Thanks to the forbearance of the RSC in the matter of my absent minded treatment of my tickets (still not turned up!) we went to see Hamlet in Stratford-upon-Avon (soon to be renamed Shakespeareville) last week. ( ramblings about Stratford and the production )
The next day we had a few hours to kill before we had to be in Cambridge and I had originally thought we would go somewhere or browse around Stratford, but actually what I ended up doing was sitting in the hotel garden and blitzing the second half of The Steel Remains, Richard Morgan's foray into fantasy.
So, that was week one. Pretty good, all things told. I posted about a bunch of school stuff on back_to_skool, so for here, suffice it to say that I had a good week, the class are nice and I felt welcome. My mentor told me I'd made a really good impression on the Head because on day one when I arrived and found her and the science co-ordinator helping the science speaker to set up I offered to make everyone a hot drink and bought the Head hers in her office when I got back to discover she'd gone to answer the phone. That's Mum's training shining through for you :) Other lessons in this series include being willing and cheerful with any task the teacher asks you to do and try to be as helpful as possible but don't pre-empt (there's a fine line between using your initiative and making a pest of yourself by doing something *not quite* the way they would have asked for if you'd asked).
Went out to play tennis with one of the year one teachers on Thursday, which was very enjoyable, if totally exhausting! Usually there's quite a few but this week only the two of us made it. I felt a bit guilty for not being very good but next week, some more total novices are going. Anyone else fancy the occasional knock around in the name of fitness? Presumably the more I do it, the better I'll get, right?
I managed the basics in my support category fine but I didn't have the energy to do the investigation that we've got pending right now. I'm going to try to do that tomorrow, but I feel reasonably happy about how that's looking so far. I still think I'm likely to need a co-admin when I'm having to do my own planning though - must sort that out in lj_supportadmin
I can't believe I managed to lose my tickets for Hamlet! Fortunately the box office will print me out duplicates when we get there, but still. Most uncharacteristic. Am enjoying life of lady of leisure. Not for long though - school next week.
Well, that's it! After 2 and a half years at Winton, I'm out. It's not been too bad, all things considered, but not the job for me. Went out to lunch with my colleagues and was given a rather lovely card (with cat on) and a Next gift card, so I shall have to go have a browse around and decide what to treat myself to.
Of course the effect is rather spoiled by the fact that I forgot to return a book I borrowed from a colleague so I will have to pop back in next week :)
“Well I was having a very relaxing Sunday afternoon you know. Manage to get some of my reading school done and all that have way through making curry. I have manage to slice probably quarter of the nail on my index finger of my left hand. Well trying to chop coriander. It hurts like hell, it's extremely painful. Otherwise it's gonna completely mess up my ability to type for the next few days. Still hopefully it will I don't know what I'm gonna do with the nail injuries I just got it covered up so that it stops bleeding for the moment but yeah so I thought I must tell Lance about this. I suppose you really want to type it. So he has his worst days. There you go”
Wow. So I've had more fun than this, definitely. Everything feels off. When I'm moving, my brain feels like it's sloshing around in my head. When I'm still, it subsides to a sort of fizzing sensation. Sinus infection, I think. I just freaked our receptionist out on my way out to go to the loo - she was convinced I was going to faint.
Poll answers update. Usually I don't bother to pass these things on but I know you people are all poll crazy :) The (no answers) thing is going to be fixed in the next code release. In the meantime, right click on the view answers link and open it in a new tab or window to actually see the answers. Now everyone who is wrongheadedabout Neal Stephenson will be revealed...
Oh joy! Have just discovered gMail supports IMAP. No longer will I have to look at the horrible interface, I can just use Thunderbird without having to give up having all my mail labeled and organised the same on all my computers. I know, it shouldn't make me that happy, but there you are, I'm an odd person.
Having now spent a little time playing Rock Band, I can safely say that it is just as much fun as I thought it would be. I need to get more into practice on the guitar again though - I'm getting rusty. If you could play it with the guitars I've got, I would get the PS2 version just so that I could play some of the tracks on guitar - there's some really good fun stuff on there.
