Good weekend, and another week at work

So it is Monday again. Another week and weekend have zoomed past. I don't know where the time is going. Luckily I'm not back at school in September, else I would be a bit panicked that THREE WEEKS of the summer have already gone, meaning only half of the holiday is left. Not so for me thought, woo!

I'm at work, but I've done it all, and so I'm wondering how I can secretly read my book/sleep without being noticed.

Weekend was lovely and busy. Disney crew were down from Oxford so we had a nice reunion; went to a fancy pants family thing with X, which was full-on (in a good way) and awesome to be part of; missed some birthdays though, whoops. Will have to make apology phone calls about that.

Aside from that then, haven't been at home all weekend, and so am unsure about this week and what I have to do. I know I have quite a few fun things to do though, so I guess I will consider myself on holiday :) Perhaps I will go to the gym a bit though, what with almost being ready to cancel my membership and all. Really I'm getting old though, my hip and knee are playing up, hohoho. I wish I could still play football, that would be fantastic.

Speaking of which, the Premiership starts again next weekend, WOOOHOOOO! Oh, except I have a weekend of wedding action, thus negating chances of watching live games, boo, but at least Match of the Day will be back.

Anyway, I better save my typing fingers in case I have some actual work to do. Happy Monday!

Monday - 9 days to go!

Wow, I am oddly free, and it's partly wonderful and partly overwhelming. Having even a few hours to spare is such a rare sensation that it almost makes me anxious to be that way. Nah, not really, I am enjoying it!

I was meant to be meeting up with a friend who's just come over from the States, but he's totally jet-lagged, so now I am contemplating whether to be productive in this time or just chill. So far the latter is winning, in that I lay down with a book and then promptly fell asleep. That didn't last long though - my house is SO loud + the sun was shining brightly through my window (a nice change from the practically torrential rain that trapped me in school around 5ish) + my phone kept going off, that I decided to just get up. Really I think I need the rest though, I've been pretty hectic the past few days.

Before I give you an update, I'd just like to point out that I wanted to write my blog earlier when I was stuck in school, but Blogger is blocked on the server because it's classified as pornography, how ridiculous! Also, the new TF maths kid started today, bless him, and he seemed so young and fresh and keen, I couldn't believe it. Just now I sent across a lesson template for him, and yesterday I collected up some useful stuff to give him, and it really hit me, how much time and effort and work has gone into these last two years in teaching. So much really.

I've spent a lot of time with X really, every day since last Wednesday, which has been ace. In retrospect it's probably an error to try and invite X to every little thing that I get invited to do, but I can't help it, I'd just rather have my time with X than without. Consequently I feel a bit at a loss today, in that whenever I have a bit of free time, I want to give it to X. I wonder if this is something to worry about...?

Saw Berts on Saturday, was awesome, him and his friends are just so lovely and friendly and fun, I always really enjoy my time with them. He dealt well with my lecturing, or so I thought. It was good seeing Keble kids on Friday and Thursday too, good fun. Have been doing some gym stuff too, good for me. We saw Cous Cous last night, which was sad actually, I think I am a happy ending kinda person, and Cous Cous was far to "real" to have that.

Just noticed that my F key is a bit messed up, boo, I don't want to buy a new laptop yet. Hopefully I won't need to use it so much. Except now it seems I need to use it all the time.

Ok so I think I will do some chores and then have an early night, woo! Ironing here I come...

Nearly NQT!

I'm listening to MistaJam's show on 1xtra - perfect funky house and bassline tunes for this HOT Tuesday. School was roasting today - the kids were all irritable and whiny cos it was so hot. More of this will clearly happen before the end of term, but it's ok, 13 days left! Plus all the exciting stuff is starting to kick in e.g. sports day, non-uniform day, the summer fete, the charity fun run etc. Woo!

I got my NQT induction forms today, which means I have almost passed this year! Two hurdles remaining - my transition point 3 conversation with my subject mentor (not too tricky) and my NQT folder (more tricky). In theory I can make up some stuff for this folder, and really I don't think it'll be too heavily analysed by my school. In practice though, I need to make it good because my absence total was 28 days (the maximum allowed is 30) meaning the GTC (or whoever scrutinises this stuff) may want to look through it. Hmmm. Should be ok.

Tomorrow is the TF celebration evening, which should be lovely. I think it's about time for TF fix, remind us what we're all fighting for etc. I was kinda reminded today period 4 when I taught the Y12 sociology taster lesson, which was basically an introduction to the course and what it was all about. The kids were pretty enthusiastic and I think I got a lot of them thinking about stuff, so that was good. I enjoyed it actually, making me think really sociology is what I should be teaching.

