1st week

No classes this term! This should be a good thing. And indeed it is. Except it means that all structure to my life has gone. Well, as much as it can go for a semi-serious Virgo like me.

So I have revision for my 9th week exams to do. And I have my thesis to do. And both of them seem due so far away, and both of them are such big tasks (in my head) to even start, that I am failing to do anything properly productive. I know that once I am in the zone of things it'll be sweet, but just getting started is so tedious.

I think it's error working at my desk in the flat. I need to be somewhere where other people are working. That said though, I am loving having this kinda free time. It all feels like I'll get it done someday, so in the meantime I'm just gonna enjoy things.

Finished The Knife of Never Letting Go, which was so awesome. Am very glad that X can get me the sequel before it's released (good stuff those bookshop proofs). We're going to see X-Men Origins:Wolverine tonight, which am pretty psyched about, I love X-Men and Wolverine and Beast are my faves. Sometimes I wonder what I'd like to have as a super power, and I reckon it would still be Prof X's and Jean Grey's ESP-style powers, I mean, they seem really useful in whatever situation.

Was listening to Asher Roth's Asleep in the Bread Aisle - really funny album, would totally recommend it. Now listening to his mixtape The Greenhouse Effect, which I reckon is even better than the full on album! So we will see how the work goes today then.

Loads of things!

Things have been really busy lately. I mean really busy. It's a Sunday night now and I'm knackered, really looking forward to an early night! We should be at Scrabble club but I've cancelled it this week so we can chill a bit.

So obviously since I've not been on here for aaages it'll be tricky to tell you everything I've done, so I'll just mention some choice highlights (which will most likely be the most recent things, since that is all I can remember!)

We had our housewarming last night, which was great! It's the first party X and I have hosted together and I think it was a success! It was lovely to have lots of our friends in one place and see them all and have fun together. I was really pleased, and felt really happy to be there.

I've played one footy match this weekend, and have run the line for three other games, so I'm just exhausted. Playing that much footy, including one game that went to extra-time and penalties, is serious hard work on the old knees and thighs. Still, need the money and it was a great experience - today was women's cuppers' final, which was a big game, and yesterday I did the Colleges XI and Centaurs varsity games, which are also very high profile games, so it was cool!

I got the Wolfson telethon job, which should be good fun (and again good for the money situation!) Basically it means working in a call centre calling up old members of college and asking them to donate funds, and also finding out what they're doing and keeping them involved in college life. I've never really done anything like that before, but I'm sure it'll be a good experience.

X took me to see Swan Lake on Friday night. It was a belated valentine's present, and it was just beautiful. I love the music and the ballet - it's all so elegant and graceful, like people are flying sometimes. It would be awesome to have that kind of skill and control in your body. I really enjoyed that too.

Spent last weekend at home as it was my Mum's 60th birthday, which was also great! My parents are pretty sociable and since the building works finished in the house, they've been trying to get back into organising things at home, so the party fitted the bill. Food was excellent and it was good company too, plus both my bros were back, so great to chatter with them too. Mum was glowing, I can't believe she's 60, she seems so much younger!

Went to the Blues night for our qualitative methods music consumption project. Managed to get someone to do the interview about music tastes, but then they bailed when it came down to it, so have to go and try again. The music was really good though - I've never been to a blues night but I'd def go again, the band were totally talented. They were the Sean Webster band - I think you can find them on myspace if you're interested.

X and I baked a fish pie from scratch, I'm very proud of this! We also saw Gran Torino this week, which was really well scripted and seriously moving, I would recommend it, Clint Eastwood was a real star and it's sad but also hilarious at times!

Lastly I've been taking part in some experiments - social science ones, not chemical ones! It's been good fun and quite good money, especially since for the past two I've got there too late so the experiment has had enough participants, so I've just pocketed the "show-up fee" and saved my time, cool!

It's 8th week now, one more week of classes and essays and then a bit of a break, yeah!

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!

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.

Dazed after Heaven

Early this morning I was trying to remember what I was doing this time last year. A pretty fruitless activity, clearly I have no idea, but I'm sure this time last year I would have never have predicted what I'd be doing this time this year. That all sounds very mysterious, and really it is. I feel like a snowflake, or a leaf, or a twig, or a piece of dust...basically anything small that is being carried away and completely overpowered by the outside forces, but not in a bad way, more like doing exactly what was intended all along.

We went to Heaven last night, which was dramatastic and good fun. It's a huge venue in Charing Cross, with loads of different rooms and different music. Lots of stereotypical gays, and then the fabulous looking boys too. They even had drag queens, podium dancers, and a weird Christmas dance performance which was rather freaky. Went with a rather eclectic (slash motley) crew, but it worked. I loved seeing Mosser again after an extended absence - he's such a good dancer. His friend Rob too was lots of fun, we clicked straight away...I can see why there are so many "fag hags" around, gay boys are fun! Gid and CK, and Mouche and her friend Tom also came along, a nice complement to us original three. I think we got back around 5 or something like that, and I feel like I slept for about 30 mins, so I am a bit stunned now, but it was totally worth it, it's a good stunned. I probably won't say any more about that on here, but I figure I have rambled lots to various readers so you've got the basics.

