Time For School

The end of half-term. How have nine days passed so quickly? It's almost a blur to me. Still, all good things come to an end...roll on Christmas, only 7 weeks to go!

After yet another night of fun, this time on a local level (nothing like being 15 mins from your bed, and also the clocks going back...wish that'd happen every weekend!) I decided to hit the gym hard. Loved it, my arms are gloriously aching. Berts, you'll be pleased to know I got yet another phone number in that place, hot stuff :) Then went to Diwali in the Square, which was beautiful. I love those times when I feel really connected with the whole Asian thing, and not on a banter level. Lots of dancing and singing and lights and food and all of that, excellent. Then tried to make it to an open mic night, but somehow got lost, and my conscience got to me, and I want to watch MOTD so legged it home. Lovely Sunday. Resolution for this half-term: live for the weekend.

What else? Well, I love Daniel because when discussing my potential as Spurs manager he said: "I think you'd be a great Spurs manager. Plenty of experience dealing with stroppy brats who don't want to do what they're told, used to being shouted at by hooligans, and trained to improve results in 'challenging' institutions". Hohoho.

I also love Bertie cos he sent me this: "bertie smarty pants? ouch meena very ouch. hope ure feeling better today good luck for tomorrow gorgeous x". When people on Saturday asked me why we weren't together I said it was because of THE RASH, but really, I think it's cos he's just too good to me. Wonder what will happen to the drama on that front....ooooooh drama Bertie!

Speaking of drama, I had decided that I would get my number one drama out of the way by just trying to sort it out so that after half-term I'd know one way or the other what was going on. I don't know why half-term is the deadline - this week means nothing to ordinary people. But then I decided that if I don't know one way or the other, then nothing is really happening, so I should just get on with seeing the other lovely boys. But then I decided I didn't want that. So I am back to square one.

What a useful ramble. It's similar to the battle I had with the Photo-Me machine today - wasteful. Which brings me to my final quote, Liz C: "I don't have the evidence for the link between psychotic behaviour and diarising every minute detail of your life to hand. I'm sure it exists. Doesn't the guy in American Pyscho do stuff like that? Not to worry, I'm sure you're fine. x"

Hohoho. Come on weekend.

Primary School Visit

Firstly, Bertie, I am very glad you're reading this, hope you've been keeping your eye out for the lesbionic facebook banter - I've been trying hard to impress you on this front.

Secondly, two quotes from today that I like:

Jade (during my rather funny piano lesson...bless my fingers): "it's meant to make a sound - it's music!"
Emma (during a cheeky drink at the Cuckfield, which by the way has been fabulously redone and is now clearly going to become one of my favourite places to drink): "I've got my head screwed on when I take drugs."

Thirdly, after a delightful meeting tonight my father has confirmed builders will be returning chez nous in the middle of August for 6+ weeks. Excellent, I am eager for this to happen. As eager as I am to teach my Y8s aaaaall day long.

So, on to the primary school visit. I give it an 8 out of 10 - it loses two marks because sports day got rained off towards the end, and because I didn't actually get to watch any maths teaching.

Good points about my day and also primary school teaching at Parkhill in general:

• the kids are smaller than you and thus infinitely more controllable
• they are keen to learn and able to concentrate
• they produced some wonderful creative writing and poster work
• the whole atmosphere of primary schools is colourful and fun and friendly and positive
• there aren't any of the ridiculous secondary school type issues e.g. llittle Jonny and little Sarah trying to sneak into your classroom at break to get their ends away
• better socio-economic status, which leads to a more positive attitude to learning, more resources, more enthusiastic parents, better support from parents, greater aspirations etc.
• you can teach a wide range of things and with more control over how you do it
• you can really mould your kids and build good relationships with them

Bad things about teaching primary:

• the need to socialise kids into behaviour and the ways of school (although I guess you do that at secondary too)
• being with the same, very young kids aaaaall day
• assessment and pressures on kids that is pretty unnecessary in my opinion
• needing to be able to teach lots of things but always at a fairly basic level

Well, Parkhill is a good school - it was rated outstanding in its last OFSTED and gets excellent KS2 results (61% level 5+ in science, 31% level 5+ in English, 38% level 5+ in maths - and all that's with a supposedly "dodgy" year group), not that that's the best way to judge a school. But just being in the place filled me with a sense of the purposeful nature of the school. Once again I am inspired. Maybe a bit of primary teaching wouldn't go amiss with me...?