In final news I am officially a WWOOF member today, and I figure I have enough money to not bother temping that much this summer, so maybe I will WWOOF my time away!

Midday Blog

I just read this article about "The Death of Pleasure Blogging" and so thought I'd get on here and ramble a bit.

It's the middle of a school day but today I teach lesson 1 and lesson 5, meaning the middle of the day could be usefully spent catching up on marking etc. or even more usefully spent in the park. Which is what we did. Went to the park and chatted and ate sweets and sat in the sun. Now I feel super chilled and in no way refreshed to work. Mmm, there's something about feeling my bare feet on the grass and my face warmed by the sun that is so pleasing.

I have also read this poem by WH Auden and the Breughel painting too, to feel sad, and then tried to memorise this piece by Simon Patterson, to make me feel inspired. This is exactly the kind of art a Virgo would produce. I suspect anyway.

Lunchtime, yeah!

The weekend

I am going to do my marking in 16 minutes. I hate marking. In six weeks I will be free from marking, woo!

A glorious weekend, with an interesting share of drama. Went to see Into the Hoods on Thursday night on a school trip, was awesome, made me want to be a professional dancer, see it if you get a chance. Then went out drinking and went back to X's as I had a doctor's appointment on Friday morning, thus could have a lie-in. But drama strikes - my car got towed on Friday morning so had to go and rescue it from Hornsey and thus missed everything, whoops! Was WELL ANNOYING, can't believe some loser called up to get my car towed, they coulda just left me a note or something. Made me bemoan the state of society.

Anyway Friday went ok teaching-wise, then went home to bed, then went out to see SATC, which again was good and funny and I liked it a lot. I watched SATC a lot whilst at school and uni, but then kinda stopped, but it was good to see the film. I really want this book from the film, but apparently it's fictional. This is the closest I can get to it. We bought pick'n'mix (which I am loving at the moment, along with whippy ice cream from ice-cream vans) and it cost almost £3! The next day, whilst rambling around Epping Forest and then along Wanstead High St, we bought a similar amount of sweets from Woolworth's and it cost only 13p! So the cinema was a complete rip-off, am gonna sneak my own in in future.

What else? Yesterday tried to go to StokeFest in Clissold Park, but it was rammed, so went to Finsbury Park instead, and basked in the sun with X, lovely. I am loving all this X time :) Interestingly, apparently when I was small I used to ride my tricycle around Clissold Park, wow.

Teaching was ok today, but tiring. Some awful Y8 drama - a girl that was excluded for carrying a knife filmed herself with a boy in Y11 doing you know what, and it's been spreading like wild-fire across the school on mobile phones. Technically it's child pornography since she's only 13, so it's sad and shocking and illegal, thus we have been busy trying to stop kids getting hold of it, and also getting the police involved. Poor girl, she's a mess, I wonder what will happen to her?

In other news, I have looooads of work to do. Part of the joy of not working all weekend means I have loads to do tonight, when it's so nice and sunny that I just want to go and sit outside and read Sunday's papers/ It's ok though, I've been napping, now I'm gonna blitz it. Woo! Then I will read all the match reports from today's Euro games.

29 teaching days to go!

A good day's worth of ramblings

I was going to lesson plan but I really wanted to ramble on my blog first so here I am.

A good first day back, mainly because my head of department came and shouted at my Y10s again and then they were good (albeit perhaps for one lesson only) meaning that we actually did some work and I didn't have to shout over them and thus the rest of the day was good. Disappointingly I had to move my classroom tables from the group work formation they were in back into rows of desks so that I could split up the kids and hopefully stop them talking a bit. I also had to go back to seating them in alphabetical order. Two kids just wouldn't conform to the new set up and so truanted, while one was kicked out twice. Thus I spent some time calling parents today, but that was ok.

In other news the general incompetence of the people in charge of internal exams meant that the maths exams for Y7 and Y8 didn't happen today after all, and so we had to teach them. My impromptu lessons were ok though, I am pleased and I managed to write up one set of Y7 class reports, meaning only one more class to go there, yay!

Most of the day was spent thinking random thoughts that I wanted to post up. Firstly R, one of my colleagues, told me about WWOOF, which is this cool organisation whereby volunteers go and work on organic farms and gardens in return for food and accommodation. She went to Norfolk over the half-term and had an awesome time, so I am thinking maybe I will get a bit more self-sufficient by learning some of this stuff myself this summer. Secondly she told me about a book called "Grow It Eat It" about fruit and veg growing and recipes to cook with, which was a lovely book (made for kids!) and really captured my imagination.

