise profusely to whichever poor soul has to deal with their E number induced hyperactivity). Excellent.

As a side note, getting Christmas cards from the kids is really nice, and rather bizarre too :)

What else? On a downer, I need a filling. Shocker. This is what happens when you don't go to the dentist for 3 years. And also when you gloat about how amazing your teeth are. Rubbish.

The book I am reading now (Light on Snow, Anita Shreve) is vaguely coincidental with my life. Only because it is set in New Hampshire, where I spent a jolly summer in 2005. I think I need more evidence before I can conclusively prove that this book (and all subsequent books) are about me. And no, I'm not an egomaniac; just empathetic.

And finally, I read that apparently you can classify all the people in your life according to the world of Winnie-The-Pooh. That is, everyone is kinda like one of Winnie, Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger, Rabbit, Kanga, Roo, Owl, Gopher, or Christoper Robin. One day I will sit down and do this. In the meantime, take this Poohsonality Test to find out for yourself.

I'm in a ridiculously jolly mood today. I think I just woke up on the right side of the bed. Without a hangover :) Excellent. Thus I am treating you to photos and also the highlights of the weekend, you lucky people.

So here's a picture of us at the London Dungeon. Scary stuff! Not as scary as the last time I went there. I made a real effort not to make eye contact with wax models, and always looked around for people hiding in dark corners so I was ready for their surprises. Contemplated touching people to see if they were real or fake, but decided this was an error. Still, managed not to have a major freakout or anything, which I'm pleased about.

Puja gave me a Crunchie - very poignant since Martha gave Jack a Crunchie when I was reading just the day before...what are the chances? All in all a fun day out, very well organised, not too scary, lots of special effects and educational value. Can't wait to have kiddies so I can take them there! Also went on a lovely walk by the river, aaah I love the river :)

We then spent a jolly couple of hours in the pub. Aaah daytime drinking, my favourite. Fruli is rapidly moving up my favourite drinks list. An interesting discussion on the definition of pulling proved that indeed tongues do have to be involved. Also lots of gossiping and complaining about boys, excellent. Clearly our lives have dramatically evolved from when we were at school.

The "Jarvin" blind date went faaaaar better than I ever thought it could. Despite occasional awkward pauses, they seemed to get on like a house on fire, chattering away about all kinds of things. Despite my comedy error of not telling "M" which boy was the gay one (thus leaving him very confused at the table as to who he was actually on the blind date with!) things worked out in the end. The boys swapped numbers and I think we will be seeing them both again on Thursday, thus proving being optimistic about my matchmaking abilities was the right thing to do.

This brings me to the fact that apparently there are half a million more single girls than boys in the UK. I wonder if this is because there are more boys than girls? Whatever the reason, clearly the British population is in need of my dating agency (this weekend's invention, just in case you thought I'd stopped all that malarkey). Birmingham has the most singletons, so I will start my business there, after first doing some research in Reading, since it's supposedly the place to find Mr Right.

In other news, I have now finished the book about me. Luckily it has a happy ending :) In two final coincidences, in the last few pages both London Bridge and Thai food were mentionned, both of which featured in my weekend. Weird, huh? I wonder who my Jack is...(don't worry Puj, I haven't given up, this just makes it all the more interesting!)

Oh and for those that wanted to see it, here's my car, Dixey, so pretty :) The poor parking is courtesy of my lil bro...see, it runs in the family!

My Y8s were so bad today. Grrr. Had to have "D" removed from my class for the second time this week. Also put "S" in detention tomorrow after school (thus violating my "no detentions on Fridays" policy, dang it). Am thinking of making her write an essay with the title How can I make myself a better person? but I think that might be offensive (plus patently she will just write things like "get extensions, violate my ASBO orders, have a baby etc".) Maybe the title will be How can I improve my behaviour to help me be a better learner? That sounds suitably teacheresque. Excellent. Maybe I will be super-mean and rip it up after she has done it...? Or maybe it will be good and then I can photocopy it and stick a copy in every kids' book....oooh possibilities, see every negative can be made positive (so true in maths as well)!

Anyway, luckily I didn't lose my temper too much. Getting loads better at the ol' anger management. Did have to to run out of school during lunch though cos I was so cross (I mean literally run....far too far in fact, almost had to get the bus back to be in time for period 5!) But that's better than reaching for the bottle, good progress on the drinking front, heehee :)

On the plus side, two good things.