Haha, that said, this still isn't going to make any sense to anyone, I just realised. I am trying to process it myself. I was trying to explain it to N and B when we caught up yesterday afternoon, and they kinda understood, and so did Jade during our hilarious piano lesson (why do I insist on making up my own music??), but I guess if I don't understand then other people won't.

I'm listening to Feist, from the iPod adverts, and Canadian too, bonus! And loving the fact that I don't have to work tomorrow :)

Hmm, I think I will stop now and get back into my happy daze. I hope at least some of you get to feel like this too.

And my horoscope...awesome!

After a period that’s been consistently demanding but has often brought tremendous rewards, this week’s wonderful and — probably — unexpected developments could seem bewildering. While Saturn, the planet behind this austere cycle, remains in your sign, those challenging situations won’t be abating. And there’s a new player on the scene — Jupiter, which is accenting love and life’s pleasures, and will continue to do so for more than a year. This means, first, that things aren’t nearly as urgent as they seem. And, second, you’d best learn to juggle duties and pleasures, since this is only the start of a very busy period in your life.

Feeling Good

I am about to go and practice my piano. For some reason I decided it was more important to blog first. This is despite our hilarious lesson on Sunday night where I quite openly talked to my hands. Jade was shocked. I have since clocked that it is never ok to talk to your hands or explain how sometimes they are independent of my control.

I am feeling very chilled and mellow. I like it. Perhaps this is my normal stage? I can't remember really. David Gray is playing in the background. Not literally, though that would be awesome. It's just the CD, but I love him.

Last night I got more than seven hours sleep for the first time in ages. Long overdue and absolutely splendid. I woke 4 minutes before my alarm, just like I used to be able to do, and only spent 10 mins contemplating when I could next get into my perfect bed (whilst brushing my teeth) but after that I was zooming and ready to go. I had a good day despite not being able to fully "project" (my voice). This is probably because I have removed all the parts of my job that are really tedious i.e planning, assessment and reporting, leaving me with just class-room teaching, excellent. Obviously this isn't a long term solution, but I like it for now.

Seriously, half-days are perfect for me, coming home for lunch and having a nap then hitting the gym and giving me my evenings free is just awesome. Earlier I contemplated becoming a part-time receptionist for some doctor or something. Clearly a bit pointless with the uni degree and all, but maybe the simple life is what I should be aiming for?

Something else I contemplated today was whether I could drink a pint of tea. I am still undecided on this.

Went to boxercise for the first time in ages today, didn't really fancy running or weights. Was great, my body is properly aching, in that nice way. I get such a kick from exercise, it's bizarre. Today was extra good because the bionic Chinese lady was there. She's like 40 and tiny and the only person I know who will regularly out-work the instructor. The 50 year old blond gym bunny woman was also there. I like it when they are there because then I have some competition. Pushed myself hard, and during the warm down the chap was playing some Motown track with the refrain "it hurts everywhere", which was so true. Strangely he played a lot of samba during the session, not sure why.

We're going to the Cuckfield tomorrow, yay, Fruli! Can't wait to see you girlies!

The Amy Winehouse Stand-Ins

I read this article on The Times Online about who we could listen to while Amy has some time off. Since I have lots of time to check this stuff out, I played through the suggested stand-ins. Some were good, some were great.

In particular, when you have a spare minute, check out:

Adele - when you're feeling soulful (actually sounds a bit like Amy + sick piano and bass)
Ebony Bones - when you're feeling funky (her stuff is ridiculous, very similar to MIA)
Tawiah - when you're feeling deeeep London hood-soul (pretty raw here, it's nice)
Bridgette Amofah - when you wanna hear Jij (I swear this is Jij's alias, just an octave lower! And also her tagline is "Bit 'o' drama" excellent)

I love listening to songs with words that mean things.

Speaking of words, some that I have looked up recently...

erudite - knowledgeable
repudiate - deny
complicite - knowing about something that you should stop but fail to thus becoming part of it
pathos - a style or quality that invokes feelings (particularly sorrow or pity)
intransigent - stubborn
ephemeral - short-lived

These are from Love in the Time of Cholera, which I am already loving, despite only being on chapter 2. I also like the name Gabriel, I am adding it to the list.

And a bit more...

I have planned one lesson, yay! Well, technically I've written up the plan for a lesson I've already taught, but that's a minor technicality. Right now I'm playing with my new MP3 player anyway, so I'm pleased I've actually managed to do one plan.

