Masterpiece

Tut! It's been a week again. Bad blogger!

It's been a heavy week, because I've been working my butt off to get my last assignment done in between shifts at work.

But behold! 'Tis complete!! (Although technically I also have to finish off the 750 word rationale that is supposed to accompany it, but shhhh.)



It took ages to get it to look right and stupid Publisher was annoying me because it refused to print without white borders (why? WHY?? Probably now someone will comment telling me exactly how I could have overcome that particular difficulty).



But actually, Publisher was nothing - N.O.T.H.I.N.G - compared to the problems I had at the copy shop! For one thing I was charged an unbeliveable amount of money which, despite me having shown them my student card, I don't believe for one second they actually gave me the discount, but just tried to get as much money out of me as possible.



Not only that, but because the Publisher issue meant I had trimmed the edges and therefore the double pages were slightly less than A3, the kid who served me copied them so that the pages didn't actually align on each side. When I went back he reckoned he was going to charge me again, but I nearly broke down in hysterical tears and the new copies came free of charge after all. Of course, this was after I showed him how, if you line the fold in the centre of the page up to the halfway mark both times, then both sides will be aligned. How clever! What genius! How ironic that I apparently know more about photocopying than someone who actually works in a photocopying shop, who told me that the only way to line it up was to scan it into a computer and print it out at £10 A SIDE! and that if he didn't push the paper right into the corner of the photocopier it wouldn't copy. SURPRISE! It did. Clearly I am a photocopying genius and should give up my teaching career to join the lofty heights of copying. Judging by what they charged me, I probably would actually make more money!

The logic of fools

So, Friday night Milly and I were having some people over. We went to Asda to get wine and nibbles and a few other essentials we would need during the week - as we frequently do, Asda being the biggest and cheapest supermarket nearby.

We got to the checkout and divided our stuff from the trolley, splitting the stuff for that night so we'd each pay for a bottle of wine and a couple of bags of crisps. Milly's stuff was put through first and I went to help her pack and fit it in the trolley, which we had already loaded up with our purchases from other shops.

As the cashier scanned the bottle of wine she turned and asked us both for ID. It's pretty much a nationwide policy to check for ID if the person looks under 21, even though the legal age for buying alcohol is 18. I can't really decide if I'm flattered or annoyed at being asked for ID now that I'm 26, but I got out my driving licence anyway and showed her. Milly had forgot hers and she rifled through her purse trying to find it to no avail.

"Don't worry," I said, "I'll pay for the wine."

"I can't sell it to you," said the cashier. "She hasn't got ID."

"But I have," I replied. "You've just seen it. I'll pay for the wine."

"No I can't let you do that. I need to see ID from both of you. It's the law."

"It's NOT the law!" I raised my voice a bit, uncertain if I was actually correct.

She called her supervisor over.

"We have to see ID from both of you," said the supervisor. "You can't buy wine for her if she's not got ID."

"Fine," I said, "but I can still get the bottle of wine I was planning on getting, right? The one that's with all my shopping here?"

"No, I can't let you buy that either."

"Why not? I'm 26 years old and you've seen my ID, why won't you let me buy a bottle of wine?"

"Because you're together and she hasn't got ID."

"Right, so if I load all this into the car and come back in on my own, with my ID, then I can buy some wine."

"No, because you've just been refused."

Steaming and wineless we left Asda. I spent a while Googling when I got home because I could not believe they had refused me just because I was with Milly (who is, incidentally, 21 and more than old enough to buy alcohol even if she did forget her ID). What if I'd been with a child who obviously wouldn't have been old enough? Would they have refused to serve me if I'd come in with a little kid? Then again, children are allowed to drink in their own home at some ridiculous age over here. I think it's 5 or something. So I could well be buying alcohol with the intention of giving some of it to a child. Plus, my understanding is that if I were to ever have a moment of stupidity and buy alcohol for some of those kids who hang around outside off-licences and try to get adults to buy beer for them, I'd be the one who was liable for prosecution, not the shopkeeper who sold it to me.

And how long would I have had to wait before I could go in and buy alcohol there having been refused? If I'd driven the car away and come back 2 hours later would that have made a difference? They can't possibly refuse to serve me alcohol in Asda for the rest of my life because I once tried to buy a bottle of wine with a 21-year-old who didn't have any ID. Plus, there are so many checkouts at Asda I doubt they would have even realised if I'd come back in and gone to a different one.

Google didn't tell me anything conclusive, but nowhere did I find proof that an adult should be refused because they are with someone who may be underage. I know we have a dangerous culture of youth binge-drinking in this country and I think it's great that supermarkets are joining the fight to somehow prevent it, but there comes a point where it really has gone too far.

Once again my uni surpasses itelf!