1. "D" has now been removed from my class for the rest of the term. I know that's only a week more, but still....bliss :)
2. Not sure I've mentionned the ridiculous blind date that I somehow got roped into co-ordinating, but it's going ahead, and am now far more positive that it could be a success. Looking forward to my reputation as an epic matchmaker being elevated to new heights! Full report to follow next week (unless it goes really really badly!) just to keep you guys on your toes :)

Shout out to MT - happy birthday Mrs President! Hope you have lots of fun and all the best for this year!

Y11 had their non-calculator mock GCSE paper this morning. I've got my group's papers sitting on my bed but I'm not brave enough to mark them yet...too nervous! Doesn't help that one girl told me she missed out ten questions - there are only 29 on the paper! Oh well, it's only mocks...well, that's what I say to them anyway. Sure they've got 5 months to the real thing, but that time is gonna fly so quickly. I want them to focus now so that they can get their Ds (don't even get me started on the stupidity of the system that doesn't let foundation tier maths pupils get a C...at least they've changed it now, but one year too late for my kids).

Fire alarm went off at 8:27am today. Good start to the day. Mock exams ran late, causing chaos at break and lunchtime. Doors to the main corridors were locked...almost got steamrollered by a massive year 10 boy when I told him he couldn't go in. Wonderful expletives flew forth from his mouth. Impressive.

Also mightily impressed by Neighbours and the lengths they will go to do drive up audience figures. There's no other way to explain the multitude of scenes featuring Ned and Boyd topless. It used to be wrong to think Boyd had a good body, but now that he's out of school and married, it's fine :) It is still my ambition to play the token Asian on Ramsey Street; I have faith in my shoddy acting ability and willingness to participate in silly story lines, what more do they need? I wonder what my character should be called...am thinking Sheila Patel - the right blend of ethnicity and Australian-ness. And I wanna be in a love triangle with Harold and Lou. Hot stuff.

Woo hoo Tuesday's almost over! I don't know why I am not a big fan of Tuesdays - apparently it's our most productive work day. I think it's cos it seems like such a "nowhere" day, in that you're not even halfway to the weekend. Anyway, it's almost over, yay! Not that I'm wishing my life away or anything (my Grandma told me not to do that. In Tamil, of course).

My girls lost 7-0 to Leytonstone. Ouch. It is very annoying how one or two really good players on the other team means that your team get annihilated. Oh well. At least they won their friendly against Walthamstow School for Girls 3-2. Good stuff.

The lesson on stereotypes went well despite my turning red as a beetroot. It is quite bizarre - you'd think I'd be used to public speaking by now (especially given that most of the time I am in public when I talk...although there are momentary lapses when I find myself chattering away to...yes, you guessed it - myself). It was really embarrassing, kinda like I had drunk half a bottle of SoCo and achieved that lovely tingly sensation in my face. I think its cos I get nervous when I am being observed. Whatever the reason, I was still happily warming my hands on my face a good hour later. This didn't look strange at all, oh no.

Managed to get completely lost in Leytonstone. On the plus side, found the Primark AND the McDonald's. Realised that even if I was lost, I would survive. A pivotal moment.

Martha has said that she likes conkers and is a hopeless romantic. Girls, don't know how many of you remember "Willy the Conk"...my trusty good luck conker I carried around in my blazer pocket. Oodles of good luck came my way courtesy of Willy. I wonder where he is now...

Sprouse, I love it that in your spare hour you are willing to write reports for me. You are such a good friend :) Alas, you seem to forget that you can't write. Maybe you can do the ones for the EAL (English as an Additional Language) kids...they can't read them anyway! Hahaha. Sorry, bad joke, I love and respect my kids, honest.

Mouchio, sorry life is tough in the world of futons. Square sausages will make things right (right-angled in fact...hahaha) in the world. Think of your blog as a cathartic devise...except with lots of brackets :)))))

Everyone else, check out this mapgame, shamelessly stolen from SB's blog. She says she gets a 100 points regularly. On my first go, I got 6. Hmmm. Admittedly I didn't realise the game had started, but still, only 6?! Rubbish. I will play this game at school I think...the kids will love it. And I too will get 100. One day.