I also spent some time contemplating how relaxed my holiday has made me in that things that normally stress me out haven't (and hopefully won't). For example I was called up in assembly today to give out merit certificates for my tutor group and accidentally had the clip on my trousers undone and the kids pointed it out to me, which should have been mortifying, but was actually quite funny. Also facebook keeps messing up when I try and load my Malta photos, but that's ok, I can do it another day. Also my little brother is running for the Cambridge Union, meaning he is now officially a hack, yuck, but oh well, whatever makes him happy.

Going back to assembly, it was on the environment and the UN World Environment Day. In an exciting move forward our school is finally going to get its recycling sorted, yay! The assembly itself was pretty inspiring and carried the message "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" which I am going to try hard to do. I made my first big step today by switching my credit card, bank account and mobile phone bills all to digital versions, meaning less paper posted to me.

The last thing I was thinking about was how much drama there is with football managers at the moment, what with Mourinho going to Inter and Sven formally getting the boot and maybe being replaced by Mark Hughes, and also how great it is that we have the Euro tournament to tide us over until halfway through August when the Premiership kicks off again. Football is so dramatic and ridiculous sometimes. I mean, can you believe that the Glazers would potentially turn down £70m from Real for Ronaldo, even if he refuses to play for Man Utd, and instead just force him to sit on the bench just cos they can?! Talk about trying to prove a point.

I had a nap at 7pm today after dinner, against my usual belief that 7pm is too late if you still wanna go to bed at a decent time, and am feeling mighty refreshed from it. There was an article in the Metro about sleep spas and how 39% of people surveyed said that they felt so tired at least one day a week that they just wanted to go home from work. There was also this woman that lost 3 stone over a year simply by taking power naps. I knew naps were good for the soul.

Right I really should get back to my lesson planning if I want to read any of the books I am browsing through at the moment. I currently have three and picked up a fourth today that I want, so I think maybe I will put the other three aside and read this new one, and then come back to them. Hmmm, but perhaps that is the mistake I made each of the other times? Perhaps I should just focus on one.

Oh and finally, I can't remember if I mentioned it already, but please make sure you see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull just because it is so awful it's funny. And if you're still bored after reading all of this you can text 'JOKE' to 118118 today for free to get a nice joke from them, hahaha!

Pink Vision

I have been intending to have a shower for about 30 minutes. But I have Shine on my stereo, and I keep meaning to get upstairs, but then end up staying for just one more track. I love Estelle, this is such an awesome banging album full of proper soaring vocals and beats and stuff, I love it.

I had a super busy but good weekend. My legs are achey achey from an epic squash session on Saturday morning, two days of achey, but it feels good. Totally burned off all the indian food from our maths department social on Friday night (if not all the booze). Last night I had an amazing night's sleep. I swear the world is just that bit brighter after a good kip. In true me style I don't think I slept much on Thurs or Fri or Sat night (I guess maybe about 7 hours over the three nights), plus on Saturday I had lunch at 1pm and then didn't eat again until 2pm on Sunday, which is treating my body quite harshly. So I think it is feeling good today after food and rest to remind me that if I treat it well it will be well.

My vision is entirely rose-tinted at the moment. I mean, forget just the spectacles, it feels like my actual eyes themselves have pinked up (not in a gross infection type way). Things feel good, like my soul is singing. It's lovely. School-based dramas rolled off me today. I want the feeling to last. And I think I now how to do that. I will just keep the source; keep you.

I'm going back to Oxford in the autumn, I can't wait, I'm really looking forward to getting back into education and figuring out a way to make a difference to our disadvantaged kids. If I couldn't do it enough in the classroom, maybe I can do it from the outside. I like it when I have plans.

Man, I can't get over this album. Oh, but also the Juno album, beautiful beautiful stuff. My absolute favourite lines are from the closing song: #I kiss you all starry-eyed, my body's swinging from side to side#. I just googled that for laughs and there's about a million sites quoting it. The first blog quoting it is just full of lyrics. It's weird to read lyrics without hearing the songs, I guess then it's just poetry rather than song. I dunno, maybe everyone's souls are singing too.

Feeling awesome

It's Saturday afternoon, sunny sunny sunny, wearing shorts and t-shirt, feeling pretty damn awesome. Really awesome, it's great!