And finally, was mightily impressed with the school's dyslexic and dyspraxic PE co-ordinator. A delightful man, who organised a wonderful sports day, which the children all thoroughly enjoyed. He even spent time with me explaining how he differentiated PE, a far cry from our streamed PE groups at Forest - whose bright idea was it to put all the PE haters in one group?!

Today and not today

Today was a pretty typical Saturday in lots of ways, and it also wasn't.

Before I start the story, some good points from Friday, when I was liking school for the second day in a row! :

1. My new Y7 class - after some moving round of the Y7 sets, I have a new, slightly bigger, Y7 group. Finally I get to do all the things that I shoulda done right at the start of the year e.g. expectations for behaviour, learning, equipment, attitudes etc. I think sense good things will happen with this class.

2. Expectations, again, for the London Youth games football team. REY laid down the law to the girls, and I think it'll work, so no more moaning and negativity, excellent!

So, onto today. Well, the day itself was pretty standard so let's move on to the evening. Firstly, it was my mother's old school's fundraiser/reunion night. This was actually pretty great - particularly since my mother is President of her old school society, so lots of people know her, and thus want to know me. But, from a less selfish perspective, the evening was really well run, the food was good, the entertainment was great, and I was so proud of my mother's speech and her dance and things, I could see how much she'd put into it and it had all paid off. So yes, stage 1 was good.

After that, I made my way to Nina's birthday party at The Moose Bar off Oxford Street. Before that, another good thing - Bertie called me :) Yes, it was lovely to hear his voice and also find out that he is back in good old Blighty, for one week only (just like Phil Collins) and so I am looking forward to seeing his lovely self. Back to the story then. At Redbridge station I was just minding my own business waiting for a westbound train. An eastbound train pulls into the station and lots of people get off. Among them was a typical Essex couple - tall blondey sporty looking man, shorter blondey slightly under-dressed woman. The woman was grumbling about something, and then, as she passed me, she stopped, turned around, and came up to speak at me. "What are you then? Muslim or Hindu or what?" I could sense trouble so I replied that I had no firm religious beliefs (not true, but really, she should be glad I replied at all). She went on to criticise my dress - I guess her point was that my skirt was too short, but she couldn't really get straight to the point, preferring instead to mumble incoherently. Anyway, I was a bit cross at this, but decided not to retaliate since she looked a bit like a heroin addict and perhaps she might have thumped me, which would make things difficult at school on Monday: "why do you have that black-eye"..."oh because I wasn't dressed like a good Asian girl"...."so did you Dad hit you?"...."no, it was this wiry little white woman at the station". Hmmm.

I couldn't figure out how I felt about this woman. No-one has ever really said that I was dressed inappropriately before, but then part of me was kinda glad that this middle-aged woman was concerned about the "youth" (I heard this word amongst her ramblings). Still, I was annoyed since it seems like she was only critical of me because I wasn't white, when it shouldn't matter - if that's what she believes, she should say it to everyone, regardless of colour. Also, can't believe she lives in Redbridge - where has she been hiding all this time?

CK called me up, asking what I was doing tonight. Turned out he had VIP passes to see the Sugababes (v. cool) but managed to bring Meera and Gid along to The Moose afterwards. This was a good and fun thing - I like them. Was also pleased to see some Forest crew tonight, particularly Ange, Liz and Fi, whom I haven't seen in a good while.

On to the final strangeness then. In the cab on the way home (no nightbus tonight!) Ange and Liz started discussing the finer points of drink driving and why I was such a cretin for doing it. It's true, I agree with them, I'm an idiot for ever driving home after a few drinks, let alone regularly. They tried to make me justify it, and I couldn't really, only on the grounds of convenience. But, despite taking their arguments fully on board, I'm pretty sure I will keep doing it. Why? I dunno really, perhaps because I think it's worth the risk. This would be an ok reason, if it wasn't so darn selfish. Lots of things are wrong in what I do, but I think this is an obvious one that I should try and fix. Add it to the list.

All in all a pretty balanced night, but not looking forward to the planning tomorrow (no hangover - yep I can sense that already!) but loving the weekend :)

Drinking and Walking

I wanna have a nap but feel the need to update the old bloggy first.