Today was a bit of a write-off. I think at times I really am an awful teacher. Was going over converting metric units with Y8 (again) and they still didn't get it.

Me: If I have 5 centimetres and I want to know how many millimetres that is, the first thing I have to do is decide what units are in the question. What are the units?
Y8: Is it 5 Miss?
Me: No, I want the units. What are the units?
Y8: Is it 10 Miss?
Me: No, units, I want to know the metric units in the question.
Y8: It's a hundred isn't it?

Cue almost hysterical laughter from me. I literally couldn't keep a straight face. The kids thought I'd gone loopy. Talk about raising expectations...I'm a baaaad teacher, I laugh at my kids. Oh dear.

Y7 weren't much better...the little monster K went into a strop when I moved her after she repeatedly made weird sucking/squawking/quacking noises. She refused to participate in the lesson and so I kicked her out. Lots of lovely drama and squawking later, she leaves. She flounces back in at the end of the lesson. "Mr Aubdool is a really good teacher, "she announces grandly. "Maybe he'll keep you permanently," I mutter under my breath.

Things got better though. Played "heads down thumbs up" with 7D in tutor time, very constructive. Helped some Y11s with exam questions. Was granted leave for family stuff at the start of next term. Managed to get home before 5 and have finished my work for the evening.

However, these next two weeks aren't as carefree and easy as I thought. Reports need to be written for every class (including full written reports for Y11). This means every class needs to be tested and every test marked in time for the reports. Great. Also found out that the average life span after retirement for a male head teacher in an inner-city school is 1.5 years! Like most jobs, it's hard to leave work at "work". But teaching is all consuming. Today is one of those days where I missed staring at spreadsheets. Inevitable I guess after the joys of last week.

In other news, I am feeling rather philosophical. It's a loooong story, and don't worry, I will be happy-go-lucky (i.e. thinking about stupid things like ducks) again tomorrow. Note to self: no deep and meaningful conversations after bed time.

Also, I have been roped into a rather bizarre match-making scenario. The two in question are complete opposites, and I'm convinced it won't work, but have somehow been "tricked" into fabricating an opportunity for a rendez-vous. And yes, just for added drama, they are both boys. Hopefully my match making skills are universal.

For inspiration, check out the link to scaramouche on the side bar. Her tale of Melanie Bellamy really is quite ridiculous.

I am meant to be writing my Teach First journal, but you know how I love distractions...

Celebrations! A whole week without having to stay back for detention once :D What are the chances eh? Admittedly, N let the Y7 group down by forgetting his exercise book and missing a homework (he has a 30 min detention tomorrow) but I'm not really counting that. So yes, detention-free week!

Did lots of tutor time with 7C this week, was actually quite nice to get to know the little monsters. Maybe having a tutor group wouldn't be so bad? Was also really proud of how mature and well-behaved the Y7s were during the fire drill and at the awards' assembly - they can be good sometimes!

In the world of fiction - another sign that I am Martha:

"Today was the type of day when you saw a space in the supermarket car park and you managed to reverse into it, first time, no hesitation."

This has never happened to me, but I know it would be a good day if it did.

Alas, Michael has just left Martha. Oh dear. I hope this book has a happy ending.

In other news, the pineapple I didn't use as my costume yesterday was delicious. I don't have a cumulative hangover either :)

I am also just about over the Spurs defeat to the evil Gunners. True, Spurs lacked ambition yesterday, but Arsenal were definitely on the lucky side of lucky. Two dodgy penalties and an off-side goal make me wonder why I'm not a Premiership referee? I can make just as many errors...

This is my second-to-last weekend of lesson planning before Christmas! And no Y11 this week! I am being observed on Tuesday in a PSHE (Personal Social & Health Education) lesson. I have never taught this before and currently have no idea what the lesson is meant to be on, or even how a PSHE lesson works. Good stuff.

10 teaching days to go!

Mouche, I am looking forward to reading your online insights. And also being the godmother of your child. I don't mind which order I do this in.

Girls, I'm looking forward to our pyjama party....aaaaw to be 11 again! Except it'll be even better - we'll have wine!