It has been a crazy week. I had Dorthe staying until Friday and the weekend has gone in a complete blur, so much so that I got very confused when my alarm went off this morning and I really wasn't sure what day it was. I am up to my ears in coursework and, of course, I'm off to Denmark in a few days (we leave Saturday!) and before then I also have to do things like get money changed up and make sure I have everything I'll need for a week in a foreign country.

Despite being so busy last week and feeling the constant pressure to entertain my guest, I did manage to grab a couple of hours whilst the exchange students were in school to get my RE assignment done. None of our assignments we have at the moment are due in until April, but RE seemed the simplest so I thought I'd get that thousand words out the way so I could concentrate on the other 5,500 (and the children's book) I have to write before the end of April.

This week is 'Themed Week' at uni. I'm pretty sure it's more or less a time killer between the two exchange weeks, but whatever, it means we're only in uni two days this week and I'm pretty happy about that. Yesterday was a day off so I spent a good portion of the day writing notes for my English Diversity and Change essay. This morning I came in early, all ready to hand in my RE, just needing to print a header sheet off the student portal as all work must have a personally-barcoded header sheet attached to it so it can be scanned in and they can print you a receipt incase they, you know, lose your work - which actually seems to happen far more than you'd suspect.

HOWEVER, the joyousness of my university is that it seems to delight in irritating the life out of me. So of COURSE, the one header sheet (and the only one) not available on the portal at the moment is the RE one. TYPICAL!!!

Oh well, I'm off to pick up my plane ticket to Denmark in a little while. Scary!

Things I have learned over the last few days

(Because lists are cool and you know it!)

I don't know nearly as much about grammar as I thought I did.
I always thought I was pretty good at grammar. English has always been a strong subject for me, but on Tuesday when my English teacher asked us to insert relative and non-finite clauses into a sentence, I had to admit that I had NOT A CLUE what she was talking about. And she's the kind of scary teacher you don't want to get things wrong in front of. Thankfully no one else seemed to know what she was on about either. *phew*

My university SUCKS at organising timetables.
Rewind to September, when we received this year's timetable. Straightaway we realised there were clashes. My course is made up of about 120 people (was 150 but the drop-out rate is quite high) so we are divided into 5 'A' groups of - now - around 25 people. We stay with the same group in every subject throughout our three years except for in our specialism subject, for which we are mixed up with people from other groups.

I specialise in English - despite my abysmal grasp of grammar - and so do a lot of people. So there are two English groups. So we noticed in September that one of the English groups clashed with one of our core curriculum subjects. I mentioned it to my tutor and she said they were aware and it would be resolved. So I went off to do my school placement and then just after Christmas we received an email with a revised timetable on it that had moved the English groups. However, there was now a clash for one of the other A groups. In the end we received a message that we would all meet as one English group (over 30 people, really too many for one group). So last Thursday we did. But the tutor passed around a sheet to indicate which day we could do - Wednesday or Thursday and said they'd try and see if they could arrange two groups.

So yesterday I figured there was no English seminar as I assumed we were still meeting as one group. Plus there was a meeting timetabled for the beginning of today's English seminar that everyone had to attend. However, we bumped into our tutor yesterday morning and she said there was, in fact, an English group scheduled for yesterday afternoon. There were 4 of us who actually turned up for it, plus 5 foreign exchange students. And I still had to go in this morning for the meeting. All in all: total nightmare.

The words to the 1989 Milky Way advert
Courtesy of Ali's mad YouTube searching skillz!
The red car and the blue car had a race,
All red wants to do is stuff his face
He eats everything he sees from trucks to prickly trees
But smart old blue he took the Milky Way
He's looking for a chocolate treat, fluffy and light
'Cause he knows it won't spoil his appetite (mmm, mmm, mmm)
Oh no! The bridge has gone!
Old red can't carry on.
But smart old blue he took the Milky Way.

Wind is seriously scary!

There are some crazy-ass weather conditions going on over here. Look what happened to my neighbour's fence:

The wind has taken on a mind of its own. All afternoon I've heard it howling around the buildings searching for things to blow over. On the road earlier I could feel my car being pushed to one side of the road (unless there is just something ELSE wrong with my car, which really, enough already!).

Organisation and communication: a study

A year ago this Friday I went to bed like normal. At around half past two I was woken by the piercing scream of the fire alarm. I lay there for a moment, my sleep-fuddled brain trying to process what was happening. I figured someone in one of the other flats had burnt some toast or something dumb like that, but the alarm persisted so I figured I should get up and see what was going on. I went to flick the light on, but when I hit the switch nothing happened. Odd, but I barely gave it a second thought, still semi-dozing even though I was on my feet.