Have done all my work for the weekend already, somehow accidentally woke up at 7:45am and just decided to get on with it. Am now planned all the way up to exam week, which means no more long sessions of weekend lesson planning for me, woo hoo! Spent some good "work" time dancing around my room and looking out at the neighbour in the blue skies, lovely.

Lovely rice and curry lunch, yum yum yum, just what I need to set me up for a good afternoon nap. Was contemplating taking the nap to the park, but then realised this probably wasn't the safest, so am going to my "sauna" loft room instead.

Can't really get across how good I'm feeling at the moment. Was partly worried that maybe I was getting high again, but I don't think so, I think I'm just going back to being that person I was back in school, just happy about lots of things at the same time. Things seem to be working out my way for the most part, and the bits that aren't, well that's not so bad. The sun's shining, it's the weekend, and I'm going to have fun for the rest of it, yay!

School was all good this week, and last night Avenue Q was great, so so funny, the songs are just hilarious, and it's a really good concept. Like half black comedy, a quarter completely politically incorrect, a quarter naive optimism. I loved the puppet/people dynamic, was very well done, and all the characters and storyline were engaging. Only downer was the seats at the Noel Coward Theatre - would advise you to bring your own! Was also really good just to sit and chatter with the girls over dinner, lots of stuff to catch up on, and some quality time always makes me feel chipper.

This morning, apart from doing my work, we had guests round, so I was playing the good girl, and that was good fun. I made the tea and served things, and I cleaned and did the laundry, and help my mum cook, and she taught me some bhangra moves from her class this morning, and my dad and brother were messing around and joking, and my grandfather was happy because we were all there (we're really busy in the week) so it was just nice and good. Like how a weekend should be.

I've decided that this has all stemmed from feeling like I'm in control of things (and also not being hungover!) and also from feeling like I'm achieving things, and just seeing the good in things, like appreciating things I don't normally take the time to appreciate. And also just being close to people and being honest with them. It's all making me feel really happy, the happiness is in waves, they just keep coming and filling me up and making me feel really glad to be alive. This probably sounds nuts, but I hope the feeling lasts.

You know what? I think I would take a few days of feeling utterly miserable to feel like this afterwards. If it is this bipolar stuff making me like this, right now, I love it.

A lovely weekend

It's dusk outside, the sun's half-way setting, and the sky is a beautiful beautiful pink. It makes me feel awesome. Not that I didn't feel awesome already.

I've had a lovely lovely weekend. Dashed out of the dramas of school on Friday, and to be honest, until just now I had completely forgotten about school, such is the power of my feel-good. I helped X move some stuff into the new place, lots of fun driving, it was pretty cool to be in London in the traffic. No, really. We went to the cinema to watch Juno - was really good, well worth watching, although she seemed to find it a bit too easy to give away her baby, but anyway.

Saturday morning drove back home, and then did my "errands", hahaha, mostly buying random stuff. In the afternoon headed up to Oxford for a school reunion dinner at LMH, excellent fun. Managed not to drink (for the second night in a row, oh yeah! Driving makes me responsible) and had X-related cravings so was lucky enough to be able to leg it back to X's after dinner. I love being around X, it's just awesome, and when I finally left and went outside, it was like proper spring, beautiful, birds and flowers and sun and everything. Driving back home along the river with a big smile on my face, I felt really content.

Got home today 3ish, and since then have been in a daze. I think I am all loved up, that would probably explain my dreamy state. I am mildly worried for my health - being so day dreamy got me rather lost on the way home, and now I just want to sit around and think about X and the weekend we have just had, rather do my lesson plans. It's ok though, my FB horoscope states that "the work will still be there later on. Take the time now do something with someone you care about". Mmmm.

One more week to half-term. I hope it's a good one. Well, how can it not be? Big smile. With teeth.

A good 5th week so far

This is the latest I've been up since Sat night! Sunday and Monday was in bed by 9pm; yesterday by 8pm! It's glorious, I love getting enough sleep...the whole "being awake before my alarm" thing is totally cool.

The week is going well, mainly because I am operating like a normal person. Except for having a cold. I don't have hours and hours of marking to do, which means in my free lessons I can plan stuff, which means I don't have to do loads of work outside of school. Sadly this is a one-off, but since it is the 5th week equivalent of term, I think I will do this whole "no marking no planning" thing again.