Update 22:02

Went to the gym and choir practice. In the same 6 hours, my parents went "impact-visiting" which is where they visit lots of people who live in the same area. Now they are being impact-visited. Yes, that's right, I come home at half nine on a Sunday night and we have visitors. Tea is being served. Tea! At half nine. Bizarre. This is after they went to a wedding reception last night. Plus, my mother is the president of her old school association and she hosted a party for them yesterday during the day. AND the phone started ringing at half seven on Sat morning and I don't know when it stopped. Aaaah I only hope I am as busy and popular as my parents when I am old. Actually, forget when I'm old, I should be as popular as them now! :)

The book I'm reading at the moment is about me. Of this I am certain. Supposedly the main character is called Martha. Clearly this an elaborate ruse. Clues include:

1. Her name starts with an "m". So does mine.
2. She is a Virgo.
3. She was standing on the platform at Earl's Court station in chapter 2. When I was reading Chapter 2 guess where I was standing? That's right!
4. She tries very hard to please people and then feels guilty when she can't. Without delving too much into my psyche, I know I do this.
5. She doesn't bother too much with jewellry, although she wears a beautiful, expensive watch (I am working on this).
6. She likes to "count her blessings".
7. She is a serial monogamist at heart. Contrary to popular belief, I think I am too.
8. She likes to shower before going to bed.
9. She tries to see the positive in people.
10. She can't remember the last time she read a book entirely for pleasure (Oxford degree anyone?)

Ok, now I read for fun, but Martha likes to read prize-winning books for their intellectual and conversational value. I know I do this too. In fact, the only reason I have been reading trashy stuff lately is because Small Island was so rigorous that I needed something lighter. By the way, read Small Island, it really is very good.

There are many more similarities. I fear I am reading about my life in the future. Imagine if you could read your life story already? Weird right? Wonder what happens next...

Another good day. I don't wanna jinx it, but things really have been going ok for a little while. Must be under some good stars at the moment :) Whatever it is, I've had three days now and no detentions yet! Could this be the first week since the start of term where I have no kids in detention? Let's not talk too soon.

My girls lost 5-0 last night. They were playing Y11 girls from Lammas, and we didn't have a full strength squad. Nevertheless, they did well, and I'm pleased that they took their defeat well. Most of them did at any rate. Had a rather cross PE teacher tell me today that one of my girls had walked out of PE that morning "because she was tired from playing football". Obviously not good. Hopefully after our little chat "A" will apologise and go back to participating in lessons (for the sake of the team at least...I have to drop her if she won't behave).

In equally troublesome news, "G", who is usually so good, has been banned from playing football for the school for the rest of the term by the Head of PE due to extreme rudeness to a member of the SLT (Senior Leadership Team). I was caught up in a maths lesson that over-ran, so I wasn't there to let the girls into early lunch at 13:10 on the dot so that they could get to football practice at 13:20. "G" challenged the teacher in charge of the lunch queue for not letting her through and was really mouthy with him and rude also to the Head of PE. Consequently she is on the bench until she apologises and learns to respect authority. Dramatastic.

I know these sound like bad things, but to me they are actually good things. I'd far rather kids learned these things in school rather than out there in the big bad world. I'm also kinda pleased that the girls are dedicated enough to the team (hopefully) to change their behaviour and realise they are better than that. Particularly now that we've got Y7s and Y8s in the same training, it's important for the girls to see that they are role-models and need to lead by example. I remember when I was at school thinking all that stuff about role-models was rubbish, but I can see so easily that it's true - kids really do wanna be like the older ones. Now if we can only get the older ones on track...

Speaking of role models, saw an excellent program on Channel 4 called The Secret Millionaire about a millionaire who went into Hackney masquerading as a youth worker and tried to change lives. Was really inspiring - my Mum was in tears when she saw how grateful the youth centre people were with the millionaire's donation; it really was emotional. One line in the show: "you're not just investing in kids, every time they share a detail with you, they're investing in you too" really stuck with me. I think it might be true, you know.

Phew, I'm knackered. Looong busy day, but a good one. Will keep it short, am aiming for a 10, o'clock bed-time! Hahaha, I just wrote 10,o'cock, that made me laugh. So immature.

Realised today that due to Christmas arrangements, my last actual full day of teaching is in two Tuesdays time. Woo hoo! The count down can really commence now.

Girls lost 5-0 today, booo! Oh well. Also, gave a lift to one of the kids, clearly a big no-no in the teacher's guide, whoops. Will try not to do that again. Don't worry Disney, it wasn't Jason!