I went to get my dressing gown as it was bad enough to think of facing my neighbours looking as rough and half-asleep as I did, let alone wearing my pyjamas. I opened my bathroom door to take my dressing gown off the hook on the other side of it and was enveloped by a thick cloud of black, toxic-smelling smoke. Through the haze I could vaguely see what looked like flames. I may or may not have said a couple of four-letter words and ran to get my phone. I called the fire brigade as I ran down the stairs, trying also to tell my neighbours over the screech of the alarm that it was a REAL FIRE, as they were tutting and shaking their heads at the fire alarm panel because it wouldn't reset. Well, duh!

So the fire brigade came and did their thing and I was homeless for three weeks while my flat was repainted. The damage was minimal really, but one thing that did get badly damaged was my ICT coursework, which was lying on the living room floor - open and almost completed - at that point and got trodden on by several firemen.

I got an extension on it, no problem - no one can really say anything to you when your flat's just caught fire - and I handed it in in April I think as I had to start again from scratch.

Skip several months to early September, when I'm waiting for my results to come back. Just before the beginning of the new academic year, the university sends you a sheet of all your results, saying whether you passed or failed and therefore, whether or not you may continue into the next year of study. When mine finally came through, it said I could continue into the second year, but that I had failed ICT.

I couldn't believe I had failed it, as although it was quite long and boring to do, it wasn't really that hard. I was annoyed, but rang the university to arrange to pay to retake the module and then emailed my ICT tutor to ask for my work back so I could see where I needed to improve.

He emailed me back almost straightaway to say that I hadn't failed, he just hadn't marked my work yet! He had mislaid it, but he'd just found it and would mark it as soon as possible. I couldn't believe it, but waited patiently for the result. A few days later he emailed me to let me know I had got 69%. 1% away from a First. Pretty good really. So I rang the finance department back to let them know I had passed and didn't need to retake the module, therefore, shouldn't have to pay the money (which was £100 in case you're interested).

They said they couldn't take my word for it, but said the mark would come through the system from my tutor so I left it. A month or so later I got a letter from the finance department, asking for at least half of the £100 for my repeated module. I rang them and explained the situation again and was told to take it up with my tutor.

I spoke to my tutor again and he assured me he had sent the mark through, but would chase it up. I thanked him and got on with my school placement.

In December I got another letter, asking for my LATE payment of £100 for my repeated module. So I rang the finance department AGAIN and told them the whole story AGAIN and was AGAIN told to take it up with my tutor. So I emailed him AGAIN and he took the name of the person who had written to me and emailed her personally, cc-ing me and my personal tutor. He apologised but explained that there was a huge amount of bureaucracy and red tape between himself and the finance department but that he really hoped it would get sorted this time.

Today I went to the computer suite to go online during my 3 hour break between lectures, but coulnd't log on. I asked at the desk and when the lady there tapped in my ID number she told me there was a block on my account. I had to go to the Registry to hand in my Ed Studies assignment anyway, so I figured that while I was over there I'd ask what was going on.

But when I tried to hand in my coursework they wouldn't even let me do that because of the block on my account due to an outstanding £100! They referred me to finance and I went over, nearly in tears from frustration by this point and spoke to the lady at the desk, again explaining the entire situation. She took my name and ID number and the name of the module, spent 10 minutes or so on the computer and maybe 2 minutes on the phone and sorted the whole thing out. I handed in my coursework and went back to the computer suite to look at cars on autotrader.co.uk.

Now why couldn't they have done that back in September?!?

Don't forget you can still delurk! You have alllllll week :)

Delurk or Nunzilla will get you!!!

Today is the start of De-Lurking Week. For those of you who don't know, lurking is when you read someone's blog but don't comment....yeah, I'm looking at you!


I figured since I'm asking you all to comment, I should try and produce something comment-worthy, and so I present you with a random collection of pictures, videos and anecdotes that, at the very least, will make you think (in the style of Chandler Bing), "Could this BE any more random?"

Here is a video of the Christmas present I bought for Ali. Presenting.....NUNZILLA!



And here is a little sample of what Ali bought me for Christmas. As you can see I have already put them to good use!



Yes, she bought me bath crayons! They are cool! And I am SO not artistic hehe.

Last night I played Articulate with Ali and some other friends. If you've never played it before it is VERY funny. It involves describing a word on a card to your team. Some classic lines were uttered such as:
"You rob a....?"
"Thames!"

"Swiss people wear them on their feet."
"Clogs!"
"YES!" (NB, Dutch people wear clogs.)

and
"Women have it."
"B.O.!"



Ali and I also spent part of the evening playing with our friend Colette's neice, Deanna, who decided that she was Pegasus, I was Hercules and Ali was Meg. That was, erm, fun. Also she found 10p in her tights. Yes, I am the queen of the completely surreal evening.