Just remembered this quote, Vernon Kay on Radio 1 from this morning: "if you like it, do it; if you don't like it, do it, you might like it". Interesting, I may well do that.

And this is the song that I like the most for this week....The Pigeon Detectives, Take Her Back. Also Estelle's new track, Just a Touch, but can't find a link for that. It's awesome though, excellent lyrics. Jij could be this good though, I know it.

22:06 Update

Lessons planned :) Except for my Y9s. But I don't see them until Tuesday, so that's ok. Loaded up a lot of tracks to my MP3 player. New headphones very good and secure. Player is nice and light, easy to use, reasonable storage. Miss my old player though. That had a massive capacity, plus a playlist function (I thought this new one did, but it doesn't seem to), and you could search through the tracks by artist and genre and amount played etc. but I can't do that on this one either. The most annoying thing is the number of albums I've lost that I used to listen to all the time e.g The Kooks, Amy Winehouse, The Lighthouse Family, KT Tunstall etc. Serves me right for pirating music I guess.

What else? Well, wide-awake, shocker. And thinking about some rather controversial things. Oh I hope it doesn't all go pear-shaped. On the other side though, no risk no reward.

More horoscopes + the dread

I hardly slept last night. I'd like to think it was because I was in "weekend mode". But I think really it was because I was dreading school today. All night and before school I was just dreading going there. But, after running a healthy 4km by 7am, well, I was up for it a bit more. And, actually, school was wonderful. All the usual drama (and then some!) but I kept my cool. By the end of the day I was finding it hard to imagine not being there. Essentially switching from one extreme to the other in 24 hours. A bit of bipolarity applied to school-life. Gotta keep it interesting.

But then I read my horoscope in the free Daily Mail I picked up in the gym.

The coming two days are some of the most important in the year, with some difficult but necessary decisions to be made. Have a detached and objective look at the past week or so and ask yourself what - or who - you can let go of. See it as some necessary weeding and pruning so the future can come in without having to negotiate worn-out emotional baggage. The key words for you at the moment are effectiveness and efficiency. Functionality is another and suggests new beginnings. But that's tomorrow.

Scary? I think so. This is the kind of ominous horoscope that leaves me wanting to hide in my bed all day tomorrow, listening to the Greatest Hits of the Lighthouse Family, Sade, John Legend and Texas. Except I can't because my silly MP3 player is still broken. So I will have to start up that whole dread thing again. Am so bored of that.

In the world of Hollyoaks, Sarah found out about Craig and John-Paul today. So dramatic, it was awesome! What on earth will happen now? I thought it was weird how easy everyone found it to pick sides. Although, upon reflection, I guess it was pretty clear whose side everyone would be on. I guess our own world isn't so black and white.

And lastly I took this article in to show my Y12 sociology group. They loved it.

Hey There Delilah

I love Hey There Delilah by the Plain White T's. Particularly tunes and words of verse 5...

A thousand miles seems pretty far
But they've got planes and trains and cars
I'd walk to you if I had no other way
Our friends would all make fun of us
and we'll just laugh along because we know
That none of them have felt this way

Delilah I can promise you

That by the time we get through
The world will never ever be the same
And you're to blame

Found this picture when googling them. Awesome.

First Day Back...

...was alright. Pretty good in fact. The kids said they'd missed me and that the cover teachers "were rubbish" :) Felt guilty for not marking most of their cover work, but there's aaaaacres of it. With Y11 some things that made me laugh:

Me: Pick a number between 1 and 5.
N: 10.
Rest of class: Derrrrrr, between 1 and 5 you thicko, etc....
Me: Everyone makes mistakes.

Later in the same lesson:
Me: So then we multiply 0 by 5, which gives us 5.
Class: No it doesn't, derrrrrrr, it's 0. It's always 0.
Me: Aaah yes, that was a deliberate trick question.
Class: Teachers always say that when they mess up.

Despite minimum planning, lessons went really rather well. Have been inspired to make my lessons more creative, hence tonight have done lots of planning. Looking forward to Friday with Y7 where I'm teaching "multiplication from around the world" (with crazy techniques from China, Russia, Egypt and the Western world). Also made pretty ActivStudio flipcharts. Am slowly becoming addicted to ActivStudio, very baaaad. There's always more you can do to your flipcharts (kinda like powerpoint presentations, but on software that works with Prometheon whiteboards), but I have decided to cut myself off for the night. Besides, there's only so many pretty animations and sounds you can throw in to keep the kids on task; it's like anything else in economics - every additional unit has marginally less impact.