Shout outs to anyone reading this in Kenya, I miss you all loads, come to London!

Click here to keep you entertained in the absence of a better post, don't worry, it's nothing bad!

Oh and I told my colleague about finishing "The Hook". She wants to lend me another book from the series...fingers crossed that happens eh?

Today was a good day for lots of reasons. Here are some, in no particular order:

1. All my kids were good in class today.
2. I got to leave at lunchtime for a knee appointment.
3. My knee is fine, not busted up as I feared it was.
4. I beat my 3km time by almost two minutes.
5. I don't have to teach tomorrow afternoon due to VIth open evening preparation (which I have sneakily got out of attending due to Y9 football match commitments...excellent!)
6. I have finally finished reading "The Hook". More on this momentarily.
7. I got a lovely message from Bertie. More on this later too.
8. My brother completed his MCAT exams and said that they went ok. This is good news should I ever follow through on the medicine plan since hopefully they will be ok for me too.
9. Salmon parcels with spinach, carrots and charlotte potatoes for supper; mars ice cream for pudding. Yum yum, my Mum is amazing.
10. An early night in sight :)

"The Hook" was a book lent to me by one of the teachers in the maths department at school. It's a pretty good story in that it could make a reasonable action film, but so badly written, predictable, and downright ridiculous at times that I found it frustrating to read. Finally, almost a month later, I have finished my struggle through the 76 A4 pages. I wonder if I will be brave enough to tell her what I really thought of the story? Quotes from the last page:

Mary was too afraid to join in, at first, but she picked up the courage to remove a shoe and hit Banko's head, hard, with a heel...Lovson smiled, then, looked into Mary's eyes, and said, "Thanks, Mary, you saved my life!"...Lovson stopped, then, looked into Mary's eyes, and said, "Mary, I want you to come with me. I want you to stay with me. I would like you to be my wife. Will you marry me?"

Bearing in mind that Mary met Lovson about 6 days ago when he was being chased by a gang through an airport, and given that there had only been a slight romantic build up before the last page (some stuff about Lovson thinking about Mary and her eyes...he is ALWAYS looking in her eyes...booooring!) this is stupid. The general story too is a bit stupid at parts. However, what annoys me the most is the excessive and stupid use of commas and the word "then". It's almost as if the author has emphysema and so needs to breathe after every word. But when he breathes, instead of normal air sounds, he breathes the word "then" out, meaning every sentence is littered with ",then," for no reason. This is the only explanation as far as I can tell.

On a more positive note Bertie said:

ahh how sweet, as long as ure thinking about me all the time then im happy. (was telling him how I was wasting lesson planning time by admiring pictures of him wearing my red monkey top).

hows the good fight going? u are far and away my favourite teacher ever and ive never even been to one of ure classes.

im really looking forward to the goooseee now - genuinely that and seeing my little sister have been the only twangs of home sickness that ive had while ive been here.

i havent had nearly enough sugar today so am heading out to get some more

This made me smile.

Am now reading "The Other Woman's Shoes" by Adele Parks. Slightly more promising than "The Hook", but the main character is called Martha and is married to Michael. They have two children called Maisie and Mathew. I sense this will annoy me soon. If I ever marry someone whose name starts with an m and then give our children m-names, kick me. Hard.

Right, time for that early night. Hot chocolate tonight :)

Usually two days of drinking in a row make me feel awful, but I think last night's fun and games actually neutralised the hangover. Today I feel great! Hair of the dog is so the way forward.

It was Sanju's birthday at Point 101. Interesting mix of TF people, uni mates, school friends, and randoms that had been dragged along by other people. My ability to small talk/ramble away to strangers is vastly improving (not that I was ever bad at talking to strangers...the fact that I may never see them again instantly relaxes me and thus allows all kinds of nonsense to leave my lips more or less the minute after we've been introduced). I must say the cocktail bar there is ace, and at £3.50 a cocktail before 10pm, wonderful prices too! They aren't small cocktails either, no sir...a mere three mojitos and I had that pleasant numb tongue sensation nobody else seems to get. Unlucky you lot, numb tongue is great! Anyway, we are adding 101 to our list of pre-gaming venues, yum yum yum.