Curses! Bellowhead's Cardiac gig clashes with Reading week :( I could have sworn it was a different week, but no. In theory, I suppose, I could day trip to Bristol or Northampton on the weekend after but I doubt I'll have the time as I'll be getting ready to go back to school then. Ah well, there'll be other chances I suppose, but still, very annoying.
So, one of the things we have to do as part of my GTP course next year is apparently to keep a reflective journal covering our training and teaching experiences. Of course, being the terrifying geek that I am, I immediately thought "Ooh, I could do that as a blog". I asked and the trainer said I could but that I might want to cut and stick things in it so I should think carefully. I think this is because she doesn't yet know about scanners.
It has to be accessible to our trainers (i.e. they can ask to look at it) but not necessarily to our mentors so I'm thinking of making an LJ for it - that way I can make another account for the trainer and make locked posts for stuff I don't want to share with my mentor or needs too much anonymising. Still, I'm open to suggestions...
Poll #1214238Reflective journal
Open to: Friends, detailed results viewable to: Friends
What should I use for my reflective journal?
Use this LJ and just tag stuff 2 (13.3%)
Create a new LJ and use that 9 (60.0%)
Create a community and post to it using this LJ username 1 (6.7%)
Use a completely different blogging system (please recommend which one) 2 (13.3%)
Don't do it online at all 1 (6.7%)
Assuming I do put it online, what should I call it?
I include the option to use this LJ and etc because this LJ is basically inextricably linked with my real name - google charman and oxford and you get my tinyjo.net website, for a start - and I accept that so anyone interested in me as a teacher will find this anyway. On the other hand, that doesn't mean I might not choose to set up a new internet identity for blogging about teaching and keep this one for writing about my outside interests, which is probably the most sensible route.
Well, that was quite a recovery! I thought Murray was being outplayed but he raised his level and Gasquet dropped his a bit. Some truely remarkable gets as well.
Am also now caught up on Who so can safely read friends page tomorrow. Total bollocks overdrive may need to be renamed Maximum Ultimate Red Alert.
Am home. Will upload pics tomorrow (data connection in field not good enough). Watching Murray lose to Gasquet. (2 sets to love, 5-5). Although it's never over until the fat lady etc etc.
After night shift on Weds/Thurs develop flu and gate to sleep in tent for basically 24 hours, only to go for next shift.
After that, perked up enough to go to stuff. The Gossip were good, and The Frattellis. Ben Folds ok and the Editors rocked. Kings of Leon were ok but more summer afternoon stuff so we headed for Alabama 3, who were top.
Saturday was another shift and then out in time for Massive Attack who were fab. Were going to ped the fire show after but I was too knackered so we headed back.
Now at pyramid listening to John Mayer, who is pretty dope. Not sunny but ok. Net up with Angharad and Tristram and just chillin.
So so shifts - night shift tonight, morning on Friday, evening on Saturday. Missing Joan Armatrading and Jeremy Hardy, but catching Kings of Leon, John Mayer, Massive Attack and Groove Armada. Hopefully.
Ok weather - drizzle this morning but all dried off in wind now. Clouds on the horizon but look high.
New campsite - over on far east of site. Nice size (after moving boundary out twice) but just outside the Fence and as far from our shifts as possible.
Nice neighbours - v young but charming, convivial and cute.
Welcome to my journal. It's a friendly place where I ramble about anything and everything that takes my fancy. I even link to things sometimes, although I don't read as much of the web as I used to. I am also very bad at replying to comments, but I love getting them, and I do read them all, honest.
I publish this using LiveJournal where I'm a permanent member and Support volunteer. LJ is full of nifty features, including the icons I use with my posts (described/credited here) and the option to post securely. I don't use it very often, but if you want to create a journal of your own, I'm happy to add you to my friends list.
If you have a LiveJournal account, then you can read any protected posts on this page you have access to. To do this, examine your LJsession cookie and paste it into the box below. This will set a similar cookie which my site can see to send on to LiveJournal. This will only work as long as the specific cookie for LiveJournal is in existance (so if you log out and then log in again, you'll have to do this again.
WARNING Only do this if you really trust me as it would theoretically be possible for me to record the value of your cookie and visit LiveJournal pretending to be you.