intastellaburst

Half Man Half Biscuit was indeed great last night. I have never before seen so many shining bald pates in one place (except maybe the last time I went to see Half Man Half Biscuit). They were on top form and we found a space on the step, which meant we could actually see! It was really good fun to go round to my new friend's house beforehand - and since I didn't have work until this afternoon, we went back to hers for another drink after the gig too.

The light shining into the study is beautiful right now - the reflection of a very impressive sunset.

I'm excited about going to see Half Man Half Biscuit tonight. They were ace when I saw them in Nottingham, and this time I don't even have to drive on a horrible ring road! I'm going over to a new friend's house beforehand to have a drink, and also forcing my boyfriend to wear the t-shirt I stencilled his favourite HMHB lyrics onto (he loves it, honestly):

I'm back in the South, on an extended parental visit (which also includes propping my mother up, who would otherwise be about to explode from caring for her own elderly, stroke-recovering, depressed and impossible to deal with mum).

I've already been swimming in the outdoor pool, hoovered up an amazing quantity of cobwebs from my dad's office, and managed to persuade my family that Dancing Stage: Hottest Party is brilliant fun (which it is). Today I'm heading off to Bristol Balloon Fiesta (go away, clouds) and I have plans to swim in the sea quite soon.

I am finding that my annoying-children threshold has lowered significantly now that term is over. Where previously I would have smiled a knowing smile and thought encouraging things about any given 4-year-old darling's vocabulary, I now find myself ready to scream. Hopefully my usual patient, teacherly nature will return before term starts.

I'm getting a bit annoyed at the way us striking teachers are being portrayed in the media.

Here you go badasstronaut:

1. Grampy is getting better and better. He's talking! In sentences!
2. I sang in a choir in front of about 200 people on Saturday and we were fabulous.
3. A lovely Sunday morning in a country park with great people.
4. It's a beautiful freezing cold sunny day.
5. The madness is over and I am relaxing. Aaaahhh.
6. Brightly coloured silicone muffin cases awaiting a cake-making marathon.

last night i went to the nightglow at bristol balloon fiesta, and this morning i got up at 5am and went with my friends megan and alice to see the 6am launch. and this year they could actually take off!


the nightglow - all the balloons inflate but stay tethered, and glow using their burners in time to some cheesy music.

( more photos... )

from glitter - my friday in pictures:

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v121/intastellaburst/a%20day%20in%20the%20life/

matt, my very clever boyfriend, finished his BA in history this year with astoundingly good results all round (he got a first and prizes for the best dissertation, best student, best everything you could possibly think of) and he's doing a masters in october. he applied for 1+3 funding (for his masters year and 3 years of a PhD) from the research council, the open competition kind with only 100 places for everything related to economics and social stuff in the whole country. AND HE GOT IT! i am bursting with pride. he is such a legend. and this money will mean that he can just focus on his research and not have to worry. it will also mean that i can relax a little bit about finding enough supply work, at least temporarily.

YAY

i've finally got my hands on a wii! i've been wanting one for ages but they're still really difficult to get hold of here. i'd pretty much given up on the idea, but checked amazon on the off-chance and they had some in stock. i don't think i've ever pressed the order button so quickly! it should be here at the beginning of next week. very excited...

i just ate pretty much an entire bag of mini-eggs in a very short space of time. i don't regret it, even if i do feel sick now.

Poll #945957 choose your own adventure
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4

what should i do at the weekend?

oh god. who the hell thought it would be a sensible idea to cancel neighbours until the 10th of july, right when i finally have the time to watch it every single day? i'm actually quite bitter about this. bastard wimbledon.

I'VE GOT A TEACHING POST!

aaah, i'm so excited. i went for my first interview today and i wanted the job SO BADLY - and i've got it! i can't believe it's true; me, an actual, proper teacher! i love the school and the headteacher seems really supportive and lovely. woah, i have a job. YAY!

tomorrow i will be dressing up as a victorian schoolmistress and banging my cane on desks to a bewildered class of student teachers. oh god, the things i get myself into.

i really like singing in a group. next year, i think i'll try and find a community choir to join. i also need to start going to yoga classes again. perhaps when i have a proper job i'll have time for these things. i hope so.

i suddenly feel incredibly alive. colours are brighter, life is like a series of scenes in a film or drawings in a comic strip. i am luxuriating in this sense of freedom - no planning to do, no lessons to teach. waking up later than dawn. spending my days sitting passively in a lecture theatre with no responsibility to anyone but myself. hours and hours in the day that are my own, to spend doing whatever i want. placement was wonderful but i seriously needed to feel like this again.