The crocuses made a second appearance and were once again warmly received (the crocuses aren't a euphemism for anything dodgy you naughty people, they are actual crocuses and my current favourite present...yes, I am bulk-buying pot-plants!). Today I fear for their safety though...when I left Sanju was rather merry and convinced that they would prefer to grow in vodka rather than water. Poor things.

What else? I am busy lesson planning and already SO bored, having only managed to complete two lessons. Rubbish. Must try and focus. Yes.

Also there was some crazy rain/hail/thunder/lightning storm really early this morning, which was so dramatic and loud that I thought we were being bombed. Scary stuff, but a kinda nice scared since I knew we weren't really being bombed, and I love watching storms. It's strange how calm and beautiful the sky looked a little while later, almost as it had finished having a strop and was back to being all sweetness and light. Reminded me of toddlers - so fickle.

I am now alarmed by the fact that everything reminds me of small people. Similarly alarmed by the Tracie dog...I read somewhere that people often look like their dogs, so maybe she's lost hers? Does your cat look like you Mouche? Oh wait, that would mean you would be invisible. Actually, sometimes you are a bit pale and see-through-like. Weird.

Funny joke. Will try that with my Y11s tomorrow. Half of them are EAL (English as an Additional Language) so laugh at me whatever I say!

Update. 19:17

Oh my gosh, I am SO BORED of lesson planning. It feels like it is never ending. This is because it really is never ending. And boring. Aaaaaaaargh.

Right, now that that's out of my system, I shall carry on. Clearly I will appreciate all my hard work during the week when I don't have to do any work after school. Except that obviously I will. Grr.

In other news, I am drinking blackcurrant fruit tea. As per usual, it is yum, but doesn't taste like blackcurrants.

Expect more boring insights into my day at my desk later on.

Puja, congrats with the photos, I'm so proud of you!

People, I have a hangover. This is immensely upsetting to me since this now means I am officially a lightweight. Last night at Laura's birthday I had two glasses of white wine, two glasses of mulled wine, one can of Carlsberg (whoops, I thought I'd given up beer...) and a generous measure of vodka (for drinking while thinking). The fact that I can remember what I drank and still I feel hungover is a bad sign. It means I am ageing. Rubbish. I am hoping I am just dehydrated....if loads of juice fixes it, then I will be a happy bunny.

Other points of note for this morning:

My uncle is here to inspect the Victorian wardrobes in my room. They are lovely wardrobes, but they don't really fit in our house any more (I don't mean they've grown, I mean our house is full of builders and clutter). Our old house was amazing...it looks like this one, but not as tiny.

It was also massive - you could fit TWO DOUBLE BEDS in a room and still have loads of space to run around in. I miss it so - the whole basement floor was our playroom, magic. Anyway, this means I had to wake up earlier than planned today, but that means I will now go to the gym to sauna-out the alcohol.

That is all for now.

Update - 16:42

Didn't gym it - went bargain basement shopping with Mummy instead...feel much improved having bought lots of things without spending any money. Favourite purchase: star earrings from Matalan for a bargain £1.87. Boy am I going up in the world :) Spent most of the time in that shop convinced all the kids were pupils from my school and thus would see the knickers I was buying. Paranoia is SO healthy. Have decided to skip on the whole exercise plan and take a well-deserved nap instead. Drinks o'clock will be rolling around before I know it. Where does the time go?

PS I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that now I've remembered how to post pictures, there'll be lots more delightful things up here for you to see. Look forward to seeing my wicked car; it really is as beautiful as I say it is (even with all the dents and scratches!)

Today I am drinking cranberry, elderberry and some other berry too. I don't know if it tastes of these berries but it's ok. Not as nice as strawberry and mango.

I just managed to plan my Y11 revision lesson for tomorrow in about 10 mins. This means it will be rubbish. I have realised there is almost direct correlation between effort put into planning and success of a lesson...all my best lessons are the ones where I have actually managed to plan well. So tomorrow period 1 will probs be a bit lame. I have also decided not to plan for my Y7s at all, since there is also a connection between amount of time to plan and amount of time planning takes. Therefore if I give myself 30 mins to plan tomorrow, I will hopefully get it done in that time. This will patently not happen. But let's be positive!