Tonight I went out with Ali again and we saw It's a Boy/Girl Thing which really is as dire as it looks. The highlight, however, was Ali singing along to I Think We're Alone Now (how could Girls Aloud cover such a classic song?) and absolutely belting it out at the moment the volume of the music on the film dropped to allow for dialogue. Fortunately for Ali there were only about 7 other people in the cinema. But they all heard. And laughed. We were the oldest people in there by about 8 years too! The shame!

Also, look:

I finished my Education Studies assignment. One. Day. Early! Woohoo!

*drumroll please*

I GOT THINGS DONE TODAY!! I know, shock horror, please no one faint. Today I have:

• Taken notes on the autism books I got out of the library
• Done even more ironing (and yet still the pile seems to get no smaller. I have enchanted laundry!).
• Done a whole pile of washing up that has been in the sink for way too long.
• Gone for a walk in order to not be a total slob and actually get some form of exercise today (I considered going for a run, but really, let's not get too carried away, eh?).

Anyway, that's actually pretty much all I've done, but it took a long time, so there. I also managed to sleep through meeting my friend for breakfast. That was quite an accomplishment. Apparently, when I set my alarm last night I managed to turn it off by accident and without realising. Yes, the same alarm I have had for about 3 and a half years and have used every day since then. I woke up at 20 past 10 when my friend text me to ask if I was on my way as I was supposed to be there at 10. OOOOOOPS!

Tomorrow I am meeting another friend at lunchtime (aha, can't possibly sleep through that one!) and going out with some other people in the evening, so I need to ensure that I once again have a PRODUCTIVE day and do some USEFUL things.

I have made a decision about moving. And I have decided to go ahead and move in with the girls. Which feels a little scary, to say the least, but I think it'll be good. As trite as it sounds, I think it is character building to live with other people and put up with their habits and idiosyncracies. And have to deal with their reaction to yours. But it all got a bit crazy because I spoke to the girls just before Christmas and they said their landlord wasn't happy for me to move in after all because I'm just a student and don't work. My lack of a steady income beyond my student loan would put his insurance up apparently. Anyway, it finally all got sorted a week or so ago, with the landlord agreeing that I could live there but not have my name on the contract and so I got a text message saying it was okay for me to move in. On the 10th February.

THE. 10TH. OF. FEBRUARY!

That is just over a month away! So alongside having to get this assignment done, there is also a lot of practical stuff I need to get on top of and don't even get me started on the state of my car, which the garage have pronounced "unfixable" WITH THE SAME PROBLEM THEY ALLEGEDLY FIXED BY REPLACING THE ALTERNATOR A COUPLE OF MONTHS AGO!!! Or whatever, not unfixable, but fixable at a price WELL over the value of the car, which equates to the same thing really.

So I need to sort out a whole load of stuff in order to move, like, for example, what am I going to do with my cooker and my washing machine and my sofa? And do they have broadband, please say they have broadband. Part of the point behind breakfast this morning was to chat about details like this with one of the girls I'm going to be living with, but of course I had to pick today to have a complete meltdown in terms of alarm clock operation.

So I still have lots to do. But the excitement doesn't even end there because I got back from my walk to find two of my neighbours in the lobby because the fire alarm kept going off. Every time they reset it, it went off again, which, you'd think, would indicate an actual fire, but the light was flashing to indicate a fire in the communal area, i.e. where we were standing and there was a surprising lack of fire or smoke. So we ended up calling the landlord so someone could come out and reset it properly, and setting the alarm to "silence" which is a lie, because it still beeps quite loudly every 5 seconds or so, but not as loudly as the piercing squeal of the actual alarm.

Anyway, the day's not over yet, and maybe I will attempt to convert my copious and illegible notes into the beginning of a legible leaflet. Or maybe I'll just do that tomorrow.

The obvious incident of the student procrastinating

Well, as you may be able to tell from my slightly altered banner or my Flickr account, I haven't exactly been doing a lot of writing on autism today. I haven't exactly done a lot of reading on autism today either. But I have had lots of fun with Photoshop Elements and made some pwetty, pwetty pictures:





But I did reread The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time just before Christmas. Which surely counts as research as it is written from the point of view of a boy with Asperger's, which is on the autistic spectrum, for those of you who might not know. And I just finished A Spot of Bother, by the same author, which isn't about autism at all but is a very good book nonetheless and I would recommend you all read it.

So, yeah, the books from the library sit in their neat pile just by my living room door and the computer calls to me with its inticingly glowy screen and promises of blogs to read and photos to edit and even MySpace messages to respond to. See, there is just so much to do that I couldn't possibly think of sitting down and trudging through those wordy books to pull out enough information to then condense into an interesting yet succinct leaflet.

Oh well, I suppose there's always tomorrow...