I've spent all day with Y7 kids on the Bridges to Africa walk. 10km, 10 bridges, 1000 kids, and pouring rain. You know I loved it though, actually loads of fun, and our kids were so well behaved and good and didn't moan about being tired or bored or cold or anything like that. Even if they did start thinking about moaning, all we had to say was "think of the children in Africa" and they got on with it. Plus I caught up with lots of other TFers, many of whom I haven't seen in ages, so that was wicked too. A lovely day for a worthy cause :)

In other news, here is what I have drunk this weekend, in chronological order (I love the word chronological, it's ace!):

1. A third of a bottle of cabernet shiraz
2. A pear Kopperberg
3. A vodka lemon and lime
4. A jagerbuller (or Jaegerbomber as Puja thinks it's called, but really she is wrong)
5. A double SoCo and lemonade (I think...?)
6. Two generous measures of Chivas Regal on the rocks (my father is so proud of his daughter's ability to drink neat whisky)
7. A gin and lemonade (we had no tonic)
8. A nice glass of Hennessy
9. A chilled Bailey's with ice


I think there was more in there, but really, how proud are you about the variety and diversity etc. of my drinking? I think I might have had all my units in about 24 hours, but that is a huge improvement from uni times. And sure I have been quite shockingly hungover for two days now, but it was worth it!

Girls, Friday night was ace, we must do it again soon, and not just so that we can complain about good for nothing boys. And Bertie, you musta loved my rambling, and don't worry, you must be good for something, I just don't know what yet.

Right, I still haven't written my Y7 reports properly or my applications for TF summer projects. Onwards and upwards (by that I mean, to my bed!)

Sunday

In a deliberate change of routine, I decided not to "waste" my Sunday lesson planning, but instead doing what I wanted. As such, it was glorious day. I did do some work, but managed to plan a good quantity of lessons for the week in about an hour (aaaah the joys of no Y8s till Thurs!), and completed an Appendix 6 during two episodes of Grey's Anatomy (yes people, I watched it today, and it's great!) True the unit of work for KS4 was awful, and made me realise how much better my teaching is now, but whatever, it's done.

Having had such a lovely and relaxed day, and despite hitting the gym hard and also drinking some delicious wine with my folks, I fear I won't be asleep for a good while. Oh well, more time to ramble!

So some things I've thought about today:

1. I can't believe that pitpads now exist in France! For those of you that haven't heard me talk about these, I swear I invented them aaaages ago, but never made a prototype, and now Potter tells me a company is making them in France! Shocker! But rather than being demoralised, instead I will take pride in the fact that this is evidence that all my "inventions" aren't a load of rubbish but may actually have social and economic value.

2. In more news of France, am really pleased there was an 80% turnout in the presidential elections today, good stuff. The consensus is that turnout was high because the candidates and parties stand for different things and because the race hasn't really already been decided - every vote could make a difference. Further proof that my degree wasn't entirely irrelevant. Will be keeping my eye on that one, but am really inspired by Royal's chatter - perhaps I'm a socialist after all...

3. Did some more research into graduate study. Found out that one of my old tutors is now a course provider and specialises in some of the things I'm interested in researching (there are many, but the current fore-runners include youth identity formation in multicultural schools, homosexuality in minority communities, and the achievement of the Teach First mission i.e. do "exceptional graduates" really help neutralise "educational disadvantage"?) Am now gonna do my best to grab a TF coach who can help me with all this future plans stuff.

4. Laughed a bit when my mother suggested acting as a potential career move for me - clearly teaching must be a downer for her if she thinks acting would be an improvement!

5. Laughed a lot at this text from Bertie: "Race is so damn funny tho, I mean ure skin colour is different from mine. Ha ha it dont get no better than that!" Awful grammar there Berts, but loving the race banter!

And finally, girls, if you've not yet seen the Aero Bubbles advert, check it out! The chocolate tastes good and the man on the advert....wow!

Instantly Fit cont.

From Bertie:

meena just caught up on ure blog thing after a bit of a break and could barely concentrate on anything other than the fact that mos was put forward as ure 'instantly fit' candidate. i hate u.

x

Hahaha! But he is instantly fit - I can't help that. Also, how instantly fit is this guy? I found him on SB's blog and have no idea who is he, but yum yum yum.


In other news, when support teaching Y9 today, "G" says to me: "Miss, you should become a teacher you know". Humph. Clearly have had an impact there then.