Managed to keep a lid on my weirdo-ness at football today, good stuff. I am essentially the equivalent of Jij when she first joined Furies, in that I am both ethnic and shy. Well, not shy, just quiet. Shocker I know, but I don't think they are ready for my banter. Besides, I am keeping a low profile since they found out I went to Oxford and now think I am some kinda freak show (yes, clearly I have managed to break down all kinds of stereotypes in one fell swoop. Not). I think they asked me to play on Sunday, but I'm not sure since I was thinking about angles in a pentagon (ok, point taken, I am a freak show) so I told them I couldn't make it (mainly because I am too lazy and anticipate being devastatingly hungover by then).

In other news, I bought petrol for 82.9p per litre today, what a bargain! And if I had only spent £50 in Sainsbury's, it woulda been 77.9p per litre. Also, I managed to reverse park, woooo hooo! And I bought mulled wine for £2.99 alongside rather interesting crocus plants as birthday presents. I don't know why I thought anyone would want a crocus as a present, but they caught my eye, so hopefully they will be nurtured and loved. And hopefully I won't be so hammered as to break the vases before I manage to hand them over.

I want a tankard. And a tank top. And a tank. And a slatted thingie. And a roly poly. You can post them to me Mouchio. I hope we have a golden reunion soon, I miss Goodjohnson. Our friendship will soon officially expire.

Woo hoo it's almost the weekend!

I am drinking strawberry and mango tea. It tastes of neither strawberries nor mangoes (mangos?), but it's still yum.

I am trying to plan the first revision session for my Y11s but this is boring me. They have their mocks in 10 days. I am not optimistic. Most of them seem fairly oblivious to the fact that they might need to study a bit before the mock. Not all of them, some are ok, but the majority live in lala land. Not looking forward to marking them, although trying to be positive.

Yesterday my footballers won 2-1 :) One of them asked me if I had a husband. This is worrying - do I look old enough to have a husband? It wouldn't have been so bad if she had started off at boyfriend, but she went straight to husband. Chuh. Still, could be worse...she coulda asked if I had kids!

In other news, I think I am slowly growing a six-pack. Well, maybe just a coupla cans, but still. It's ironic they're called six-packs when you have to practically give up "six-packs" to get one. I think I might in fact be hallucinating, clearly it will take a fair few months to get rid of all that hard earned Goooose-work.

What else? Well, I am trying to build my case for missing the start of next term so I can stay with my family in Toronto. Case seems pretty weak, but if it doesn't work out, I might try whining. Most of my kids are experts at whining...so good in fact that they sometimes get out of doing things they don't want to do through their whine whine whine whine whine whine whine. Hopefully whining will work for me too.

Tomorrow I will have to go to football practice by myself due to the absence of my partner in crime (and Asian twin...yes, the girls on the team are entirely confused by who is who, it's ace!). I was worried about this, but having managed to reverse park and nagivate unknown territory on Tuesday night (well, it was only Leyton, but unknown nonetheless!) I am more confident. Fingers crossed eh? Oh and I should add parallel parking to my list of desired skills; currently I have to drive past loads of spaces cos I am too rubbish to parallel park into them. I wish the wheels of cars could be turned 90 degrees so that you could just drive sideways. Much easier. Ooooh, how's that for an invention?

Nothing too exciting to report today except that I am knackered. Oh and I learnt a new word: ephebophilia. Very topical and courtesy of The Times.

Also Bertie is alive and well, which thrills me no end. Obviously he feels betrayed by my intention to see Dirty Dancing before he gets back, but I have assured him that it is important one of us does a trial run so that when we actually go it'll be bullet-proof.

What else? My Metro horoscope was very exciting today - good news for Virgos, lots of drama and high jinks in store! There's also a £100 prize for a picture of the most disgusting food you've ever eaten. I can't think what that might be right now, but I'm sure I've got some pictures that could pass as gross food.

Right, bed time - early to bed, early to rise. Supposedly.

I went to bed at 6:32am this morning. This is funny because tomorrow I will have to get up at 6:35am. Good thing I have those 3 minutes spare else my entire body clock would be rather messed up. Yes.

I'm not even going to recap the school highlights - you can pretty much guess what happened. Some maths was taught, some kids were told off, some staffroom politics went on, some bargainous crumble and custard was eaten. Good stuff all round.