What else? Contemplated setting up an Ultimate Frisbee club at school in the summer term. Made dinner (an exceptional circumstance for me since my folks tend to coooooooook away meaning I don't have to!) - a random concoction of bacon and leeks in a cheesy roux with spaghetti. Yummy. Feel like hair is unbearably greasy, although am sure it's really not. Still love my "new" room, and dancing around to Nathan. Spoke to Berts about Venice, sounds very promising, am looking forward to it mightily.

Just figured out why my wrists hurt when I played the piano earlier - think I've given myself RSI. Time to stop. Mmmm bed.

Dyscalculia

Apparently only 1% of the world's population has heard of this condition, which is crazy given that 4 - 6% of people suffer from it. So, in an attempt to "spread the word" as the dyscalculiaforum urges us to do (thanks for that link elly, I'll be trying to get that video shown in our study day tomorrow) some info for you:

• the term refers to a wide range of life-long learning disabilities involving maths
• in very fancy word: sufferers experience dysfunction in the reception, comprehension, or production of quantitative and spatial information
• in quite fancy words: sufferers have trouble processing language, with visual-spatial relationships, with remembering facts, and with keeping a sequence of steps in order
• in basic terms: sufferers have difficulty learning the meaning of numbers or "number sense"; counting; understanding relationships between numbers; sorting objects; recognising patterns; understanding abstract concepts like time and direction/orientation; rules for games/strategy; comparing and contrasting; remembering and retaining basic maths facts; estimating; seeing links between concepts; applying their maths skills
• crucially, dyscalculics are usually of average or above average IQ and are often fine with written and oral language, but have specific problems with numbers (although there is a actually a significant proportion of dyscalculics who are also dyslexic).

I'm really glad that Canterbury and TF are putting an emphasis on this for us maths teachers; the more we know about these conditions, the better our teaching will be (at least in theory!)

When Babs came to observe me last half-term, she suspected that S in my Y8 group was dyslexic and maybe dyscalculic too. Having read through the symptoms, I'm inclined to agree with her. I've referred him to our SENCo so hopefully he'll be tested soon. In the meantime though, here are some strategies to help both dyscalculic and EAL pupils (for anyone writing their WA3!):

1. Varied learning/teaching styles - if the child doesn’t learn the way you teach, can you teach the way he learns?
2. One-on-one instruction
3. Memory recall games
4. Keywords - focus on understanding of words
5. Link work to real life examples/using tangible objects/simple games
6. Use of technology - pupils often find topics easier when they are delivered through maths software/websites
7. Increase confidence - help students become aware of their strengths and weaknesses
8. Don’t underestimate
9. Use of specialist staff (not just for teaching, but planning etc. also)
10. Build on prior knowledge
11. Opportunities to practice what has already been learnt - consolidation
12. Oral and written work
13. Understanding SEN and EAL needs are different (and different for each child too)
14. Address errors/misconceptions quickly before they become instilled e.g. through marking the first few questions to check for understanding
15. Writing frames and guidance on how to get answers down on paper
16. Model/demonstrate answers so pupils have something to work towards

Good-oh. So, to check your understanding of numbers and ability to estimate here are some numbers from my day. See if you can match the event with the number....

A) The percentage of the day I've spent in bed (I love Sundays)
B) The ratio of green olives stuffed with goat's cheese (delicious) to tictacs that I've eaten today
C) The number of pence I've topped up my Oyster card with (where does the money go?)
D) The number of calories I burnt off on the treadmill
E) The small fraction of lessons I have managed to plan for this week

1) 2/10
2) 50
3) 279
4) 7:9
5) 2000

Answers tomorrow.

And finally, I am loving both Plan B and Broke 'N' £nglish at the moment. These UK lyricists (and also some of the French ones, who I don't understand totally, but enough to get the gist!) are so heavy compared to the rubbish "gangsta" chat that comes outta the States. Gimme something to think about already.

Good stuff staff

I played my trumpet today for the first time in ages. It was great! Toot toot toot, heehee!

Our very proactive-enthusiastic-gungho staff have been piling on the extra-curriculars, so alongside drinking with them, and moaning about school with them, and maybe doing a bit of teaching with them, I've been playing indoor footie with them, and started up a bit of a band with them too. Hurrah!

Despite my inability to "visualise" the tune (apparently "Downtown" is a well known song...hmmm.....) the first rehearsal was good fun and games. I think music kinda feels like exercise. Maybe that's why I like it.

In other staff related news, yesterday afternoon was the first positive tea, hosted by the MFL department. The basic idea is that every few weeks a different department will host a tea for the staff and talk a bit about themselves and the exciting work they've been doing. It's a really good way to get people together to share ideas and thoughts and generally bond us all (very important since there's still a bit of a split between the old comprehensive staff and the new academy staff). So another hurrah for the positive teas! Yum yum cakes and eclairs.

And finally, I helped break up a fight on my way to morning registration (it wasn't even 8:30am yet!) And I did a PE cover lesson. Some might say I'm almost a real teacher.