How many brain cells does it actually require to work at a refreshment stand?

I went to the cinema this evening with my dad and brothers. Bluewater was packed and apparently everyone had decided to have dinner at the exact same time as us. Most places said there was a 45 minute wait and as we only had an hour and a half till the film, we struggled to find somewhere that was going to feed us quick enough. We ended up at Carluccio's, which was slightly speedier, but we were still pressed for time so my brother Kolin and I went ahead to get popcorn etc while my dad and my other brother stayed to pay the bill.

So we walked up to the counter and queued for a little while before one of the staff called us over to his till. We walked over and I ordered a large popcorn, a bag of Minstrels and a bag of Starburst (Opal Fruits, Opal Fruits, Opal Fruits!!!!) and I then ordered an apple Tango for my dad. I turned to Kol and asked what he wanted. A Pepsi. So I said, "Okay, and two small Pepsis."

Our server, Olly, looked confused. "Do you still want the apple Tango?"

"Yes, and a Diet Pepsi."

"So that's one small apple Tango, two small Pepsis and a Diet Pepsi?"

"Yes."

"Do you know it would be cheaper to get a regular Pepsi, because that's less than two small Pepsis."

"Well, if it's cheaper...." I waited for a moment as what he actually said sinks in. "Wait, no, we need four drinks."

"Oh," he said. "I thought it was just for the two of you."

Yeah, the two of us were going to eat a whole large bag of popcorn and chase it with two entire bags of sweets. Seriously!

A series of Christmas vignettes

I figured that rather than bore you all with the whole "I did this, and then I did that and then I went there..." rendition of Christmas, I would simply highlight for you the most entertaining segments in a series of amusing anecdotes. This may or may not continue for several days, depending on how much I can actually remember!

The one where we ate the cat:
On Boxing day I ate lunch at my friend Ali's the same as I did on Christmas day. Her brother and his girlfriend were there. In an attempt to steer the conversation away from what may have been an inappropriate topic for dinner conversation (I honestly can't remember what), Ali's mum turned to her and said, "How's the cat?"

She was, of course, referring to Tilly, the cat owned by the people Ali (and I, sort of) was housesitting for. Ali's brother, however, in a moment of incredible quick-wittedness that I can only envy, poked the meat on his plate gingerly with his fork, looked up at us with eyes full of concern and said, "The cat?"

The one with the SPLAT!
Boxing day evening Ali and I got the munchies and headed down to the BP garage to stock up on goodies. We were looking at the selection of crisps and trying to make a decision, factoring in several special offers. "Well," I said, "I like Doritos, but if we get Doritos we have to get dip, and I don't like those Doritos dips. Do you think they'll have fresh ones?"

"I doubt it," was Ali's cynical reply.

Well I headed off over to the chiller cabinet and there they were: a selection of 4 dips in little plastic pots, stacked and then surrounded by a cardboard sleeve. "Aha!" I said to Ali. "They do have fresh dips!" And I picked up the cardboard sleeve and brandished the dips at her.

At which point the bottom pot of dip slid out of the cardboard sleeve and landed with a resounding SPLAT on the floor.

After we had recovered from our hysterical laughter, Ali and I grabbed another pack of dips and ran away to pay for them. Yes, I am the type of person who makes a mess in a shop and then pretends to have had nothing to do with it. I'm a bad person.

The one with the song from Friends:
At my mum's I noticed a funny smell. The cat was winding itself around my legs at the time, but I expressed incredulity at the fact that the cat could stink so bad that I could smell it from there. My mum said its teeth are really bad and she should really take it to the vet, that it should have really had yearly checkups, but it hadn't, and now it had the worst cat breath ever.

Later that evening, I caught a whiff of the cat's halitosis again and commented on it, at which point my brother started singing 'Smelly Cat'. I joined in and we sang the song in its entirety. My mum told us to stop, "You'll give him a complex," she said.

"We can't give him a complex, he really does smell," I said. "You won't take him to the vet, he's clearly not your favourite pet."

"Shut up," my mum said, obviously feeling a bit awkward. "We can't afford to take him to the vet."

I looked around at the shiny new cabinets and the gleaming metal of the stainless steel hob. "Well, obviously," I said, "a new kitchen is far more important than your cat's teeth."

"Kolin," my mum said to my brother. "What would you like for dessert, because Laura's not getting any now."

The one with the reminiscent vomit:
We were talking, for some reason, about my mum's ex-boyfriend and my brother reminisced about the time he threw up all down himself whilst they had been staying at my mum's then-boyfriend's.

"I think it was the first time I smoked puff. I'd been drinking and then all [ex-boyfriend's kids] friends were there offering me this joint, so I was all, what the hell, why not. And then I was sick. A lot."