Instead I am going to focus entirely on an epic Disney social last night. Apart from the noticeable absences of gyspy Johnson and mini-MT, turnout was decent. And more importantly, the night was EPIC! I'd just like to say for the record that I love my Disney girls, they are quality. Well done, gold stars to all of you.

We started off at Potter's house (a lovely lovely house) where we made and cooked pizza, drank wine, and ate gorgeous puddings...very reminiscent of Spain. A speedy game of charades and a disco bottle (to go) later and we were on our way to G-A-Y (apologies, I make it sound like this all happened very quickly...in fact, it took us about 3 hours to get our asses in gear). This is my second weekend of gay clubbing in a row. Relax faithful readers, there's nothing I'm not telling you, it's just that a disproportionate number of people I know are of the homo variety. And I don't just mean sapien.

After taking a rambley journey on buses and tubes (where we played the old favourite "clap clap my face, clap clap your face" aka Tookey's Game because of her legendary awfulness at it...aaah I love that game, even with the "juicy" bottle of wine we were using as punishments) we made it to the QUEUE. Loooong, though there was this cool portable urinal thing by the queue, it was really clever and rather entertaining too!

Anyway we were very happy to finally be at the front 20 mins later. Until we found out it was £15 entry! Yow! I managed to justify it by thinking of it as a Sugababes concert. Yes indeedy, Sugababes were playing live at The Astoria!

Oh my gosh, totally worth paying, it was amazing, they were amazing, even the new one that replaced Mutya. All the classics were performed (including Push the Button, Overload, Freak Like Me, Red Dress, Hole in the Head and Ugly) and despite standing behind the bounciest sailor gay man in the whole club, I had an awesome time! Particularly loved "Shape", they were top entertainers, I am definitely going to see them in concert next year.

Sadly after their show, Potter and Mouche decided it was time to retire. Responsible choice ladies, well done. MePij and Sprouse recharged with some coke (of the fizzy variety) and off we went again. To cut a long story short, one hour later we had made up the most amazing dance (yes, the same way we used to when we were kids at school...."fish for sale" anyone?). I can't describe it that well; it was basically a load of disconnected moves that we did in a circle. That makes it sound rubbish, but it wasn't - people actually came up to us and asked us to teach them so they could join in (and not because they were off their faces). Before we knew it, the club was closing, whoops! Hahaha, next time we meet up, that dance is coming out to play. I also gained a luminous whistle, yay!

By some miraculous turn of fate (I mean, what are the chances?) it turned out that MePij and Sprouse's bus back to Potter's went from the same stop as mine. Woo! Felt slightly guilty leaving them to navigate their own way back, but they made it. At approx 6am, I made it back to Redbridge station. Slight downer here - a weirdo man was standing in the middle of the road and started shouting at me to borrow my phone. I started to get a bit edgy and walk a bit faster to my car (only a minute away from the station, and don't worry, I'd stopped drinking 6 hours earlier, and hadn't had that much at all). He didn't follow me or anything, but have realised that it's stupid to take a risk like that coming home so late by myself, so will be more responsible from now on.

Anyway, I was meant to go to a wedding today, but clearly have missed that entirely. I am very tired and don't wanna do any work. But wow, so much fun, I feel school-free right now, wooo!

Potter, your house is beautiful - I love the layout, the dimensions and the decor, it's wonderful, some day I will buy it. After the Goose obviously. Thank you for hosting, even when you were knackered, good luck in your exams!

Mouche, love it that you came out with us instead of your futon friends, you're star. And yes, we're SO funny! We will find you a gentleman named James, perhaps of African/Caribbean origin, with whom you can indulge in some fun.

Sprouse, I love it that you have been promoted from being the backdoor trapdoor. I envy your sauce spreading skills. And also your willingness to eat scraps, waste not want not. Now write your CV, stop reading, stop reading now, go work!

MePij, I know you love the race banter, our minority status is what keeps us together. One day brown will take over Disney (I will bring the fake tan). Your "diversity" footballs are hilarious, keep up the good captaincy!

That is all. Oh and shout outs:

To Stevo, sorry to hear you rugby boys lost - it's all about taking part!

To Puja for her relentless gossip searching!

And finally to SB, l'm so pleased to have refound your blog, it looks so professional, I'm jealous!

Right, time for some tea. And maybe a nap!