Am on an Autograph course tomorrow, yay! Autograph as in the software package, not Autograph as in learning to sign my name (as my mother thought - strange).

Venice Part II - Verona and Venice Proper

After Castelfranco we spent a day in Verona - very pretty and lovely and old, you will see once Jade puts the photos up! Here we did lots of walking around. Obvy lots of references to Romeo and Juliette, including a building they've turned into her "house" with a balcony, museum and big statue outside it. Supposedly touching Juliette's right breast will give you luck in love, so we all did a bit of that and are now waiting for the magic to happen!

One night in Verona and then we headed to Venice proper. Stayed in a lovely lovely apartment called BB-Venice in Favaro - about 30 mins on the bus from Venice proper, but SO nice and pink it was worth it!


Two days were spent getting lost amongst the many canals and rios and alleys and pontes in Canal - it all looked the same! Luckily Sparrow was a master map reader and so we were never really lost, just a bit lost now and then. Still, even the skills of the mighty Sparrow couldn't find us the excellent gelataria we went to randomly on the first day but then couldn't find at all ever again despite searching desperately for it. Sigh. I miss ice cream. But not all the scary masks and things in the shop windows, check this one out, how much do they wanna cram in there?!


Best way to see Venice was taking the Number 1 vaporetta (public water bus) from Pizziale Roma down to Campo San Marco, thus catching all the highlights along the Grand Canal, then taking the day to stroll back up. Spent a good amount of time (and money!) drinking cocktails in Cafe Florian, a fancy schmancy famous place in St Mark's Square. Also had lovely pizza in the hard to find Ae Oche, with the Queen Goose logo. It seems very Americanised, but the food's great, even if the waiters were rushed off their feet!


We played cards at a cafe by a canal, sat in the same random square lots of times (forgotten which square!) and soaked up the sun and prettiness. Venice is so pretty and a pedestrian's dream - plus since it's so heavily dependant upon tourism, people are really friendly everywhere! Perhaps a little more expensive than other European cities, but definitely worth a visit if you've not already been. I'm sure Bertie would love to have you!

Dinner in Islington

So it is fairly obvious I have given up doing anything education related this week. Instead I have been drinking my money away, good stuff.

Yesterday night Bertie came down for a bit of a jolly. We started off in a nice little pub near Chancery Lane, where we discussed the pros and cons of the "great race race". He is the first one to think it would be ok to have a race on facebook similar to the girls vs boys, except along the lines of racial origin i.e. blacks vs whites. I know it would be controversial, but fun(!) all the same.

Please note, I'm not into stirring up racial hatred or anything, just curious as to why girls vs boys is acceptable whilst blacks vs whites probably wouldn't be. I'm probably being thick, I know it would cause trouble, but why?

Anyway we moved on to the Knight's Templar, a Wetherspoon's better known to me as the Scholarship.
I tend to drag people there kicking and screaming, until they see the wonderful ship style lavatories and the pear cider, and then they're converted. Here Ish (and Suze, briefly) joined us. We then moved on to Ish's house where we met Chi, Clare and Nas, and Berts cooked us all carbonara. By this time I was pleasantly merry and a good time was had indeed.

(As an aside, I told Ish about gimmealift.com and she thought it was a great idea. Also, I bought a Big Issue on Weds and the lead article was about social entrepreneurship, so am gonna see if there's any real advice in there about what to do next).

The real point to this post though is how different all my friends are from each other. I sometimes honestly wonder what would happen if I put them all in a room together. Some of them are in fact so different from others that I'm sure they wouldn't even speak. Actually, that's pretty harsh, they probably would talk, but run out of things to say rapidly. But why are they so different? And to which group do I really belong?

Venice - Part I, Castelfranco

I have submitted my WA3, woo hoo!

I am now meant to be creating my unit of work on Multicultural Maths. However, I can't be bothered to do that yet. Please understand, I really am very excited about this unit of work, but what with the bloody foxes screeching all night, the crazy man next door holding long distance phone calls at 1am in his back garden (annoyingly close to my bedroom window), and the builders starting their relentless drilling (and singing!) at 8am, well, I am pretty tired today. Except when it comes to using bold in my writing.

Ok, ranting over. Before I bring you part I of the Venice trip, some points of note. In list form for Bertie.