"You really were," my mum interrupted. "We had to put all your clothes in a plastic bag to take them home because they were so covered in sick."

"Yeah," said my brother. "And I was only 6 years old, mother, what kind of parent are you." He paused for effect and my mum gave him a look. "Not really, I think I was fourteen."

I'm back....

Well, it's been a hectic few days. but mostly enjoyable nontheless. There is lots and lots to talk about, but I just drove back from my mum's so I'm pretty much feeling like putting my pjs on and sitting in bed reading my new Lemony Snicket books, so you'll have to wait for a more updatey update.

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and is looking forward to a great new year. I'll be back soon with lots of Christmasy stories to share.

Now 75% less Grinch-like

Well, it seems things are pretty much dead in blog world and I'm guessing they'll stay that way til the 27th. I've come down with a lovely cold, just in time for the festivities. Thank you, immune system.

I've got almost all my presents now. Still don't know what to get for my dad, but I'm not seeing him til late next week so will have a chance to pop in somewhere after the mayhem is over. (At least, after one lot of mayhem is over, because surely another lot of mayhem will commence with the January sales that now seem to start on Boxing Day!)

I'm off to a Christmas Ball tonight, which should be a great evening. Wine and I are still not on speaking terms, so I shall be incredibly sober, though I'm not driving. Then I've got church in the morning and afterwards I'm heading over to my friend's for the festivities to really begin. It all still seems a bit crazy and I can't quite believe that tomorrow is Christmas Eve.

I may post a quick note tomorrow if something especially exciting happens at the ball, but if not, have a merry Christmas everyone and I'll catch up with you all next week.

Distracted McSidetracked

Yes, that is my new name, you may all address me as such. I am the most unfocussed person in the world today. All I am trying to do is give my flat a bit of a spring (winter) clean and yet I just can't seem to stay on task. I flit from one job to another and then wander back to the computer or TV and think, "I'll just sit down for 5 minutes......."

In fairness my bathroom now looks pretty good (if you ignore the mountain of washing that is clearly multiplying at a cellular level and oh-so-eager to escape the confines of the laundry basket) and I've done a fair bit of washing up and generally moved piles of stuff from one room to another....

Yeah it really is quite pathetic. And now I sit here, the queen of procrastination, writing in my blog and refreshing my Bloglines feeds every few minutes. Right, well I'm off to do more housework, to be a productive member of society.

I might just check Bloglines one last time.....

If I never see another staple it'll be too soon

Today's been good so far. It's only just gone three, there is still room for it to get better. Firstly I just want to say, if you didn't see the video I posted about on Wednesday, you really should. And so I will link it again here because it is seriously funny (well, I think so anyway, and it's all about me don't ya know).

Anyway, I got to school just before nine today, only to discover that the training session (on how to use Adobe Contribute to edit the school website. Joy!) didn't start til ten. Only the head hadn't thought to tell everyone yesterday!

So I spent a good half hour or so pulling staples out of the wall. Fun fun fun. Then we had the training session which actually lasted only an hour, so that was good. My teacher is not very technically minded so I said she could call me anytime to help her out with her class' page.

Afterwards she had to write my report so I pulled more staples out of the wall (OMG the mind-numbing boringness of pulling staples out of the wall. It is boring let me tell you!) until she was done. Then four of us went out for lunch. I left school clutching my final report, a packet of pink wafers and half a box of chocolate chip cake bars - the latter two scrounged from the leftovers of the kids' Christmas parties yesterday - and followed the other two cars down the road. Unfortunately there was a lot of traffic and I lost sight of them not long after we left. I had a vague idea where we were going and it wasn't far. Thankfully I ended up at the right place.

They are a really nice bunch of girls, all about my age, and we had a right laugh. My teacher said I'm welcome to come back and see the kids any time I want, which is great. We ate well and chatted for quite a while and I got home just before three. Now, apart from having to sort out the washing that has been sitting in my washing machine for more days than I'd care to mention, I can sit back, relax and maybe even crack open a bottle of wine.... Life is pretty good.

(Just don't mention the C word. You have been warned!)

School's out!

So, it was the last day of school today. The kids had their Christmas party and were absolutely climbing the walls with excitement all morning. I had them making photo frames with the obligatory heavy sprinkling of glitter and we took their pictures and printed them out to put inside (ahh, the wonders of the digital age). They looked so cute.