What else is good? I am teaching well, school-drama is minimal. I found out my old school is looking for a maths teacher, which is exciting. I checked out the TES Jobs section properly today - there are loads of maths appointments for September 2008 - 6 in my borough alone! I have a meeting next week to talk about plans for next year, so fingers crossed. For the most part if I stay in teaching I'd like to stay at my school, but it's good to check out the options. Life in school could be so much better potentially - maybe I've just not realised it yet. Interestingly, I didn't check out job appointments in Liverpool, hahaha.

Enjoy the rest of the week, let's hope it goes as well as Capello's first game tonight!

Sunday Chilledness

I was on my way to the gym when I got distracted by my computer. Whoops. By on the my way, obviously I mean about to leave my room, no chance of having even got down the stairs.

Today I feel good. I am still very very hot, but I feel chilled too, emotionally I mean, not skinwise. Remarkably well rested. I am pleased with my ability to keep things under control and make the right decision. It helps to make the right decision when you are practically falling asleep at the dinner table.

Ish's birthday dinner at Ruby Blue last night was really good, although alas I was only there for just over an hour, so didn't have time to catch up with lots of people. But that's ok, my conversation woulda been shocking anyway. On the plus side, my parents anniversary dinner was lovely. We went to a Chinese place in Northfields, which was strange at first since we hardly ever eat actual Chinese in a restaurant, but the food was very good. I had king prawns with green peppers in a black bean sauce, and it was super tasty, I could eat it all day today too. Quite a pricey place, and I was initially cross with the service, but I got over it after quite a bit of yummy Chilean red. They all had a good time anyway...I know this because I got home before them, hahaha.

What else is good right now? Lots of things really, mainly weekend orientated, all of which make me forget about the week. An excellent Friday night/Saturday day with X, yum. As such today I am having a non-grumbling day, especially with regards to my knee, my hangover, my tiredness, and my super-busy-panic-ness, all because none of these things apply today :) Also, Spurs won, and Keane scored his 100th goal, good stuff. I found a bag of trousers in my room. It's four weeks to half-term and I've decided not to quit until the summer, mmm, focus. I only have three things on my to-do list and they are all very manageable. Plus I am intending on having a nap in about 3 hours, woo, I love sleeping in the afternoon.

My horoscope is looking promising too...

Over the past months, there’s been talk of exciting ideas or offers, but not much has come of it. Monday’s stunning aspect between Jupiter and Saturn, which is in your sign, not only brings many of these to fruition, but ushers in several unexpected opportunities, too. Ordinarily, you’d evaluate each, then decide which to tackle first. But, with the uncompromising Pluto moving to accent these on Saturday, a lot of those decisions will be made for you. Worrying as this sounds, rarely has anybody been so well positioned to benefit from even unsettling developments, as the events of the coming weeks amply illustrate.

And here's yours, now that I know you care about them...

So, to the gym!

Update 7pm

I'm about to start lesson planning. But I don't really want to. I'm listening to a song with the line in it "If you're hot and you know it," and I am just SO hot, it's disturbing. I am thinking I may have to put shorts and a vest on, full gear is too much. Also disturbing - I couldn't sleep in my nap. I gave myself two hours, and no deep sleep. Rubbbish. On the plus side, I had an awesome session at the gym, where I caned my run even with a dodgy knee, and lifted more than usual. Plus I had a lovely reflection in the sauna, where I wondered how I had lost weight despite not being in the gym for two weeks, and still having "Christmas weight", but then I realised it must be muscle that I have lost, which is also trash. Then I went on an impromptu shopping spree, but managed to kinda control it. Hmm, anyway, putting all this together, along with my slightly nutty behaviour on Friday at school (totally nailed my observation, but was a wee bit hyper in the morning, had to be covered for a lesson, and then went nuts at my Y9 class - they have a whole class detention after school tomorrow because I just couldn't keep them under control, and I kept losing my temper - threw 7 of them out, plus kept making them stand in silence behind their chairs, weird), I am a little worried that maybe I might be getting a bit high. Hmm. But if I notice it, then I can't be, right? Or can I? It's kinda been like this all week, but there are a lot of my "warning signs" in there. Hmmm. Will try not to be worried.

The night before school

School starts tomorrow, yikes! Planned no lessons but that's ok, will do it tomorrow night. Really. Managed to make my seating plans, except have forgotten lots of kids in my Y7 group, so the plan is a bit sparse. Oh well.

Broke my drinking and meat resolutions, yikes again, but I don't think I have the heart to stick with them. It's hard to keep a resolution when you can't commit to it.

Had THE BEST NIGHT at a birthday in Fulham last night, not just because of the birthday but because of a lovely dinner at The Blue Elephant Royal with X, and the subsequent night and day afterwards. Aaaah smiles. The drama there is done (mostly!) and so things are looking good (see Dina, I am done with the stress!) Perhaps this is why I am putting zero into my school work - living in my fantasy world is far more entertaining!