it's been absolutely beautiful here recently; clear, sunny and freezing cold. yesterday we took advantage of the weather and caught the bus out to the countryside for a walk. it was strange to be on the bus for ten minutes and see rolling hills and trees - living in the city feels bizarrely insular sometimes, like the natural world is a very long way away. it was wonderful to spend some time away from the city though, getting muddy and breathing fresh air.

we went on a circular walk through fields, past an electricity substation (for a bit of contrast?) and along the canal for a way. the substation was actually quite frightening to walk past; that loud humming and all the looming metal. i felt like i was in some kind of absolutely terrifying mid-1970s post-nuclear drama. the sound was really pervasive.

when we reached the canal, we were amazed to see that it was totally covered in ice. being a southern girl who's never lived through a proper winter nor been anywhere particularly exciting, i don't think i've ever seen that much natural ice. it was incredibly beautiful (and very thick in places - no amount of stick-poking made a difference). the patterns that had formed in the ice were fascinating (even if they were decidedly reminiscent of the upholstery often found in school coaches). further down the canal we saw a tethered narrowboat that certainly couldn't be moved until the ice had melted. i can't say i would've minded being stuck there.

the last part of our walk took us across fields with a really pronounced ridge and furrow pattern (which matt told me about at length, of course). in our short detour (as we misunderstood the directions) we also walked past some kind of bizarre sheep graveyard, with a couple of rams' skulls and some fleece-draped barbed wire - although, perhaps thankfully, there are no pictures of that.
after another bus ride home through the orange late afternoon light, we took our muddy socks off and ordered a chinese takeaway. what a fantastic way to spend a saturday.

( large pictures of our adventure... )

i really wish i had a whole extra week of half term.
teaching practice is going pretty well (i like the teacher, kids and school) but damn, this job is hard. and i'm really starting to resent having no time to myself - for the past few weeks all i've done is work, sleep or feel unwell. it really added insult to injury when i finally got to go home and see my parents for a few days and spent almost the whole time unable to move from the sofa with a nasty vomiting disease of some kind.

i'm halfway through now though, and i'm sure i'll survive. i'm just horribly nostalgic for the old days of being a proper student, when i didn't have to leave the house at 7am, get home at 6pm, eat, work for two hours and go to bed. little did i know how blissfully luxurious my life was!

of course, the glorious freedom of half term now means that i absolutely cannot get off my arse and do all the planning i have to do, even though i've got to do it some time (and will ruin my weekend). but i just want to enjoy myself! i've lost momentum. let's hope i can build it up again and keep going for three weeks. going back to lectures will be boring but leave oh so much leisure time in comparison. and just in time for spring...

what career or job do you think i'd enjoy and be good at? please give me some ideas. i don't mind how crazy they are; they can't possibly be crazier than this crappy job.

i'm really tired.
i've just finished the second week of my PGCE and the work is starting to mount up now, although it's still nowhere near as bad as i was lead to believe by the horror stories i've heard (wait until teaching practice, they all cry!). i like the course, even though i am constantly forced to wonder whether i can actually hack being a teacher because it sounds so bloody hard. so far, the lectures and workshops have been fascinating, but the homework sucks - as anticipated, never-ending form-filling is the order of the day.

i'm feeling fairly confident about my subject knowledge, i'm really interested in issues of racism, sexism and fostering an anti-discriminatory ethos in the classroom, i know i'm good at presenting and talking with clarity, but i still don't know the first damn thing about whether i can actually teach. it's strange. right now i can't see how i'll ever be able to plan whole days and weeks of lessons, monitor and assess children for learning as i teach, differentiate my teaching for children of varying abilities, and do all the other things that constitute the work of a good teacher. how is it possible? am i good enough? will i stand up in front of a group of 6 year olds in a few weeks' time and utterly fail? i'm scared.

quite apart from the existential terror, the people on the course are really lovely and i've started to make some new friends, as well as being excited to get to know matt's friends better now that they're all back. leicester is a great place to live and i'm thoroughly enjoying sharing a house with matt. i miss my family, as i always do, but only because they're so excellent i couldn't escape missing them. life is terrifying, exhausting and really rather good.

last week i went on an awesome narrowboating holiday with five friends from back home - have a look at the numerous photos here.
and, if you're feeling brave, read the huge account of what happened... ( if you have a few hours to spare. )
this week i've started my preliminary placement in a local primary school, before my PGCE starts next week. It's been wonderful so far, and all the staff have made me feel really welcome. Spending time with children and feeling the itch to get more involved in the actual teaching rather than just observing or benignly 'helping' has made me realise how excited I am about becoming a teacher. I'm bloody scared too, of course, but that's to be expected!