The party went well. The kids danced, played games and ate food, much of which ended up ground into the carpet along with several tons of glitter. I read Charlier and the Chocolate Factory to them for the last time (we left off about 2 chapters from the end, how frustrating is that?) and then gave them the cards and gifts I'd bought for them. They had made me a huge card and each of them had drawn a little self portrait on coloured card which had been cut out and stuck inside. It was really cute. They also gave me a bunch of flowers. In addition to this some of them gave me Christmas presents. I am going to be so fat by Christmas I swear! They gave me two boxes of Maltesers, a box of Belgian chocolate truffles and a box of rum truffles. I also got a massive Belgian chocolate shell from my 'secret santa' at the staff lunch yesterday. One child gave me something I eyed suspiciously, as it appeared to be a rather tacky looking wallet, but it turned out to be a manicure set, which is not totally useless. Anyway, it's the thought that counts, isn't it. One of the boxes of Maltesers came with a women's weekly mag and a couple of tea bags. Hehe. I guess the underlying message was that I could relax now the placement's over, but it made me chuckle a little.

Some of the kids hugged me and said they'd miss me. A couple said I was "the best teacher ever" (kids are so fickle, they will say this to ANYBODY!). It was sweet and I will really miss them. It didn't really occur to me until quite late in the day that I won't see them again and it does make me feel a little sad. They are lovely kids.

I have to go in tomorrow from 9 til 12 for an INSET day. (Don't ask me what it stands for, I'm sure it stands for something as it's always capitalised, but I do not have a clue.) Afterwards, my class teacher and I (and any other teachers who want to tag along) are going to go for lunch, which will be a really nice way to round off the placement.

I did love it, I loved the kids, but I am SO GLAD it's over now. I can actually, like, sleep, and do housework and.....relax!

Random update

I figured I should do a bit of a random update, especially as I just discovered a couple of pictures on my phone that I totally forgot I took (see previous post - brain definitely on hiatus) and I had to share them with you.

On Saturday I went out for a meal with my family for my Grandad's 80th birthday. It was a pretty posh restaurant and the food was REALLY good. But my brother's bread and butter pudding came with a load of orange rind - I guess as decoration, although who knows, maybe you were supposed to eat it. Anyway, my brother piled all of his peel on top of the peel on my cousin's plate, creating a small mountain of the stuff. After some discussion of the message this would send the chef when the plates were removed, my brother decided to remove all ambiguity from said message:

Needless to say, the wine had been somewhat flowing. Just another shining example of the weird and random exploits of my family.

Anyway, there are a couple of other pictures from the weekend that can be viewed on my Flickr

I also had a funny evening Monday night, when I went to see The Holiday with Ali. The film was pretty good, although it was quite long and man, I didn't get home til after midnight! But we had a fun evening as always. Much hilarity.

We went into a bar before the film started and moaned like the old people we clearly are about the volume of the music television in there. But who can blame us in the face of such musical genius as Jibbs' Chain Hang Low. I mean someone has written a song to the tune of "Do your ears hang low?" (let's keep it clean here people), only incorporated the amazing lyrics:

Do your chain hang low

Do it wobble to da flo

Do it shine in the light

Is it platinum is it gold

Could you throw it over ya shoulder

If ya hot it make ya cold

Simply inspiring!

Unfortunately the sound quality on this video sucks, but the skinny white boys made me laugh!

Unauthorised absence

Dear Brain,

Please get a grip. I know you are tired, although God knows why as all you seem to do at the moment is sleep - particularly whilst I'm awake. There is only one more day of school to get through so please return from whatever corner of my skull you have chosen to hide yourself and get with the programme.

It is not helpful that you tell me all day that I have a choir rehearsal tonight when it is, in fact, tomorrow night. I can only be thankful that your absence is recent and you previously had the wherwithal to WRITE THINGS DOWN, because otherwise I would have looked a mighty fool at 8pm, standing around outside an empty building wondering 'Where is everybody?' like the giraffe on that old British Airways advert.

It is a point of fact, dearest Brain, that this absence is quite unacceptable. You are - unfortunately - quite indispensible and irreplaceable as I tend to need you in order to form coherent sentences and hopefully avoid that gut-clenching feeling of social inadequacy.

I know that hours upon hours of wrapping up brightly coloured pencils for the children in my class may well cause you to slip into a trance-like state of sheer, unadulterated boredom, but I'm afraid it can't be helped. There will be time to sleep next week, and to think about nothing more strenuous than what to have for lunch, but until then I must insist that you return to full functionality immediately.

So here's the deal, Brain, let's get through the next couple of days and then you can relax, maybe even take a holiday, on full pay of course. Just don't abandon me yet.

Sincerely,
Laura

In which logic loses out to blind panic

Thursday night. I go to bed early as I'm still not 100%. I've been asleep just over an hour when I'm awoken by the buzzer on my entry phone. I roll over and look at the time. 11:45pm. I freeze. The buzzing continues.

I lie in bed, paralysed by fear, unable to even get out of bed because the only person who would buzz my door at quarter to midnight? Would have to be an axe murderer. (Did I mention I was ill? That possibly, I wasn't thinking 100% straight?) Because obviously, axe murderers will buzz your entry phone when they want to come in and kill you.