Good luck for this term.

Assorted Highlights and Ramblings

I woke up with a smile on my face this morning. This is just the kind of autumn day I love. Sunny, crisp and cool. Stepped over to the park, watched a bit of football, had a stroll, crunched some leaves. It's beautiful out there, it makes me shiver. Can't explain it really,

Two posts today. The first one, assorted highlights and ramblings since I last posted. Am pleasantly hungover, two fun nights with no regrets.

Things I have been meaning to write about on here:

"Do as you like with me. I'm your parcel. I have only our address on me. Open me or readdress me". Again from Birthday Letters, loved those lines.

"When she saw how they worked, not on their own but two by two, working their trunks together to tie a knot she realised how astonished they'd been by her hands, because of course she could tie knots on her own. At first she felt that this gave her an advantage - she needed no one else; and then she realised how it cut her off from others. Perhaps all human beings were like that". From The Amber Spyglass, which is wonderful fantasy now, I like it the most out of the three.

"My life is very grown up and sensible these days (not entirely true...) so I enjoy other people's drama. It is much more interesting than engaging with your own. You should try it and then you wouldn't have to worry about being a bad person anymore. :)" I can't officially quote this person, but hahaha, just made me laugh.

I love The Wombats song about Joy Division at the moment. And also The Pigeon Detectives. And a plug for an old friend here.

Went out on Friday night with CK, Gid and a friend of Gid's. Impressed with CK and his drama-management skills. Lovely to see Gid, am so excited about his FCO stuff! Didn't play Scrabble in the end, instead drank cocktails in various places and had a lovely dinner at a place called Balan's, a trendy restaurant on Old Compton St. Very good service, eye candy waiters, great food and drinks, a good buzz around the place. Decided I like going out around there, it's just nice to do a relaxed night out, where no-one's on a mission, there's no fights or drunken louts, just people out for a good time. I love the streets in Soho.

What else? Spent all day yesterday on the TF Conference (the other post will be about that). Sadly missed the Wanstead Flats fireworks last night due to the 5th Anniversary celebrations (TF is 5 years old, yay!) but had a lovely dinner out in Angel with TFers. I love Angel too, I still can't believe it's where my folks first lived when they came to London. Heard from one of the girls yesterday that her boyfriend is doing his PhD in Cardiff and he pays £250 rent a month and lives 15 mins from the centre of the city. Was mightily jealous, vowed to leave London immediately, but upon reflection, I don't mind paying, it's really rather too good to leave just yet.

Have an engagement party to go to tonight. Little brother as my principle drinking buddy. Oh dear. Aaargh still not done my Learning Log....oh well, let's read the paper first...

An Awesome Day

Firstly, apologies for my lack of posting this week. It's officially the summer holidays, and whilst I am working at BITC, frankly I've rediscovered what it's like to live like a normal person, thus not much time for posting. I'm sure you're desperate to find out what I've been up to - more info on the internship etc. tomorrow.

Secondly, I have had a most awesome day. It's all thanks to this at Regent's Park:

And, of course, the lovely Gid and CK, who thoughtfully invited me to tag along with them into the VIP area. Free food and drink and some time to while away in the sunshine is all I need to make me smile. Oh, and Gid's adorable dog Barney. Lots of nice chatter and people watching and generally taking ridiculous advantage of Innocent's generosity (Gid and CK managed to nab 36 free smoothies before we left! 36! Shocker!) We decided against wandering out into the melee, preferring instead to enjoy the live music and cocktail bar in our little bit. Wonderful.

After thoroughly stuffing my stomach and my liver, I popped down to Krazy's party in Notting Hill. This too was a fun affair. I don't know many international people, but this room was FULL of people from overseas. I think I may have been the only one born in the UK. It was great, lots of lovely chatter, a chocolate fountain, more cocktails and Corona's, and a hilarious wannabe stand-up comedian boy from LA, who I thought was gay, but later realised wasn't. Perhaps it was my rather revealing top that changed his mind, heehee. Fun & games indeed.

Summer!

Oh YEAAAAAAH! You know what time it is.....summer holidays!

My gosh, who'd have ever thought we'd make it eh?

This is what it feels like. But maybe even better!

Am off to Canterbury now for the Final Summer Institute, hopefully returning with my QTS on Weds. Wish me luck. And happy lashing!

I'm really happy right now :)