1. Jade, p244 of Captain Corelli's Mandolin: "I am the breve, Carlo here is the semibreve, he is the crotchet". A mere 6 pages later: "he could sit with unnerving patience watching Pelagia's hands doing the formal dance of the crochet." So that's how you spell them. Really, what are the chances?
2. RIP the Facebook man. Those of you who have met my littlest brother know that he is almost the splitting image of the facebook man, so this is a sad day for us indeed. Initially I was annoyed by the FB changes, but now I am starting to appreciate their true potential stalker powers.

Venice Part I
So we went here, the Veneto region in the northeast of Italy:


Map's not great, but Bertie lives in that place just south of the 5 - Castelfranco. Very exciting place - it seems Berts has found himself an Aylesbury in Italy. Some people would have thought this was impossible, but where there's a will there's a way.

Our holiday began with a little trip on the train. Both transport and drama were to feature strongly in the week (alongside ice cream, strong coffee, and spritz - more on this delight later). Bertie met us at Treviso station and we got on the train to Castelfranco. Strangely none of the stations had any signs on them, and despite purporting to know his way around, we completely missed our stop and ended up in Venice proper (aka Venezia aka the old swampy bit with the canals etc.) Our tickets weren't valid for this journey but luckily some random Australian Italians in our carriage were having a huge long kick-off with the ticket conductors about their tickets, so they didn't catch us. Excellent.

Anyway, to cut a loooong story short, eventually we made it to Castelfranco (learning lots of useful Italian along the way, particularly colours, mmmm gello treno.) Lots of people stared at us, I'd like to think it was because we were stunning rather than because were brown-skinned. Important note: there are about 4 brown people in the whole of Italy, 2 of whom were Dina (Sparrow) and I (I guess Jade counts as half ethnic, congrats Jade!).

Once in Castelfranco we spent a delightful two days wandering around and eating things. Highlights here include (once again in list form):

1. Bertie's lovely flatmate Francesca, who gave up her room for us, and spent many a happy evening chortling away in front of her computer (much like me, heehee)
   
2. Pushing two beds together and then sleeping sideways on them with Sparrow and Jade, and then slowly falling into the growing gap between the beds during the night
3. The electricity cutting out just in our apartment after a crazy loud storm with thunder and lightening and everything. We all hid in the bed and had a lovely nap and then chatted away.
   
4. Being trialled in an informal court by "Grandma Pink" and "Carmela" held in front of Bertie's building - this was particularly dramatastic because people kept popping their heads out of their windows and chucking their two pence in. Basically "Grandma Pink" bumped into us leaving Bertie's place on Tuesday morning and told him it was against the rules to have guests in Castelfranco unless they were registered with the carabinieri (aka Italian military police aka the Sardinies). Castelfranco apparently is a hot bed for illegal immigrants (where were they all, I didn't see any!) and so they were worried Bertie was setting up some kinda immigration racket (obviously, duh, I mean why else would he know any brown people?). "Carmela" joined in the fun and thus it was decided we couldn't stay there any more. However, later they softened and touched our faces and chatted with us etc. and then decided we could stay after all. Very strange procedures indeed.
5. Drinking numerous spritzes while wandering around Castelfranco for hours (strange it took us this long, it's not actually that big). I think this was Bertie's elaborate plan to stop us getting on trains all over Italy - sabotage, *sigh*. Anyway from Wiki: Spritz, an alcoholic beverage has its origins in the Veneto Region, Italy. Spritz is a bitter, summery pre-dinner aperitif made of either Aperol or Campari and mixed with White Wine or Prosecco and Sparkling Mineral Water. It is usually served in a lowball glass with ice, a slice of orange, and sometimes an olive. Particularly like the bit where they say it's a pre-dinner aperitif - one day we started drinking it at about 11am in Beppe's bar, and there was already a bloke in there drinking before us! Sure the Italians don't binge drink - they just drink all day instead.
6. Sparrow getting proposed to by the Internet cafe owner (ok, this didn't really happen, but it could have).
7. Teaching them to play 304 - an old school Jaffna card game, quite complicated, made more so by having to play with a local Trentine card deck, which is rather different to our standard Americo-French deck.

Can't really remember much more, and that all sounds rather droll, but really, it was a laugh a minute! Particularly trying to speak Italian - gosh we were awful! Tales from Verona tomorrow.