*BUZZZZZZ* "Oh, hi, sorry to bother you at this time of night. I'm a crazy axe-wielding maniac and just wondered if you'd buzz me in so I can chop you up into little bits and store your remains in my freezer."

Yeah, okay Laura.

Anyway, after what seemed like FOREVER, the buzzing stopped and my heart slowly returned to its natural pace. I lay there, silent, lights still off so no crazy axe murderers would know I was home, and wondered who on earth would have been buzzing my door at midnight.

A few more minutes pass and MY PHONE STARTS TO RING! It's a local number, not a mobile, and one I don't recognise. Why would the crazy axe murderer, having got no answer from my front door, go home and then ring my mobile? Why would a crazy axe murderer HAVE my mobile number? (This is what it is like inside my head. Are you scared yet? Are you already dialling for the men in white coats to come and take me away? Can I just repeat the fact that I was still running a bit of a fever? Thank you.)

Eventually, after my phone had rung several times, the crazy axe murderer left a message on my voicemail and I picked it up.

It was J. She had decided to come visit me, knowing that usually I'm still wide awake at midnight. Her mobile was out of battery so she was calling from a phone box.

You know what? That actually makes a LOT more sense than an axe wielding maniac who happens to have both my address and phone number.

And who would have thought, it figures

Irony can kiss my butt.

Why on the day that I post about having not missed a single day of school do I end up with my head down the toilet? It's just not right.

I am sick. (In case that last paragraph did not make that clear.) So I should try to go to bed and hope I don't throw up again. Great!

Decisively undecided...

Dinner last night was cool. Ali and I went to an Italian place and ate far too much. We arrived there to discover that there was live opera!! We sat and chatted and were interrupted by random arias. It was an interesting evening.

The cinema trip today was excellent. There wasn't enough room on the coach for all the adults, so on the way to Bluewater I got to go in a car with some of the other staff. We got there wayyyyyyy before the coaches as they somehow got stuck in horrendous traffic, so we sat in Krispy Kreme and had donuts. It was so good!

Then the kids turned up and we walked them through to the cinema, making sure they all went to the toilet. We had a whole screen booked out for the school, which was great and felt really special. Flushed Away is really funny although my viewing was slightly interrupted by the frequent trips to the toilet. Despite the fact that they all had the option to go before the film started, and were offered the chance again every time I took one of them to the loo, I still had to leave the screen about 4 times for various different children who couldn't apparently sit through an hour and a half of movie without their bladders exploding. Maybe it was all the watery, sewer scenes that did it.

We got back to school and had about 45 minutes for lunch and then I took a DT lesson whilst the few of them that had to finished off their letters to Jamie Oliver. The rest of them made pop up Christmas cards with me. I found myself the only adult in the room, which was a little overwhelming for such a practical lesson.

Tomorrow I am being observed during geography. The kids are colouring in and labelling countries on a world map and going out in groups to do a treasure hunt. I need to get some bags of chocolate coins this evening to use as the treasure.

If I can just get through tomorrow I know I can relax a little bit, although my class teacher is doing her final observation of me in numeracy on Thursday. Tomorrow I get a free lunch as it's school Christmas dinner, but I'm worrying I won't even have time to eat it as I'll be careering round the school like a headless chicken trying to ensure everything is set up for geography. My link tutor this year seems much harder to please than the one I had last year and I feel a bit like nothing is ever good enough, which is frustrating when I have worked so much harder at my placement this year, despite personal circumstances that are different but still as stressful as what I was going through during placement last year. I haven't missed one day of school this year and I am proud of that. I missed quite a few days of my last placement due to combinations of a battered immune system (that I constantly seem to have) and stress (that I also constantly seem to have!).

I have to make sure my folder is up to scratch for tomorrow, although the link tutor won't completely sign me off until the placement has finished and I have my final report from my class teacher, but I'm still going out tonight. I think if I were to stay home I'd get the work done fairly quickly and then have the rest of the evening to stress myself out or procrastinate for hours and get it done around 11:30, having stressed myself out for the entire evening up to that point because I hadn't got it done. If I go out, I have to get it done beforehand and then can spend a couple of hours chilling with some friends (in the house I've been invited to move into! YIKES!).

Yeah, I'm still freaking out about that because I HAVE ENOUGH TO THINK ABOUT ALREADY. SERIOUSLY!

Ali invited me to spend Christmas with her and her family, which sounds like quite a good plan. Part of me would still rather ignore Christmas altogether, but I know I can't really do that and probably would end up feeling totally miserable. Which is not embracing the Christmas spirit.

I guess I still have a few decisions to make... Watch this space.